Noting the broad latitude afforded New York's Workers' Compensation Board in determining whether a claimant had withdrawn from the labor market, a state appellate court affirmed a Board decision that a substitute teacher, who sustained injuries when she...
Stressing that the issue of abandonment of the labor market is an issue for the Board, a New York appellate court affirmed the denial of disability benefits to a worker who sustained a clearly compensable injury--she was struck by falling scaffolding at the employer's...
Where an injured worker died from complications following surgery to treat a medical condition that was tied to a work-related injury that had occurred ten years earlier, his widow was entitled to statutory income benefits under Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.750(1...
Construing California law, a federal district court held a plaintiff's IIED tort action filed against her former employer for failure to provide adequate COVID-19 protocols is barred by the exclusive remedy of California's workers' compensation law...
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that evidence supported a state commission's determination that a worker had abandoned the workforce and, therefore, was not entitled to permanent total disability benefits where the worker testified that he had been receiving...
The Supreme Court of California, in a 5-2 decision, held that the state's "posse" law--Cal. Labor Code § 3366--barred a civil action for negligence and misrepresentation filed by two private citizens against a California county and a deputy sheriff...
In a case with a rather bizarre fact pattern, a Utah appellate court affirmed a state Commission's decision awarding workers' compensation benefits to a trucker who suffered an aggravated injury to her knee when she leaped from the cabin of her truck because...
Workers in Utah with preexisting conditions face an enhanced burden of proof in establishing legal causation. Under the so-called " Allen standard" [see Allen v. Industrial Comm’n , 729 P.2d 15, 25 (Utah 1986)], the injured worker must “show...
Where an injured employee decided to resign from his modified-duty position and stay at home to care for his children while his wife worked outside the home, it was appropriate for a WCJ to suspend the employee's wage loss benefits, finding he had removed himself...
The Supreme Court of Mississippi, in a divided decision, reversed a similarly divided decision by the state's Court of Appeals, and held that where a father's parental rights had been terminated through a properly administered adoption proceeding at a time...
A Virginia appellate court affirmed a determination by the state's Workers' Compensation Commission denying workers' compensation benefits to a public school security officer who sustained injuries in a fall on school property during a windy day in...
In a split decision, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island held that R.I. Gen. Laws § 45-19.1-1 does not create a conclusive presumption that a firefighter’s cancer arises out of and in the course of his or her employment. Stressing that no express language...
Acknowledging that an action that arises under the workers’ compensation laws of a state is a “nonremovable action” under 28 U.S.C.S. § 1445(c), a U.S. District Court in California recently held that the fact that a California employer and...
Where a New York claimant’s reduced earnings were due, not to his established back injury, but to economic conditions unrelated to the injury, the claimant was not entitled to a reduced earnings award, held a New York appellate court. The holding affirmed...
A New York court affirmed the denial of two airborne illness claims filed by a makeup artist for Fox 5-TV, on the basis that she failed to show the required causal connection between her work and her illnesses. In her first claim, filed in December 2013, she asserted...