- 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]
Posts Tagged ‘workers’ compensation’
July 18 roundup
- 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]
April 4 roundup
- Verbal fireworks from Judge Kozinski in Ninth Circuit “stolen valor” case [Above the Law]
- Measure of artificially contrived scarcity: “NYC Taxi Medallions Approach $1 Million.” Would officials in Washington, D.C. really consider introducing such a destructive system? [Perry, more]
- Workers’ comp OK’d in case where simulated chicken head blamed for subsequent emotional disability [Lowering the Bar]
- “NBA referee sues sports writer over tweet” [Siouxsie Law] “Lessons from Dan Snyder’s Libel Suit” [Paul Alan Levy/CL&P, earlier]
- Litigation rates similar for poor and good nursing homes, researchers find [US News] Effects of medical liability reform in Texas [White Coat, scroll] New York’s Cuomo caves on medical liability plan [Heritage] Sued if you do, sued if you don’t in the emergency room [same]
- “Federal Government Wants to Bully School Bullies, and Demands School Help” [Doherty, Bader, Popehat, Bernstein] New York law firm launches school-bullying practice [Constitutional Daily]
- Mass tort settlements: “The market for specious claims” [S. Todd Brown, Buffalo, SSRN]
- Could Gene McCarthy’s candidacy have survived Arizona elections law? [Trevor Burrus, HuffPo]
February 24 roundup
- 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]
Convicted in double-fatality crash, trooper wants compensation
“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]
Worker’s comp in California
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]
Milwaukee triathlete making $53k on disability
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.)]
JAMA: back surgeries overprescribed
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.
Test case on NFL liability for players’ dementia
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.
U.K.: “Beresfords lawyers who profited from sick miners lose appeal”
“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]