Tag: Workers Comp

The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Friday announced an average 3.9% workers compensation rate reduction for public employers in the state, amounting to $8 million less in premiums in 2024.

The BWC attributed the average drop to declining injury claims from counties, cities, public schools, and other public taxing districts, as well as relatively low medical inflation costs.

The new rates, which go into effect Jan. 1, 2024, are in line with a yearslong trend in the state, where the average rate levels for both private and public employers are at their lowest in more than 60 years, the BWC said.

A federal appellate court Wednesday affirmed the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s constitutional authority to set workplace safety standards.

In a decision Wednesday affirming a district court ruling, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that the Occupational Safety and Health Act passes constitutional muster and that OSHA is within its designated authority to regulate safety in the workplace.

The appeal was brought by Allstates Refractory Contractors LLC, a Waterville, Ohio-based company that faced numerous OSHA citations and later challenged the agency’s authority to set “reasonably necessary or appropriate” workplace safety standards, claiming it violated the U.S. Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine.

In affirming the lower court, the 6th Circuit wrote that the Occupational Safety and Health Act provides an “overarching framework” designed to guide OSHA’s discretion in setting workplace safety standards and that its authority to set such standards falls within constitutional limits previously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case is Allstates Refractory Contractors LLC vs. Walsh et al.

 

Workplace fines totaling $208,983 for a small Alaskan seafood company will stand, as the owner did not cooperate with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an administrative law judge ruled Tuesday.

East West Seafoods LLC of Kodiak, Alaska, received a total of 22 serious, two repeat and one other-than-serious violations after OSHA inspectors found that crew members were being served expired food and that water being used to process fish was leaking into dry storage and the boat’s dining area.

Inspectors also found various electrical hazards aboard the vessel, such as ungrounded extension cords and exposed wiring, damaged and improperly installed electrical equipment, broken outlets and outlets near water, and a lack of fire suppression equipment.

The owner, who contested the OSHA citations, failed to follow up with the agency’s procedures, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission administrative law judge wrote. The company sent correspondence to OSHA, stating that it “does not have any money at all,” according to the judge’s ruling.

The company was cited over similar issues in 2012, 2014 and 2018, and in 2017 a federal judge sentenced the company and owner Christos Tsabouris to five years of probation and $50,000 in fines in connection with the intentional discharge of oily bilge water and 1,000 gallons of raw sewage into the ocean about three miles off the Alaskan coast and the submission of false records to the U.S. Coast Guard, according to OSHA. 

The Montana Workers’ Compensation Court Tuesday ruled against an insurer that terminated an injured employee’s comp benefits over a refusal to attend an appointment with a designated occupational medicine physician.

The court said Victory Insurance Co. improperly stopped benefits for Phyllis Russell, who claimed that the insurer didn’t have the right to designate a new treating physician because at the time it hadn’t yet accepted liability for her claim.

Ms. Russell, who in February 2022 hurt her back, shoulder and hip at work, argued that the occupational medicine physician wasn’t her treating physician at the time and that she wasn’t legally obligated to attend an appointment scheduled by Victory.

According to the court record, Victory adjuster Ashley Burch agreed to pay benefits under a “reservation of rights,” allowing the coverage while she would “continue my investigation without accepting liability or waiving my right of defending this case in the future should there be a need to do so.”  

Victory paid Ms. Russell’s benefits without accepting liability for more than seven months. The employer was not named in the ruling.  

The court, in granting partial summary judgment to Ms. Russell, ruled Victory had no grounds by which to terminate the woman’s benefits for refusing to attend the November 2022 doctor’s appointment.

The court also said it would schedule a trial where Ms. Russell could raise her additional claims, including a petition to have Victory retroactively issue her benefits dating to the time of termination.  

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Tuesday announced it cited a Terrell, Texas-based manufacturing company after a worker had three of his fingers amputated while troubleshooting an unguarded tube saw.

OSHA said it cited Madix Inc. for two repeat violations, three serious violations and three other-than-serious violations after the March workplace injury at the company’s Eclectic, Alabama, facility.

At the time of the amputation, the worker was trying to adjust a coolant feed line on the tube saw when his glove became caught and his hand was pulled into the saw’s spinning blades, according to OSHA, which proposed $158,051 in penalties.

OSHA inspectors said the company engaged in numerous failures, including permitting workers to operate a press machine with an unguarded material carriage and failing to repair a broken stop button on the automatic saw.

Madix, which manufactures retail shelving and displays and has two facilities in Alabama and numerous warehouses throughout the U.S. and the U.K., has 15 business days to contest the citation and penalties.

OSHA said it previously cited the company for similar violations, including a 2019 amputation injury. 

 

 

The Delaware Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a trial judge’s decision that found ongoing narcotics treatment for an injured construction worker was proper.  

