Tag: Workers Comp

Overexertion, slips and falls, and being struck by an object were the top three drivers of severe workers compensation claims between 2017 and 2021, according to a 2024 Injury Impact Report released Monday by Travelers Cos. Inc.

Motor vehicle accidents and injuries stemming from caught-in or caught-between hazards were numbers four and five, respectively.

The report says that employees in their first year on the job continue to experience the highest levels of workplace injuries, representing 35% of all workers comp claims between 2017 and 2021.

The report analyzed 1.2 million workers comp claims across the U.S. during that four-year period, determining that the most common workplace accidents made up most workers comp claim costs.

The most frequent causes of injury were overexertion at 29% of claims, slips, trips and falls at 23%, and being struck by an object at 12%.

“Factors such as inexperience, workforce shortages and maintenance issues are all contributing to these unfortunate and often avoidable accidents,” Rich Ives, senior vice president of business insurance claims at Travelers, said in a statement.

The report also says that the construction industry continues to experience the highest average number of lost workdays due to employee injury.

Travelers said the trends identified in the impact report are designed to help employers implement training programs and processes to help keep workers safer on the job.  

 

 

Wisconsin employers are projected to pay 10.5% less in workers compensation insurance rates beginning in October, a move that is expected to save statewide businesses around $206 million in policy premiums over the coming year, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development announced Wednesday.

The department said the 2024 rate decrease, which was approved by the insurance commissioner, marks the ninth consecutive year in which workers comp rates have declined in the state.

“The lower rates reflect Wisconsin employers’ attention to workplace safety for the benefit of workers and employers alike,” the department said in a news release.

Workers comp insurance rates are adjusted annually by actuaries from the Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau.

 

 

A Maryland appellate court on Thursday vacated a $8.69 million jury award for a worker who suffered traumatic brain injury while working aboard a floating crane barge in December 2016.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals found that the plaintiffs award for Matthew McGeady was improper because a trial judge should have granted summary judgment to Mr. McGeady’s employer before the case ever came before a jury.

Mr. McGeady worked for Corman Marine Construction Inc., which owned and operated the floating crane barge, the Xavier, on which Mr. McGeady was injured. He required emergency surgery for traumatic brain injury after he was knocked down during an incident involving a pressurized plug on the Xavier, which had been docked along a Virginia river.   

Mr. McGeady received benefits under the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, and he simultaneously sued Corman Marine for negligence.

A jury ultimately found in favor of Mr. McGeady.

Post-trial, Corman argued that Mr. McGeady failed to introduce evidence showing that Corman’s negligence arose out of its vessel operations.

The appeals court said under federal law, a joint employer-vessel owner can be sued in the tort system for negligence, but only arising from negligence in its role as a vessel operator, not as an employer. Employers are protected against lawsuits by workers compensation exclusive remedy.

The appeals court, in vacating the award, said Mr. McGeady failed to present evidence that his injuries were directly attributable to vessel-owner negligence. 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Thursday that it cited a Texas construction contractor over a fatal trench collapse in February.

OSHA cited El Paso-based CMD Endeavors Inc. for one “willful” violation, one “serious” violation and two “repeat” violations related to its failures to provide adequate systems to prevent trench cave-ins.

The agency proposed $260,848 in penalties.

The worker, a pipe layer for CMD Endeavors, was crushed by a piece of asphalt, which fell during the trench collapse, according to OSHA.

The City of El Paso had contracted with the company for pipework in a waterline replacement project.

OSHA said CMD Endeavors allowed the pipe layer to work in an excavation without proper protective equipment.

CMD Endeavors, which serves customers in New Mexico and Texas, has 15 business days to contest the citation and penalties. 

 

 

 

The employer of an injured construction worker may be facing financial penalties after he denied workers compensation benefits to the claimant, whom he claimed was an independent contractor, the Tennessee Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims ruled Thursday.

Gregory Parke requested medical and temporary disability benefits for injuries he suffered while working for Michael Bergeron, owner of MB Construction, in July 2023.

Mr. Parke, who cut his hand with a razor knife, an injury that later turned into septic arthritis requiring surgery, said Mr. Bergeron did not provide workers comp benefits, leaving Mr. Parke on the hook for out-of-pocket medical treatment costs.

The workers comp court found that Mr. Parke is likely to prove at a hearing that he was an employee of Mr. Bergeron’s, and that he was injured out of and in the course of employment.

The court also found that Mr. Parke worked for an uninsured employer, since Mr. Bergeron didn’t have a workers comp insurance policy.

In addition to reimbursement for past medical expenses, the court found that Mr. Parke is entitled to temporary disability benefits and attorneys fees.

The court also referred the matter to a compliance program to determine whether financial penalties should be levied against Mr. Bergeron for failing to timely provide medical treatment to his employee.

