- Union withdraws, and NLRB drops, complaint against Boeing over plant location decision [Adler, earlier] “Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Introduces Bill to Reverse NLRB’s ‘Micro-Union’ Decision” [LRT via @jonhyman] Video of “Organized Labor & Obama administration” panel [Federalist Society convention]
- Suing Atlantic City is an established sport for current, former employees [Press of AC] After lawsuit win, former Gotham sanitation worker litters neighborhood with cars [NY Post via Christopher Fountain] Why have House, Senate reversed usual ideological lines on federal employee workers’-comp reform? [WaPo]
- Murder of reformist professors reinforces difficulty of changing Italian labor law [Tyler Cowen] UK considers relaxing “unfair dismissal” controls on employers [BBC, earlier]
- Taylor Law and NYC transit strike: “ILO Urges that U.S. Stop Violating International Obligations It Hasn’t Agreed To” [Ku, OJ; Mitch Rubinstein, Adjunct Law Prof]
- Maryland’s misnamed 2009 “Workplace Fraud Act” bedevils carpet installers and other firms that employ contract workers, and perhaps that was its point [Ed Waters Jr./Frederick News-Post, Weyrich Cronin & Sorra, Floor Daily]
- “Government pay is higher” [Stoll] Notwithstanding “Occupy” themes, interests of unions and underemployed young folks might not actually be aligned very well [Althouse]
- More on outcry over proposed federal restrictions on kids’ farm chores [WSJ, NPR, Gannett Wisconsin, CEI, earlier]
Posts tagged as:
workers’ compensation
The Associated Press and Belleville News-Democrat investigate some curious clusters of workers’-comp claims among downstate correctional officers and other public employees.
- Seattle’s best? Class action lawyer suing Apple, e-publishers has represented Microsoft [Seattle Times, earlier]
- “Disabled” NYC firefighter/martial arts enthusiast can go on getting checks for life [NYPost; compare]
- After the FDA enforcement action on drug manufacturing lapses come the tagalong liability claims by uninjured plaintiffs [Beck]
- “What If Lower Court Judges Weren’t Bound by Supreme Court Precedent?” [Orin Kerr]
- Fark.com settles a patent suit for $0 (rough language);
- Canadian law society to pay $100K for asking prospective lawyers about mental illness [ABA Journal]
- Self-help eviction? “Chinese Developers Accused Of Putting Scorpions In Apartments To Force Out Residents” [Business Insider]
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- Yikes! “House Committee Approves Bill Mandating That Internet Companies Spy on Their Users” [EFF; Julian Sanchez, New York Post/Cato and podcast]
- Australia courts skeptical about claim that sex injury is covered under workers’ comp [Herald Sun]
- Well-off community doesn’t need annual HUD grant, seeks to sell it [Dan Mitchell]
- Report: playful City Museum in St. Louis has taken down signs criticizing lawyers [Bill Childs/TortsProf, earlier]
- Chicago neurosurgeons pay $4500 a week in med-mal premiums, blame lawless Illinois Supreme Court [Medill Reports] Supreme Court declines to review Feres doctrine, which shields military doctors (among others) from suits [Stars and Stripes] Why is the most widely cited number of medical-misadventure deaths such an outlier? [White Coat; more here, here, etc.]
