Tag: Workers Comp

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday it cited a New Jersey steel fabrication company after a summer inspection uncovered numerous safety and health hazards.

OSHA cited Millville-based Kenric Steel LLC for four willful and seven serious violations and proposed $348,683 in penalties following a complaint-driven investigation in July 2023.

OSHA said a few months before the investigation Kenric Steel hired a safety consultant who identified numerous safety and health hazards at the fabrication shop, but the problems were never corrected.

The company failed to conduct annual inspections of overhead cranes, ensure proper use of welding screens, train new employees on chemical safety, install correct circuit breakers and medically evaluate new workers required to wear respirators, OSHA said.

Kenric Steel makes steel products including fall protection products.

The company has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed penalties. 

 

 

Despite the pandemic officially declared over, COVID-19-related workers compensation claims continue to be filed and courts are continually weighing in on compensability and whether workers have suffered temporary or permanent disability due to long COVID.

Experts say the trend is likely to continue despite the expiration of most workers comp presumptions and especially given the uncertainty surrounding long-term medical issues.

“Unfortunately, it’s still a hazard in the workplace,” said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the Somerville, Massachusetts-based National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

In January, Alabama appeals judges ruled a trial court wrongly dismissed a workers comp claim filed by a nursing assistant who says she suffered permanent lung damage from COVID-19, which she claimed to have contracted at her job.

Rena Meeks argued that her job duties created a unique hazard because she was directly exposed to nursing home patients’ bodily fluids. The employer challenged the claim, saying COVID-19 couldn’t qualify as an occupational disease because the virus “affected everyone.”

The appeals court said the trial judge prematurely dismissed the complaint because of lingering causality questions.

Other appeals courts have offered opposing opinions, such as a West Virginia case where appellate judges declined to give permanent partial disability payments to a hospital employee who claimed her depression, anxiety, fatigue and shortness of breath were due to a COVID-19 infection she contracted at work. 

Long COVID continues to plague many workers, and the courts may see more cases where injury causation is challenged, Ms. Goldstein-Gelb said.

Expired presumptions and the understanding that some long COVID symptoms may be associated with other ailments are spurring court activity, experts say.

John Kamin, an equity partner with Woodland Hills, California-based law firm Bradford & Barthel LLP, said employers that want to challenge a workers comp claim should focus on treating COVID-19 as a specific injury rather than a cumulative trauma injury.

“It either happened or it didn’t,” Mr. Kamin said. “That’s the way we have to investigate COVID claims at the outset.”

Because the general public can contract the virus almost anywhere, establishing workplace-linked causation is crucial, he said.

There are no longer any COVID-19 presumptions in workers comp but some states have presumptions for infectious, respiratory or contagious diseases that may be interpreted as addressing COVID-19, according to Laura Kersey, division executive-regulatory and legislative analysis, for the Boca Raton, Florida-based National Council on Compensation Insurance.

Compared with years past, legislative activity on this front is slow — only one state appears to have introduced a COVID-19 presumption bill thus far in 2024, she said.

Introduced on Jan. 19, Maryland S.B. 431 would establish a long COVID presumption for essential government workers, and opinions are mixed whether such legislation could gain traction elsewhere.

“As more and more people are impacted and are telling their stories and speaking up (about long COVID), that’s when those sorts of trends happen,” Ms. Goldstein-Gelb said.

Jeff Eddinger, senior division executive with the NCCI, said the Maryland measure is unique in that it addresses long COVID, which can comprise a range of symptoms and not one specific injury.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is the start of a new trend when it comes to legislation or presumptions. This one seems like a little bit of an anomaly,” Mr. Eddinger said. “But if this one is approved, you never know if other states might consider similar things.”

 

PetroSure, a unit of Alliant Insurance Services Inc.’s managing general agent division, said Tuesday it has added workers compensation coverage to its existing onshore oil and gas industry insurance program.

AmTrust Specialty Programs, a division of AmTrust Financial Services Inc., will be the insurer for the workers comp element of the program.

Oklahoma City-based PetroSure’s existing coverages include general liability, time element pollution, commercial auto, property, inland marine and umbrella.

