Tag: Workers Comp

A former Archdiocese of Omaha employee who says she suffered psychological injuries during an unannounced active shooter drill cannot sue over the incident because of workers compensation exclusive remedy, the Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled.

The high court on Friday said a lower court correctly found the woman’s lawsuit was barred by workers comp and that the plaintiff’s claim that her suit should be permitted because her employer acted with specific intent to injure her was without merit.

The woman, who worked for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Omaha, said she was given no advance notice of a May 2022 active shooter drill, and that she was traumatized by the sounds of gunfire that turned out to be part of the mock shooting.   

Her employer later told her “it was all play-acting and a safety drill … to see how people reacted,” the court ruling states.

The plaintiff claimed she suffered depression and a back injury after jumping off a retaining wall during the incident. She sued for assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lower court said workers comp was the exclusive remedy, and the state Supreme Court agreed, writing that while some courts across the country have allowed employees to sue their employers in psychological-only injury cases, this case also involved a physical injury, making workers comp the sole remedy. 

 

 

A Texas appellate court on Tuesday upheld an award of workers compensation benefits to the common-law wife of a police officer who died in the line of duty.

David Hofer and Marta Danylyk began dating in February 2012 when Mr. Hofer was a police officer for the City of New York. The couple began living together in New York in November 2013 and, one year later, moved to Texas where Mr. Hofer started working for the Euless Police Department, according to City of Euless v. Danylyk, filed in the Court of Appeals for the 5th District of Texas.

In September 2014, Mr. Hofer and Ms. Danylyk became engaged to be married. The couple purchased a home together in November 2015.

Mr. Hofer was killed in the line of duty in 2016. He is survived by his parents, two siblings and Ms. Danylyk, who began an heirship determination proceeding in the Collin County Probate Court. Mr. Hofer’s parents supported her heirship application. The probate court granted it, concluding that she was Ms. Hofer’s sole heir and surviving spouse.

Ms. Danylyk then sought death benefits from self-insured Euless and an administrative law judge determined that she was a surviving spouse and entitled to death benefits under law. A Division of Workers’ Compensation appeals panel agreed. Euless then filed suit for judicial review, which resulted in a jury trial and a verdict against the city.

In affirming, the appeals court explained that an informal, or common-law, marriage may be proved by evidence that the parties agreed to be married, lived together in Texas as husband and wife and represented to others that they were married.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.

 

 

A Florida appellate court on Wednesday upheld an award of benefits to a firefighter for his severe cardiac issues after his diagnosis of COVID-19, based on a statutory presumption that his infection was work-related.

Chad Braden began working for Seminole County as a firefighter in 1993 after a clean pre-employment physical. In the early 2000s, he suffered cardiac problems that Seminole County accepted as compensable, according to Seminole County v. Braden, filed in the Court of Appeal for the 1st District of Florida.

In December 2020, Mr. Braden tested positive for COVID-19. Less than a month later, he suffered a heart attack. Mr. Braden underwent angioplasty but severe complications called for a heart transplant in March 2021.

Mr.  Braden filed a workers compensation claim, asserting that his heart attack stemmed from heart disease and that he was entitled to the benefit of a statutory presumption that it was work-related. Seminole County stipulated to the presumption that COVID-19 caused Mr. Braden’s heart disease, heart attack and need for a heart transplant. The county then attempted to rebut the presumption with evidence that Mr. Braden’s COVID-19 exposure was not work-related.

A judge of compensation claims found Seminole County failed to rebut the statutory presumption, noting the medical testimony established a minimum two-day incubation period before someone who is infected can become ill and spread the virus, and that given the timeline of when Mr. Braden and his co-workers tested positive, it was more likely that they infected him than the other way around.

The appeals court ruled that “competent evidence” supports the judge’s determination that the county failed to rebut the statutory presumption.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.

 

 

 

The vertical integration of care in consolidated medical systems results in higher claim costs and longer recovery times for workers injured on the job, according to a study released Thursday by the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based institute examined the impact of consolidated hospital and health system networks, focusing on care provided to workers who suffered a work-related injury between 2012 and 2018. The study covered the main specialties of medical professionals who treat a large share of workers with injuries, including physicians and non-physicians.

Researchers found the integration of care resulted in a 7.3% increase in costs for claims at six months’ maturity, including a 15.2% increase in costs related to the treatment of lower back injuries. At 12 months’ maturity, costs increased 11.4% for all claims and 21.1% for back injury claims.

Also, among the findings were that patient visits with various providers increased 18.9%; evaluations and management services increased 10.5%; and major radiology services increased 14.1%.

At 12 months’ maturity, there was a 10.5% increase in the duration of temporary disability.

A woman whose foot was amputated following a workplace injury at an airport in Washington state has settled a civil suit for $11 million.

Alyah Payne, injured in a work-related vehicle collision in April 2021, sued the Port of Seattle along with Hensel Phelps Construction Co. and other defendants following the workplace incident.