- After “Facebook broken heart” suit, will pre-nups for Mafia Wars relationships be next? [Tri-Cities Herald]
- Another horrific report of poppy seed positive drug test followed by child-grabbing [Radley Balko]
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- Per New Jersey court, overly sedentary home office job can result in valid worker’s comp claim [Courier-Post, NJLRA]
- Trial bar’s AAJ denies it played “direct” role in backing “Hot Coffee” [WaPo, some background]
- “Cop repeatedly harasses waitresses, never disciplined. Feds defend their civil rights by . . . suing the restaurant.” [Palm Beach Post via Radley Balko]
- On “unauthorized practice of law” as protective moat around profession’s interests, Britain does things differently [Gillian Hadfield via Andrew Sullivan; related, Larry Ribstein] Forthcoming book by Robert Crandall et al urges lawyer deregulation [Brookings]
- “The Treaty Clause Doesn’t Give Congress Unlimited Power” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato on Golan v. Holder case headed to Supreme Court]
- The small bank regulatory shakedown blues [Kevin Funnell] Why is the Department of Justice including gag orders as part of its enforcement decrees against banks on race and lending? [Investors Business Daily via PoL] “Emigrant fights back against mortgage-discrimination suits” [Fisher, Forbes] Dodd-Frank squeezing out community banks [Funnell]
- “North Carolina to Seize Speeding Cars That Fail to Pull Over” [The Newspaper] “With what, a tractor beam?” [James Taranto]
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- Judge Ciavarella defiant after racketeering conviction in Pennsylvania cash-for-kids horror [TheLegalIntel, Sullum and more, WSJ Law Blog, Greenfield, earlier]
- Widener lawprof Lawrence Connell facing discipline over hypotheticals in class [Orin Kerr, NLJ, interview at NAS]
- “Do we even want to remain a child care center if we have to eliminate all the parts we love?” [Free-Range Kids] Lawsuit fears tame a Frederick, Md. ice playground [same]
- Marquette lawprof Rick Esenberg on Wisconsin showdown [first, second, third posts]
- A patent owner, the Chicago Tribune and Sen. Durbin: Anatomy of a pool drain scare story [Woldenberg, AmendTheCPSIA.com]
- Mayor Thomas Menino vows to save Boston from scourge of everyday low prices [Mark Perry]
- “Comp Hearing Scheduled ‘On the Sly’ for Texting Cop Who Caused Fatal Accident” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] “Paying for bad cops” [Balko]
- Demand for shaker abstinence: nosy, hectoring CSPI files suit asking that salt in food be subjected to FDA regulation [six years ago on Overlawyered]
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“Former Illinois State trooper Matt Mitchell is asking the state to compensate him for injuries from a crash in which he hit and killed two Collinsville sisters at triple-digit speeds.” Mitchell pleaded guilty to reckless homicide after the incident, in which, headed for an accident scene, he “was driving 126 mph in busy day-after-Thanksgiving traffic on Interstate 64 near O’Fallon while sending and receiving e-mails and talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone.” “People get hurt at work all the time,” said Mitchell’s lawyer, Kerri O’Sullivan of St. Louis’ Brown and Crouppen. “It’s our job as lawyers to help people with the difficult and complicated administrative process of worker’s compensation.” [Belleville News-Democrat]
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The state’s onetime crisis abated after Gov. Schwarzenegger presided over serious reforms in 2004, but now rates are on the rise again following court decisions that have let lawyers bypass medical-eligibility guidelines. [Orange County Register]
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Taxpayers are paying former police officer Dave Orlowski $53,063 a year of tax-free disability payments, though he’s fit enough to compete in several triathlons a year. An old court decision permits Orlowski to refuse desk work after since he injured his shoulder in 1999. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (h/t W.J.)]
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Commenter “Anonymous Attorney” writes:
Part of the litigation explosion includes every other person with a back injury claim being sent for invasive “fusion” or other drastic spinal surgery. Of course, defendants, often through insurance, foot the bill for these very expensive procedures. In my time I saw dozens of cases involving, say, a 5-mph fender bender that resulted in these surgeries. It was almost as if plaintiff attorneys and doctors worked together to push them through because they would multiply damages 5-fold for the lawyer, and of course the doctor gets paid handsomely, too. The cost of some surgeries can approach $100,000. A few doctors were known for never seeing a patient who didn’t “need” these surgeries. Courts and juries, of course, take anything a doctor says on its face, and so they’d go along.
A study in JAMA now confirms these are grossly overprescribed and often a really bad idea, medically. Note that this particular study excluded patients admitted as a result of vehicle crashes or with vertebral fractures or dislocations, which nonetheless leaves many other injuries that can fit the pattern: slip-falls, workers comp back strains and so on. I think it’s safe to say that if the JAMA authors ever do a study looking at car crash plaintiffs, they’ll make similar findings.
By the way, the New York Times actually beat JAMA to the punch on some of this, like the doctors owning financial stakes in the surgical equipment companies.
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In addition to the main questions of proof of causation, assumption of risk, and so on raised in yesterday’s NYT story, there is this window into a little-known but well-developed area of forum-shopping:
…California’s workers’ compensation system provides a unique, and relatively unknown, haven for retired professional athletes among the 50 states, allowing hundreds of long-retired veterans each year to file claims for injuries sustained decades before. Players need not have played for California teams or be residents of the state; they had to participate in just one game in the state to be eligible to receive lifetime medical care for their injuries from the teams and their insurance carriers.
