Tag: Workers Comp

A $40 million lawsuit by a former teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student isn’t barred by workers compensation exclusivity and can move forward, a Virginia judge ruled Friday.

Newport News Circuit Court Judge Matthew Hoffman ruled that a civil suit brought by Abigail Zwerner can move forward because an injury from a gunshot wound is not one that is a “natural incident of the work” and is not “connected with the employment” of a first-grade teacher.   

Attorneys for the Newport News school system argued that Ms. Zwerner’s lawsuit was barred by comp exclusivity and should be dismissed.

If she succeeds in her lawsuit, Ms. Zwerner stands to recover more in damages than she would through comp.

A jury trial is scheduled for January 2025.

“Defendants have not met their burden to prove that Plaintiff’s injures fall within the exclusive coverage of the (comp) Act,” Judge Hoffman wrote.

In a statement, Ms. Zwerner’s attorneys said they were pleased with the decision, and that the “victory is an important stepping stone on our path towards justice for Abby.”

“No teacher expects to stare down the barrel of a gun held by a six-year-old student,” wrote lawyers Diane Toscano of Toscano Law Group and Jeffrey Breit and Kevin Biniazan, both of Breit Biniazan Trial Lawyers. Both firms are in Virginia Beach.

Anne Lahren, an attorney with Virginia Beach-based Pender & Coward P.C. representing the school district, said the defendants would appeal the ruling.  

“The actual risk of employment in this scenario is that of a teacher being injured at the hands of a student which, unfortunately, is a fairly common occurrence and one that is only increasing in frequency this day and age,” Ms. Lahren said in a statement.

 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Friday that it cited a New York contractor after an employee fatally fell through a roof opening to concrete flooring 20 feet below during an April construction project.

OSHA cited Huntington-based Elite Roofing Services Inc. for six willful violations and one serious violation following the workplace fatality, which occurred while workers were installing metal decking on a flat industrial roof at a Glen Cove work site.

OSHA proposed $522,527 in penalties.

The company failed to provide employees with proper fall protection such as guardrails, safety nets, personal fall arrest systems, positioning devices or fall restraint systems, OSHA said.

Employees were also not trained to recognize and mitigate fall hazards before conducting steel erection work, according to OSHA.

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

 

 

The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board announced this week a reduction in the annual workers comp assessment rate, which is projected to save employers around $53 million in 2024.

The new rate was announced on Wednesday by the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul and is expected to benefit more than 400,000 small businesses statewide.

The chair of the comp board establishes a new assessment rate for all employers every November. It goes into effect in January.

The 2024 rate will be 9.2% of the standard premium or premium equivalent and marks a 6% decrease from 2023, according to Gov. Hochul’s office.

Clarissa Rodriguez, chair of the workers comp board, said in a statement that the reduced assessment rate would, along with a recently announced minimum benefits increase for employees, create a “workers comp system that’s better for workers and better for business.”

  

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Thursday it cited a contractor after an employee fatally fell during construction work at a Hyundai electric car plant in April.

OSHA cited Geismar, Louisiana-based Eastern Constructors Inc. for one willful and one serious violation and proposed $160,724 in penalties after the workplace fatality.

The company was also placed in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

The incident occurred when workers were guiding an I-beam in place atop a building at the car plant in Ellabell, Georgia. One of the employees, who was walking along the top of the building’s upper frame, lost his balance and fell, during which the structure’s sharp edge cut his safety line.

Emergency personnel attempted to save the worker, but he died at the scene after the 60-foot drop.

OSHA said the company failed to provide workers with fall arrest equipment that was appropriate for the working conditions and capable of resisting sharp edges.

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

 

 

Net written premium for private workers compensation insurers nationwide increased 11.3% in 2022 to $42.5 billion, according to a report released Wednesday by the Boca Raton, Florida-based National Council on Compensation Insurance.

Including state funds, 2022 net written premium totaled $47.5 billion, which is unchanged from preliminary figures presented in May during the NCCI’s Annual Insights Symposium in Orlando. NCCI said it expects this year’s figure to be even higher.

The comp combined ratio for 2022 was 84%, marking the sixth consecutive year under 90%, according to Wednesday’s report.

“The current period of consecutive underwriting gains is unprecedented in terms of both duration and magnitude, resulting in a prolonged soft market atypical of the underwriting cycle,” the report states.

The report also shows that the 2022 workers comp pretax operating gain, which measures the overall performance of the line of business, was 16%. This, along with an 8.6% investment gain, resulted in an operating gain of 24.6% — the sixth consecutive operating gain in excess of 20% for the industry, the report states.