The high court determined a Superior Court judge wrongly reversed an Industrial Accident Board decision regarding the reasonableness of narcotics treatment for Raymond Nieves, who sustained a back injury in July 2014 while working on a construction project for This and That Services Co. Inc.

The employer disagreed with a utilization reviewer’s finding that the ongoing course of treatment was necessary, and it petitioned the board to limit the amount of time it was required to pay for the treatment.

The board ultimately dismissed the petition as moot since the company already paid for the narcotics.

The Superior Court reversed the board’s decision, finding no evidence existed that the employer paid for the medication.

The trial court also wrongly found the company couldn’t seek board review of the ongoing narcotics treatment before first submitting each prescription to utilization review, the high court wrote.

“In the Superior Court’s view, when new or subsequent claims are made, the employer must return to utilization review, even when each claim relates to the ongoing treatment that was originally sent to utilization review,” the court wrote. “That conclusion is inconsistent with this case’s facts (and) the purpose of the utilization review process.”  

The high court said the board’s findings that the ongoing narcotic medication treatment was unreasonable and unnecessary were supported by “substantial evidence.” 

 

A Missouri appellate court on Tuesday reversed a decision by the state’s Labor and Industrial Relations Commission that found a construction worker failed to establish he was entitled to receive benefits from the state’s Second Injury Fund.

The Court of Appeals of Missouri ruled the commission was wrong to deny Larry Obermann’s claim for benefits from the fund based on its finding that his permanent and total disablement was not solely due to a primary work injury he sustained in November 2017 in conjunction with certain preexisting disabilities from prior work injuries.

The claim stemmed from a shoulder injury Mr. Obermann sustained while working as a heavy equipment operator at a rock quarry for Base Rock Minerals in Cape Girardeau.

The commission said the only evidence in the case was that a non-qualifying knee injury Mr. Obermann suffered in 1995 contributed to his claim for permanent and total disability benefits from the Second Injury Fund, which would disqualify him from benefits.

In overturning the commission, the appeals court wrote that Mr. Obermann successfully demonstrated that he was left unemployable due to limitations from the shoulder injury and other preexisting conditions that developed out of prior work-related foot injuries.

The court wrote that evidence “directly refutes” the commission’s decision and that Mr. Obermann proved he had limited functional capacity rendering him unemployable.

The court remanded the case to the commission to enter an award in favor of Mr. Obermann. 

 

 

 

In an agreement that follows years of citations over blocked safety exits and other unsafe conditions in Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores across the country, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration Thursday announced a corporatewide settlement that calls for the company to improve conditions and pay $1.35 million in penalties.

Dollar Tree Inc., which owns and operates Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores, must “conduct a comprehensive, nationwide assessment of the root causes of the violations OSHA has repeatedly cited at multiple stores” and create “a plan to identify causes and make operational changes to correct them within a two-year period,” according to OSHA.

The Chesapeake, Virginia-based company also agreed to create safety advisory groups, develop an audit plan, create a new employee training program and hire additional safety professionals. It also agreed to maintain a 24-hour hotline to receive and track safety complaints.

Also, “to ensure prompt abatement of any future violations related to blocked exits, access to fire extinguishers and electrical panels, and improper material storage at stores nationwide, the companies must correct hazards — within 48 hours of OSHA notifying them — and later submit proof the hazards were corrected.”

Failure to do so will subject the companies to monetary assessments of $100,000 per day of violation, up to $500,000, as well as further OSHA inspections and enforcement actions, the agency said.

 

Following an incident in which a clerk was told to clean up spilled blood from an injured customer, Rite Aid Corp. must now implement a safety program to better protect employees against hazards related to bloodborne pathogens at its 370 stores in New Jersey and New York.

The move is in accordance with an agreement with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration following an investigation into the 2022 incident at a Rite Aid store in Niagara Falls, New York, the agency said in a statement Monday.

The employee had not been offered a hepatitis B vaccine and the store lacked an appropriate blood exposure control plan in violation of federal regulations.

OSHA cited the retail drugstore chain for corresponding violations of the agency’s bloodborne pathogens standard. Rite Aid initially contested the citations, which totaled $31,080 in fines.

Under the terms of the settlement, the company will pay an amended $10,000 fine, withdraw its notice of contest and take remedial actions, OSHA said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited a San Antonio, Texas, wire drawing company after a worker suffered a fatal fall from a forklift in February.

OSHA on Monday announced it cited WMC San Antonio LLC after inspectors learned the company allowed employees to ride atop an unsecured, site-made forklift attachment while moving wire-mesh bundles at its plant.

The worker who died was transporting bundles to flat-bed trailers when the attachment from the forklift slid off the forks and caused the fatal fall, according to OSHA.

OSHA cited the company for one willful violation for failing to provide fall protection for employees working up to 13 feet and one willful violation for exposing workers to fall and struck-by hazards.

OSHA issued proposed penalties of $299,339.

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