Tag: Workers Comp

A Cheney, Kansas-based plumbing company is facing $334,000 in fines after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that it exposed its workers to deadly hazards following an ordeal in which two workers were buried in a trench collapse in January. 

While the two workers were rescued, OSHA says Precision Plumbing LLC is guilty of failing to curtail “one of the construction industry’s most serious hazards.” OSHA says it investigated the deaths of 39 workers in trench collapses in 2022 and now has in place a national emphasis program on trenching and excavations. 

OSHA inspectors determined the trench at a municipal worksite in Salinas, Kansas, had no protection against cave-ins and the employer allowed soil piles and equipment within two feet of the excavation’s edge.

OSHA also classified the company’s violations of these federal trench safety regulations as “willful,” as inspectors learned that a superintendent with the site’s general contractor, Multicon Inc. — a Wichita, Kansas-based construction company that was also fined $14,063 — had identified the trench collapse hazards to the Precision Plumbing foreman but left the site before making certain the subcontractor corrected the hazard, according to OSHA.

 

 

 

An Ohio appellate court Monday overturned a $1.9 million jury award for an injured farmworker, ruling the case should have been dismissed before it got to trial.  

The Court of Appeals of Ohio reversed the jury award for Jose Galban Camara, who was injured by farm equipment in April 2019 while working for Gill Dairy LLC.

Mr. Camara suffered serious injuries while attempting to troubleshoot a malfunctioning sand spreader.

Mr. Camara sued Gill Dairy in June 2020, alleging claims of intentional tort and spoilation of evidence. A jury ruled in his favor on the intentional tort claim and awarded him $1,934,000 in compensatory damages.

The company appealed, arguing the trial court improperly denied its motion for summary judgment before the case went before a jury. It also said the trial judge issued improper jury instructions at the close of the trial.

The appeals court ruled Gill Dairy was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law because the intentional tort claim was misapplied. The court said the jury instruction form incorrectly stated the law as it pertains to intentional tort, which prejudiced Gill Dairy.

The appeals court found there was no factual dispute as to whether Gill Dairy had the specific intent to injure Mr. Camara, which would have been necessary for him to succeed in his lawsuit.

A Kentucky appellate court reversed a lower court ruling that dismissed a lawsuit against two companies brought by the estate of a woman who died from mesothelioma.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday said a trial court improperly granted summary judgment to Schneider Electric USA Inc. and Union Carbide Corp. in a case initiated by Paul Williams on behalf of his late wife, Vickie Williams, who died in 2017.

Ms. Williams contracted mesothelioma in 2016 when she was 54 and she died a year later. Before her death, Ms. Williams sued the companies over claims that she was exposed to asbestos from her father’s contaminated work clothes and during her own brief employment with Schneider as a teenager in 1978.

Schneider argued it owed no duty to Ms. Williams and that her claims were barred by exclusive remedy in workers compensation. A trial judge disagreed, finding the asbestos exposure was not related to Ms. Williams’ three-month employment as a teenager in 1978.

A subsequent judge who took over the case, however, granted summary judgment to both companies.

The estate appealed, and the appeals court agreed that summary judgment for the defendants was improper.

Dangers relating to take-home asbestos dust were “reasonably foreseeable” in the 1960s, the court stated, and Ms. Williams’ estate should be permitted to pursue recovery for her non-work-related injuries.

The case was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. 

 

The Oregon Supreme Court on Friday ruled for an employer in a negligence case brought by an injured worker who claimed his lawsuit was permitted because it fell within an exception to workers compensation’s exclusive remedy.

The high court ruled against plaintiff Danny Bundy, who sued over allegations that he was injured from exposure to dangerous levels of toxic fumes while working as a terminal operator for NuStar GP LLC.

Mr. Bundy accepted comp benefits for non-disabling exposure to gasoline vapors, but later sought additional benefits for other conditions.

The employer denied the additional claims, arguing the exposure was not the “major contributing cause” of the subsequent conditions.

While the additional comp claims were pending, Mr. Bundy sued the company, citing a legal exception permitting civil suits when work injuries are deemed non-compensable because the worker failed to prove the incident was a major contributing cause of an injury, but only after an order that the claim is non-compensable becomes final.

The employer argued that even though a comp board found some of Mr. Bundy’s injuries non-compensable, it still accepted the comp claim as a whole.