About 700 former N.F.L. players are pursuing cases in California, according to state records, with most of them in line to receive routine lump-sum settlements of about $100,000 to $200,000. This virtual assembly line has until now focused on orthopedic injuries, with torn shoulders and ravaged knees obvious casualties of the players’ former workplace. …
Because of the legal environment, the relatively new Arena Football League has avoided locating any of its teams in California.
P.S. Related Times piece on two California lawyers who have brought in “awards that probably total more than $100 million” for players. “Many retired players consider Owens and Mix heroes among their own for essentially finding cash under a mattress; others see an assembly-line process in which players do not fully understand the implications of the settlements.” And some teams have attempted to remove the proceedings to states other than California.
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“Two former lawyers whose firm earned £136 million by handling compensation claims for sick miners lost their appeal yesterday against being struck off for dishonesty.” ["struck off" = disbarred] The firm secretly kicked back more than $1 million to a union official to get the work, and made improper deductions from the sums owed to clients. “Mr Beresford banked more than £30 million — which bought him a jet, Aston Martins and a Ferrari — from fees paid to his firm by the Government for its work on coal health claims.” [Times Online]
- “Jailed Inventor Reveals Details of Patent Troll Settlements” [AmLaw Daily, IP Law and Business]
- Sprinkler law inspired by Great White nightclub disaster could kill off small Seattle music venues [Nicole Brodeur, Seattle Times]
- Court tosses law student’s suit against lawyer who boasted on air he’d pay a million bucks if anyone could prove him wrong about his case [Hoffman, ConcurOp; earlier]
- Baseball-anthem case: “The Boston resident who saw his recent copyright claim against Bon Jovi dismissed is appealing the verdict.” [NME, earlier]
- Man who climbed Mount Rainier while drawing workers’ comp pleads not guilty to fraud charge [KOMO; more on Washington workers' comp here, here and here]
- Senate committee intends to vote next week on OSHA nomination of David Michaels without holding a hearing to air critics’ concerns [Carter Wood, ShopFloor]
- Blawg Review #237 is at Christian Metcalfe’s U.K. Property Law Blog;
- Are you sure you want to open that high-end restaurant in San Francisco given the city’s regulatory climate? [Crispy on the Outside citing SF Weekly interview with Daniel Patterson]
- Speech-curbing proposals continue to get polite academic reception: NYU’s Jeremy Waldron, big advocate of laws to curb “hate speech”, delivered Holmes Lectures at Harvard this past week [HLS, schedule]
- Lawsuit over collectible baseball hit into stands by Phillies’ Ryan Howard, his 200th career homer [Howard Wasserman, PrawfsBlawg; NJLRA]
- Orchid-importer prosecution a poster case for the evils of overcriminalization? Maybe not [Ken at Popehat]
- Texas State Fair and city of Dallas don’t have to allow evangelist to distribute religious tracts inside the fair, judge rules after three years [Dallas Observer blog]
- Drug maker: FDA’s curbs on truthful promotion of off-label uses impair our First Amendment speech rights [Beck and Herrmann and more, Point of Law and more]
- Did plaintiff Eolas Technologies go to unusual lengths to ensure Eastern District of Texas venue for its patent litigation? [Joe Mullin, IP Law and Business via Alison Frankel, AmLaw]
- Update: “Lesbian Denied Infertility Treatment Settles Lawsuit” [San Diego 6, earlier]
- Even in the Ninth Circuit, “psychological injury resulting from a legitimate personnel action” is not compensable [Volokh]
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“An Indiana court has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee’s weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work — raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims.” The case was decided under workers’ compensation law, which is generally more coverage-friendly than workplace liability law. [AP] More: NLJ.
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From the Times Online:
A former television presenter who became one of Britain’s highest-earning solicitors has been struck off for “disgraceful” misconduct in his handling of sick miners’ compensation claims.
Andrew Nulty, who earned £13 million from the claims in one year, joins a growing list of solicitors punished for their role in the coal health scandal, exposed by The Times.
Earlier: Feb. 3, 2009; Feb. 19 and Dec. 12, 2008; May 8, 2007.
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