Despite discontents with the workers’ compensation system, statistics show the American workplace growing steadily safer, and it is anything but clear that the incentives for safe practice of the various players would be improved by a system which forced more accident cases into litigation [Gordon Yago, York Daily Record, quotes me at several places]
Posts Tagged ‘workers’ compensation’
Labor roundup
- “Hard hat dispute pits Amish miners against Labor Dept.” [The Hill]
- What, ProPublica do a tendentious, one-sided report with NPR on workers’ compensation? Can’t be the ProPublica we know [Joe Paduda, Workers Comp Insider and more, Insurance Information Institute and ProPublica response]
- “One government lawyer’s war on the franchising business” [Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, The Hill, on NLRB’s Richard Griffin] Not even pretending any more: NLRB holds public seminar in SEIU offices [Labor Relations Institute]
- What unions stand to gain from minimum wage campaigns [Labor Pains]
- Speakers predict major damage to Los Angeles small theater scene from Actors Equity plan to end unpaid rehearsals [L.A. Times]
- Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) introduces bill to reverse NLRB’s “micro-unions” initiative [Sean Higgins, earlier] House holds critical hearing on ambush election rule [Diana Furchtgott-Roth, related Senate resolution] Adding a member to the NLRB might cut down on partisan swings, but why not check out more radical reform, along the lines of New Zealand’s Employment Contracts Act? [Trey Kovacs]
- Public college labor education center uses taxpayer funding to organize against proposed right to work law. You got a problem with that? [Freedom Foundation, Washington]
Great moments in workers’ comp claims
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones doesn’t seem to appreciate the gutsiness of a Downey, Calif. woman’s actions, saying he finds it “shocking” that “a trusted financial institution manager would be a co-conspirator in a bank robbery and staged kidnapping, and then have the audacity to file a bogus workers’ comp claim for traumatic stress and believe she could get away with it.” [Insurance Journal, back in August but missed then; Matt Sutkoski, Matt of All Trades]
California’s workers’ comp system by far the nation’s costliest
And purported reforms in 2012 didn’t help. Connecticut’s is second most expensive. [Insurance Journal]
More tips for disability claimants
If collecting workers’ comp payments premised on disability from knee and other injuries, it is best not to post photos on Facebook of your exploits continuing to race your BMX bike [Kent, Wash.; MyNorthwest.com]
P.S. You might face less scrutiny, per this L.A. Times account, if you’re a Los Angeles firefighter or police officer claiming injury on the job under a remarkably generous compensation scheme “that has cost taxpayers $328 million over the last five years.”
Liability roundup
- Florida judge strikes down state’s workers comp system [Insurance Journal, WorkersCompensation.com, David DePaolo, Bradenton Herald]
- State of Washington will pay $10 million to family on theory it should have closed highways earlier in ice storm [Seattle Times]
- “Allegations that biglaw aided concealment of asbestos torts survives at the pleading stage” [John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum]
- “Pennies for Plaintiffs, Millions for Lawyers” — but some judges revolt [Megan McArdle, Bloomberg]
- Trial lawyers gain sympathetic press ear for suits over lack of bollards in front of stores as precaution against runaway drivers [Fair Warning]
- …similarly for suits seeking to abolish “Baseball Rule,” obtain damages when foul balls strike spectators [Bloomberg, earlier]
- More on California car dealer’s suit against asbestos law firm [Legal NewsLine, earlier]
Pharmaceutical roundup
- “Report: Government warnings about antidepressants may have led to more suicide attempts” [Washington Post]
- Celebrity doc known for touting diet-health snake oil told off by Senators known for touting socio-economic snake oil [NBC, Business Week]
- Physicians’ prescription of drugs off-label may “seem odd to the uninitiated, but it is called the practice of medicine, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with [it].” [Steven Boranian/D&DLaw, Sidley, Steve McConnell/D&DLaw (False Claims Act angle, with much background on that law generally)]
- “23andMe Closer to FDA Approval” [Matthew Feeney/Cato, earlier]
- FDA guidance could foreclose most use of tweets, Google ads and other character-limited vehicles in pharmaceutical promotion [Jeffrey Wasserstein/FDA Law Blog, Elizabeth N. Brown/Reason]
- Average wholesale price (AWP) litigation: “Pennsylvania High Court Joins Judicial Stampede That’s Trampling State Attorneys-General/Plaintiffs’ Bar Alliances” [WLF, Beck, earlier]
- California infant’s death opens window on lucrative (for some prescribers) intersection of workers’ comp and compounded pharmaceuticals [Southern California Public Radio]
Labor and employment roundup
- “NLRB Could Ease Unionization of Franchisees” [Bill McMorris, Washington Free Beacon]
- Wait, you mean self-harm is something you can overdo? “Can the Minimum Wage Be Too High?” [NYT “Room for Debate”] “Correcting Harold Meyerson’s Math On The Minimum Wage” [Tim Worstall]
- Lawyers can help ascertain when lip-licking in workplace rises to level of harassment [Fox Rothschild]
- Pending bill in Illinois would do away with workers’ comp’s longstanding immunity for safety consultants [Kevin Martin, State Journal-Register]
- Best and worst states legally for staffing business [Leslie Stevens-Huffman, Staffing Industry]
- “You can have your strong public employee unions, ‘prevailing wages’ and restrictive work rules, or you can have nice infrastructure. New Yorkers have (perhaps unknowingly) made their choice.” [Scott Sumner via Arnold Kling]
- Does time spent driving to employer-mandated anger-management courses count as compensable “hours worked” under FLSA? [Bryan Symes, Ruder Ware]
Dismissed workers’ comp arbitrator presses disability claim
An Illinois state employee “was dismissed in 2011 from her $115,000 per year job as an arbitrator for the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission after a series of stories in the News-Democrat concerning more than $10 million paid to prison guards who complained that turning keys and operating locks caused them to be injured.” The investigation indicated that the arbitrator tried to hide from the press a disability application by a former state trooper convicted of causing highway deaths, and allegedly used her position in an unsuccessful attempt to pressure state officials to speed up her own claim, commenting that she had ‘two mortgages’ to pay.” After her departure from the arbitrator job she “found work training others for the very job from which she was fired,” and now is endeavoring to collect a “pending $25,000 settlement for a disability primarily attributed to typing,” which the state is resisting. [Belleville, Ill., News-Democrat]
“The trial lawyers are the single most powerful political force in Albany”
Don’t take my word for it, take New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s:
Mr. Cuomo conceded that the scaffold law was among the “infuriating” things about doing business in New York, but couldn’t be changed because of the strength of its supporters, particularly the state trial lawyers association.
“The trial lawyers are the single most powerful political force in Albany,” he said. “That’s the short answer. It’s also the long answer.”
As Andrew Hawkins explains at Crain’s New York Business, which interviewed Cuomo, the scaffold law is New York’s alone-in-the-country legal regime ascribing 100% liability for gravity-related workplace injuries to businesses found to have contributed any fault, even if the predominant cause was a worker’s drunkenness or decision to violate safety rules. Because awards are high, some estimate that the law will contribute $200 million to construction costs at the Tappan Zee Bridge rebuilding project alone compared with a law more typical of what is found in other states. The law has been under vigorous attack for some time by a New York business coalition, to no avail.