Citing statewide success with mandated return-to-work programs for injured workers on light duty or transitional work, state lawmakers in Washington aim to allow nonprofit organizations to hire injured workers if their current employer cannot accommodate them.  

S.B. 5368, scheduled for an executive session in the House Committee on Labor & Workplace Standards Wednesday, would eliminate the requirement that injured workers enrolled in a return-to-work plan work for their current employer.

Data from the Department of Labor and Industries states that the state’s return-to-work mandates have “lowered the risk of long-term disability and can improve mental health and well-being for workers who return to positions that allow for the time necessary for healing and rehabilitation.”

However, “(s)mall employers are less likely to have suitable light duty jobs,” the bill states, adding that (i)njured workers who move out-of-state are also less likely to have access to return-to-work opportunities, especially when the employer of injury cannot offer remote work options.”

 

 

 

 

 

Wyoming lawmakers are considering a bill that would permit firefighters to undergo annual cancer screenings under the workers compensation system.

H.B. 66, introduced Monday, presumes that all career firefighters “have been exposed to cancer-causing agents during the course and scope of their employment.”

The bill states that such “exposures shall be considered work-related injuries for which cancer screenings shall be provided as a workers’ compensation award under the provisions of this act.”

Screenings would continue for no more than 10 years after the retirement of a firefighter, the bill stipulates.

 

New York’s highest court ruled Tuesday that premises owners and a general contractor are liable for injuries suffered by a painter who slipped and fell on plastic sheathing that had been placed over a stopped escalator during a renovation project.

Srecko Bazdaric and his spouse had sued Almah Partners LLC and Almah Mezz LLC, the owners of the premises, and J.T. Magen & Co. Inc., the general contractor that hired subcontractor Kara Painting, which employed Mr. Bazdaric.

Mr. Bazdaric, who claimed he has been unable to work due to his injuries, said the defendants negligently used slippery plastic covering rather than drop cloths, which were available at the job site.

A lower appellate court ruled the plastic covering was not a “foreign substance” similar to water, grease or ice, and that the lawsuit was barred because the plastic was integral to the work being performed.

In reversing that decision, the New York Court of Appeals wrote that the plastic covering that was placed on the escalator was not integral to the paint job because it made the area slippery, thereby creating a hazard, and because alternative coverings were available that would not have caused the same slipping hazard. 

The court ruled the plaintiffs were entitled to summary judgment.

California lawmakers on Thursday filed legislation that would prohibit employers from discriminating against injured workers who attend workers compensation-related medical appointments during normal business hours.

Senate Bill 1205 would also entitle employees receiving workers comp benefits to recover expenses for transportation, meals and lodging connected to their medical appointments.

Injured workers would also be entitled to one day of temporary disability indemnity payments for each day of wages lost due to receiving treatment.

The bill was sent to the Senate Rules Committee for consideration. 

 

 

A Virginia judge has signed off on transferring to an appeals court a case brought by a former elementary school teacher who claims she should be permitted to sue over workplace shooting injuries in lieu of collecting workers compensation benefits.  

Abigail Zwerner filed a $40 million lawsuit against the Newport News School Board over injuries she sustained after being shot by a 6-year-old student in January 2023.

The school board argues the injuries should be covered exclusively by workers comp, but Ms. Zwerner says a civil suit should be permitted due to alleged gross negligence on the part of her former employer.

On Wednesday, the trial court allowed the case to proceed to the Virginia Court of Appeals, although it’s not yet clear whether, or when, the appeals judges would accept the matter.

Anne Lahren, a school board attorney, said fast-tracking the appeals “serves the best interests of the parties,” since a statute of limitations for Ms. Zwerner to file a workers comp claim would expire by the time trial is scheduled to begin in January 2025.

Ms. Zwerner’s attorneys argue the case should be an exception to workers comp exclusive remedy because of its egregious nature.  

In January, the school board filed its own workers comp claim on Ms. Zwerner’s behalf, arguing state law permits an employer to file a claim for an employee.

That case is scheduled for an initial hearing on April 4, Ms. Lahren said.