Ms. Payne was operating a baggage tug at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport when she crashed into another baggage tug that had been rounding a blind corner. Her lawsuit accused the Port of Seattle of failing to provide safety measures such as a stationed flagger around the blind corner.

The Port of Seattle and Hensel Phelps paid a total of $11 million in the settlement, which was not subject to confidentiality, according to attorney Raymond Bishop, of Normandy Park, Washington-based Bishop Law Offices P.S., which represented the plaintiff.

Ms. Payne also reached a separate “amicable resolution with an unspecified entity, the terms of which are confidential,” said Mr. Bishop, who noted that the $11 million figure is the highest settlement ever for any worker injured at SeaTac Airport. The highest jury verdict for a similar case was $40 million, he said.   

At the time of the incident, Ms. Payne was employed by McGee Air Services Inc., which had been another named defendant in the lawsuit. 

 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday that it cited an Illinois grain company after a worker suffered a partial leg amputation this summer.  

OSHA cited Westfield-based Littlejohn Grain Inc. for two willful violations and one serious violation, and proposed $115,855 in penalties, following the July incident, in which the employee was seriously injured inside a grain bin.

Investigators determined that the company failed to de-energize and lock out an auger before allowing the worker to enter the grain bin. The company also failed to test the bin for oxygen content and exposed the worker to a fall hazard above dangerous equipment, OSHA said.

The company was previously issued a similar citation following an incident in which a worker was entrapped in a grain bin for five hours. That citation, which consists of 21 total violations, has since been contested.  

Littlejohn has 15 business days to contest the latest citation and proposed penalties.   

 

 

 

A San Francisco firefighter seriously injured in an incident with a city bus was not permitted to file a lawsuit because the injuries were exclusive to workers compensation, a California appellate court ruled Tuesday.

Firefighter Matthew Vann sued over catastrophic injuries he suffered in November 2020, when Louis Yu, a bus driver with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, drove through an active emergency scene and over a fire hose.

The hose broke off and tripped Mr. Vann, causing him to fall, lose his helmet, and strike his head, leading to a traumatic brain injury, according to the ruling by the California Court of Appeal.

Mr. Vann received workers comp benefits but also sued the city and Mr. Yu for negligence. He argued workers comp wasn’t his sole remedy, and litigation was permitted, because he and Mr. Yu are not “co-employees” and that the fire department and city are separate legal entities.

He claimed the lawsuit against the city was allowed because it was not his employer.

A judge disagreed, ruling the city’s fire department and transportation agency were part of the same legal entity.

On appeal, Mr. Vann raised the same arguments, but the California Court of Appeal agreed with the lower court, rejecting the premise that the fire department existed as a separate entity apart from the city. 

 

 

 

Methods for treating first responders suffering from mental injuries have gone virtual, as new modalities blend technologies such as gaming with more traditional approaches to treatment.

Considered more holistic, the newer treatments in workers compensation mental injury claims can help provide a drug-free way to aid recovering first responders and can be more cost-effective for employers and insurers, experts say.

Virtual reality treatment can be especially useful for first responders, who are more likely to be subjected to “intense stress on an ongoing, kind of chronic long-term basis,” said Karen Thomas, Culpeper, Virginia-based vice president of clinical solutions for CorVel Corp. 

The new approaches are “absolutely on the rise” among the first-responder community, said Gerry Stanley, chief medical officer for Las Vegas-based Harvard MedTech, which produces virtual reality technology.

First responders can be “heavily traumatized” due to workplace exposure to violent or otherwise disturbing events, and the exposure can be isolated or manifest over time, he said.  

“It’s sort of death by a thousand papercuts,” Dr. Stanley said. “A lot of their calls can be microtraumas.”

With psychological injuries on the rise among first responders, more states have enacted mental injury workers comp presumption statutes for such workers, said Kenji Saito, Augusta, Maine-based president of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Just as training programs for police officers are being “gamified” to include virtual reality, simulated environments and augmented reality, it’s a natural progression that these technologies would be used to treat mental injuries suffered in the course of handling emergency calls, according to experts.

“It’s going to be a little easier for them to adopt because they already use it as part of the (job) training, so they can make that connection,” Dr. Saito said.

If virtual reality and similar treatment methods in workers comp are successful with traumatized first responders, they will likely be considered for other claimant populations, Dr. Saito said.

The newer technologies are most successful when used in coordination with other treatment, experts say.

Virtual reality is “always going to be most effective when it’s done in conjunction with some kind of talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy,” Ms. Thomas said.

Often, licensed therapists who are trained to deal with trauma oversee the virtual reality treatment, she said, and the therapist can help guide the injured worker through the experience, employing corresponding techniques such as meditation and visualization exercises.

“So, there is an education component, there is a meditation component that kind of helps set that or guide that individual how to start their day,” Ms. Thomas said.