Ruling that the mental and lingering physical symptoms suffered by a woman who was in a “low speed” car accident while working for a medical facility in 2019 are unrelated to her workers compensation claim, an appeals court in West Virginia on Wednesday denied the expansion of the claim to include post-traumatic stress disorder.

As documented in No. 22-ICA-323, filed in the Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia, several examining physicians noted that the accident did not result in the woman becoming unconscious, and that her injuries were limited to “neck strain, abdominal contusion, right forearm contusion, and a right wrist abrasion.” A mental health expert, however, noted that several psychiatric conditions were likely exacerbated by her injuries.

The woman, who was working for Appalachian Community Health Centers Inc., sought to include diagnoses of PTSD and complex regional pain syndrome, and sought physical therapy and a determination of disability, all of which the Workers’ Compensation Board of Review denied in 2022.

Several examining physicians noted psychiatric conditions but that they were likely unrelated to the claim, and that she had been depressed and anxious before her accident. An independent medical examiner noted that her “symptoms had ‘migrated’ over time, and now included most of her body,” according to court documents.

Another doctor said he “suspected that a ‘psychiatric component’ was playing a large role in her condition and he was ‘hesitant’ to attribute her symptoms to post-concussion syndrome,” documents state.

A psychiatrist, examining the worker in 2021, ruled out a diagnosis of PTSD “although he determined that (she) was suffering from significant anxiety related to the compensable injury.” That doctor ultimately diagnosed several psychiatric conditions, including unspecified trauma and stressor-related disorder and major depressive disorder.

“While he noted that K.C. had a history of mild depression and significant anxiety disorder, she told him that those symptoms had resolved and that she had not received treatment for them after her freshman year of college until her compensable injury,” documents state. The psychiatrist “felt that (she) should be treated by a psychiatrist.”

The appeals court affirmed the rejection of her claims, writing that they found no fault in the board’s assessment that her complaints of pain and mental injury were unrelated to her accident claim. 

 

Aiming to strengthen existing child labor regulations through the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. House of Representatives is considering a resolution that would call on fines of up to $690,000 if a person under 18 years old is seriously injured or killed while working in several industries.

H.R. 6079, filed Oct. 26 but made public Thursday, calls on the DOL to create and manage rules for minors working in manufacturing, mining, trenching or excavation, meat processing, demolition and explosives.

The DOL, through its Wage and Hour Division, already mandates which industries minors cannot work in, but lawmakers and watchdog groups have been critical of oversight, enforcement and what some consider low fines for violations.

The resolution, which provides other proposed guidance on child labor, was referred to the committees on Education and the Workforce and Oversight and Accountability.

 

 

(Reuters) — American International Group Inc. exceeded third-quarter profit expectations Wednesday, driven mainly by growth at its general insurance and life and retirement units.

AIG, one of the world’s biggest commercial insurers, said third-quarter net premiums written in its general insurance arm grew 1% to $6.46 billion.

The New York-based company’s general insurance underwriting income jumped by $443 million to $611 million.

Catastrophe-related charges for AIG  fell 29% from a year earlier, when the industry faced huge bills from Hurricane Ian, to $462 million for the third quarter, mainly due to the Lahaina, Hawaii wildfire and Hurricane Idalia.

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re pegged global insured losses from natural catastrophes in the first nine months of 2023 at $93 billion, with the United States accounting for 74% of the losses.

AIG fared better than peer insurer Travelers Cos., which last month reported a 14% fall in quarterly profit, as severe wind and hail storms in parts of the United States drove up catastrophe losses for the insurer.

Total consolidated net investment income rose 33%, helped by higher income from fixed-maturity securities and loan portfolios due to higher reinvestment rates.

Adjusted after-tax income attributable to common shareholders rose to $1.61 per share from 84 cents a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected $1.50, according to LSEG data.

AIG’s general insurance accident year combined ratio was 86.3%, compared with 88.4% a year earlier. The metric excludes catastrophe losses.

The surge in demand for fixed index annuities helped AIG’s life and retirement unit, which saw a 24% jump in adjusted pre-tax income.

Wisconsin lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation that would create a workers compensation presumption of compensability for employees who suffer injuries from employer-mandated vaccines.

Assembly Bill 613 states that any injury caused to a worker by a vaccination that the employee was “required by or coerced by his or her employer to receive” is presumed to be caused by the person’s employment and thus eligible for comp benefits.

The presumption would require a medical diagnosis and employers would still be entitled to rebut the presumption using evidence that the injury was caused outside of the employment context.

The partisan legislation currently has 22 Republican sponsors.

The bill was sent to the House Workforce Development and Economic Opportunities Committee for consideration.