The court also said Mr. Parke is eligible to request benefits from the state’s Uninsured Employers Fund. 

 

 

California written workers compensation premium for the first quarter of 2024 was 3% lower than the same quarter in 2023, although overall 2023 written premium was slightly higher than in 2022, according to a report released Wednesday by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California.

The report shows that the average charged rate in workers comp decreased in 2023 and was the lowest rate “in decades.” And the estimated average charged rate for the first quarter of 2024 is 1% lower than the prior–year quarter.

“Over the long term, declining claim frequency and increasing wage levels have offset rising medical costs and increases in indemnity benefits, resulting in decreases in average charged rates,” the report states.

The WCIRB said it had proposed a 0.9% advisory pure premium rate increase for Sept. 1. A spokesman noted that the state’s insurance commissioner has since approved advisory pure premium rates averaging $1.38 per $100 of covered payroll, a 2.1% reduction from the average a year earlier.

The report also said that claim frequency in 2022, 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 are more in line with the “modest frequency changes during the pre-pandemic period,” and that the sharp changes in frequency in 2020 and 2021 were strictly driven by pandemic-related economic downturn.

The WCIRB also said that after increasing during the early pandemic period in 2020, average pharmaceutical costs per claim reverted to pre-pandemic trends in 2021 and declined another 10% in 2023.

The Intermediate West Virginia Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that the widow of a worker who died from mesothelioma was improperly denied fatal dependents’ benefits.

The court determined that the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board of Review wrongly upheld a claim administrator’s order denying death benefits to Mildred Joyce Cantrell, whose husband, Spencer Thurman Cantrell, died in October 2020 while working for Adams MFG Co. Inc.

In denying her petition for death benefits, the review board found that Ms. Cantrell failed to demonstrate that her deceased husband was exposed to abnormal quantities of dust during his employment. 

In her appeal, Ms. Cantrell argued the board wrongly denied her claim because her husband was exposed to asbestos dust while working as an industrial electrician for J&S Mining, which later became Mountaineer Mining Service.

Mr. Cantrell was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma in May 2020; he died in October of that year.

The appeals court said the review board was wrong to deny the death benefits petition based on the fact that Ms. Cantrell failed to demonstrate that her husband was exposed to the hazards of occupational pneumoconiosis during his employment.

The appeals court ruled that the board wrongly based its order upon standards relating to occupational pneumoconiosis, and that it was clear Ms. Cantrell intended her claim to be reviewed as an application for an occupational disease.

The court vacated the board’s order and returned the matter to the board for further proceedings.  

 

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a construction worker injured by a crane company employee may not have been subject to workers compensation exclusive remedy because of lingering questions over employment relationship.

Jason Beckner was injured while helping to construct a home in Zionsville, Indiana, in November 2019 while employed by Commercial Air Inc. His employer had rented a crane from Maxim Crane Works LP. Mr. Beckner says he was injured by the negligence of a crane operator.

A federal trial court judge had ruled that the case was governed by workers comp because the crane operator was jointly employed by Commercial Air and was therefore Mr. Beckner’s co-employee, barring tort litigation.

The 7th Circuit ruled that the trial judge had wrongly determined that workers comp was the only remedy through which Mr. Beckner could receive compensation for his injuries because there remained a factual dispute over whether Mr. Beckner and the crane operator were co-employees.

The appeals court wrote that the case, Jason Beckner v. Maxim Crane Works LP, must be remanded to the federal district court to further determine employee status.   

 

 

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. secured a win in Washington state after an industrial appeals judge vacated four workplace safety citations issued to the company between 2020 and 2021 over ergonomic hazards.

In a decision announced Monday, Judge Stephen Pfeifer, of the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, ruled in Amazon’s favor in four consolidated appeals involving citations that had been issued by the Washington Department of Labor and Industries over claims that the company exposed workers to ergonomic hazards that led to a high rate of musculoskeletal disorders.

Judge Pfeifer said Washington’s Industrial Safety and Health Act doesn’t have specific standards governing ergonomic hazards, and that the Department of Labor and Industries can cite a company under the general duty clause, but a higher burden of proof is placed on regulators.

The judge called the department’s evidence of ergonomic hazards “unpersuasive.”

“The Department’s experts failed to establish medical causation between specific jobs in the cited process paths and employees’ musculoskeletal disorders,” the judge wrote. “The Department failed to prove the elements required to establish a general duty violation as it relates to alleged ergonomic hazards.”

An Amazon spokeswoman, in an emailed statement, said “the judge’s decision reinforces what we’ve said all along: there’s nothing more important than our employees’ health and safety.” 

In separate news, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said this month that Amazon has only paid just over $100,000 out of close to $330,000 penalties it was assessed between 2017 and 2023.