The Supreme Court wrote that the statute cited by Mr. Bundy was not intended to be a substantive exception to comp’s exclusive remedy provision but rather a procedural law designed to regulate a process that legislators believed would be required to accommodate claimants until they could be provided with an adequate substitute remedy for work injuries. 

 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission upheld a citation and fine against a Colorado behavioral health facility, though it agreed with the company that two out of nine proposed hazard abatement measures weren’t economically feasible.  

In its Monday decision, the commission affirmed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration citation against UHS of Denver Inc., doing business as Highlands Behavioral Health Systems, stemming from incidents of patient-on-staff violence at its Littleton facility.  

The commission, however, found it wouldn’t be economically feasible for the company to hire additional staff and have a dedicated security team.

The citation and $11,934 penalty were previously set aside as the court was tasked with determining economic feasibility.

The commission ruled that while the two abatement measures were overly burdensome, it said the citation and fine were proper.

The commission wrote that it was not the company’s failure to implement specific forms of abatement that was the basis for the citation, but rather, “it is the overwhelming evidence of workplace violence and [the company’s] insufficient attempts to address it.”

 

A Pennsylvania appellate court has ruled against the City of Chester in its appeal of a workers compensation award for a former firefighter who developed cancer.

Commonwealth Court on Thursday issued a ruling in the case of City of Chester v. John Gresch and Nether Providence Township, determining Mr. Gresch was properly awarded medical and indemnity benefits after being diagnosed with kidney cancer.

Mr. Gresch worked as a city firefighter for 37 years and took a position as fire marshal with nearby Nether Providence Township in 2015 following his firefighting retirement.

A comp judge approved benefits for Mr. Gresch and denied a petition by the city contesting responsibility, concluding the township wasn’t liable for the cancer because Mr. Gresch contracted the disease relating to his decades-long city firefighting career.    

The city argued the township bore partial responsibility because it was the more recent employer to expose Mr. Gresch to carcinogens. The cancer diagnosis came two years into Mr. Gresch’s employment with the township.

In its decision, the appeals court said Mr. Gresch was only exposed to six or seven fires while employed by the township, and that his fire marshal duties didn’t involve active firefighting. By contrast, the court wrote, Mr. Gresch responded to 12 fires per month while employed by the city over a 37-year period. 

 

Pennsylvania legislators Thursday filed an adult-use cannabis bill that would legalize recreational marijuana for those 21 and older.

Senate Bill 846, which was immediately referred to the Senate Law and Justice Committee, would regulate personal possession and use of cannabis, establish a Cannabis Regulatory Control Board and Cannabis Business Development Fund, imposes taxes on the product, and allow for expungement of prior marijuana convictions.

Since 2016, Pennsylvania has had a legal medical marijuana program open to patients who meet certain criteria.

An appellate court recently ruled that the state’s medical marijuana law does not prohibit insurers and employers from reimbursing injured workers for the cost of medical marijuana in workers compensation claims.

Senate Bill 846 would also revise the medical marijuana law, including offering certain employment protections to workers who are medical marijuana cardholders.

 

 

A Minnesota appellate court has ruled that the city of Bloomington was within its rights to terminate the employment of a municipal utility meter reader, despite the woman’s claims that she was fired in retaliation for collecting workers compensation benefits following an on-the-job injury.

The Court of Appeals of Minnesota on Monday upheld a district court’s decision to grant summary judgment to Bloomington in a case brought by Jenny Rhoades.

Ms. Rhoades worked as the city’s only part-time meter reader beginning in 2015. She was injured after slipping on a patch of ice while taking a water meter reading in 2019 and subsequently collected workers comp.

The city fired Ms. Rhoades in July 2020, saying the termination was due to the impacts of COVID-19 and not related to individual performance.

Ms. Rhoades alleged disability discrimination and retaliatory discharge. She said the city refused to offer continued employment under the workers comp law.

The lower court judge ruled that Ms. Rhoades failed to prove her firing was related to receiving comp benefits.

The appeals court agreed, determining that summary judgment was properly granted to the city because Ms. Rhoades failed to prove the termination was in any way tied to her receipt of workers comp. The judges wrote that no evidence shows the city ever attempted to impede Ms. Rhoades’ ability to collect comp benefits.