Posts tagged Workers' Compensation

• Mail Fraud Charges Used To Fight Workers' Compensation Claimant

  Brent Adams | March 26, 2008 3:05 AM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  Mail fraud indictments are a favorite tool of federal prosecutors for just about any campaign de jour .These charges were used recently in a case brought by federal prosecutors against a workers' compensation claimant. A former employee of the Postal Service has denied federal charges of lying about disabilities while she collected approximately $69,000 in benefits from workers' compensation. On...

• Race tied to reduction of workers' compensation benefits

  Brent Adams | March 08, 2008 7:50 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  A man from El Cajon, California is claiming that he lost half of his benefits from workers' compensation due to his race.The workers' compensation plan of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger contains language that is somewhat vague, which has allowed medical examiners to use age, race, and sex when determining how much should be paid by a company in a claim for workers' compensation.Milton...

• Workers' Compensation Cheaters Hurt Legitimate Claimants

  Brent Adams | February 26, 2008 10:08 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  Fortunately, cheaters who try to defraud the workers' compensation system almost always get caught. These few cheaters should be punished severely. They not only hurt their employers and their insurance companies, they also make it harder for legitimate claimants to recover the benefits to which they are entitled.Workers' compensation fraud and wrongdoing by employers and their insurance...

• Pork Processing Plant Workers Contract Illness After Inhaling Pig Brain Particles

  Sheila Chavis | February 08, 2008 4:56 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  A cluster of workers at a pork processing plant in Minnesota have contracted an illness that has been connected with the workers' exposure to particles of pig brains. The workers were found to be exposed by inhaling the bits of pig brain during a process where the brains are blown out of the skull of the pig using compressed air. The brains are harvested packaged and sold primarily to Japan...

• Issue of whether an injury is covered by workers compensation law can be complex

  Brent Adams | January 17, 2008 10:25 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  Employees are entitled to benefits from workers' compensation whenever they receive a personal injury "arising out of and in the course of employment. For example, a machinist received an injury to his eye from flying glass from a cola bottle while on his lunch break that caused blindness in that eye. As he was placing the bottle in the cooler, it exploded. He would be entitled to receive...

• N.C. Workers' Comp Insurers Seek Rate Increase

  Sheila Chavis | September 13, 2007 12:18 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  On Friday, September 1, 2007, the North Carolina Rate Bureau filed a request with the N.C. Department of Insurance for a 5.9% increase in workers' compensation insurance rates. A request for an increase in insurance rates, in itself may be alarming to N.C. employers and employess. However, the requested rate increase pales in comparison to the 2006 request of 12.1%. The Depart of Insurance...

• Occupational Health Clinic That Treated Ground Zero Workers Faces Criticism

  Sheila Chavis | September 07, 2007 12:07 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  A recent article in the New York Times raises questions about the accuracy of data and reports presented by the clinic that took on the responsibility of screening and examining volunteers and people who were working at Ground Zero. The Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine has examined more than 15,000 workers and volunteers and has overseen the examination of...

• "Going and Coming Rule" Does not Apply to Home Healthcare Nurse

  Brent Adams | August 09, 2007 9:41 AM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  In workers' compensation cases, a claim is not compensable if an employee is injured while going to work or coming home from work. This is commonly referred to as the "going and coming" rule.There are numerous exceptions to this rule. One exception is the traveling salesman rule which applies to salesmen who are required in their job to travel from customer to customer. In the case of a...

• Can Teaching 6th Graders Cause Compensable Anxiety Disorder?

  Sheila Chavis | July 27, 2007 4:24 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  This past March (3/6/07) the North Carolina Court of Appeals addressed the issue of whether a 6th grade teacher's physician-diagnosed anxiety disorder was compensable under North Carolina's Workers' Compensation Act. After a review of the facts found by the Industrial Commission the Court concluded that teaching sixth graders did not expose the teacher to any stressors that were not experienced...

• Doctor Shopping Employer Required to Pay Benefits

  Brent Adams | June 01, 2007 4:48 PM | 0 CommentsRaleigh, NC Category: Workplace Injuries
  

  An employer's brazen doctor shopping efforts to terminate workers' compensation benefits backfired in a recent case. A decision of the North Carolina Industrial Commission granted full workers' compensation benefits to an injured employee and found that the employer's efforts to deny benefits constituted stubborn and unfounded litigiousness and that the appeals were brought by the employer...