The Supreme Court of Kentucky, reiterating that for Kentucky workers’ compensation claims, mental or psychological injuries were not compensable unless they were the “direct result” of a physical injury, affirmed an award of permanent total disability benefits...
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin, in a split decision, held that an injured employee’s civil action against his employer’s workers’ compensation insurer for damages arising out of its refusal to continue to pay for his antidepressant medication—he contended the insurer...
The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, construing W. Va. Code § 23-4-1f, pursuant to which mental injury claims are generally disqualified from coverage unless caused by physical means, affirmed the denial of a claim filed by a gaming parlor cashier who...
A Mississippi appellate court affirmed a state trial court's decision granting summary judgment to the state, as employer, on workers' compensation exclusive remedy grounds following the fatal shooting of a state Gaming Commission employee during a firearms...
A Georgia appellate court held the doctrine of res judicata could not be utilized by the employer to block consideration of whether an injured employee should be potentially treated with a spinal cord stimulator in spite of an earlier ruling by an ALJ that the...
The mother of a 14-year-old part-time farm worker, who suffered fatal injuries in an unwitnessed roll-over accident involving a piece of heavy machinery, may not maintain a civil action against the farm owner, held a New York appellate court. Affirming a trial...
In New York, where an injured employee seeks to recover from a third party for that party’s alleged negligence in causing the employee’s injuries, the third party may not seek indemnification and/or contribution from the employer, on the basis of the employer’s...
Applying Tennessee law and citing Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law , the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a divided decision, agreed that a Tennessee employer could not be liable for an intentional tort in connection with horrific injuries sustained by the...
In a decision that is likely to have broad and long-reaching ramifications, a divided Supreme Court of Idaho, following a rehearing in a case decided one year earlier, threw out its earlier decision and adopted a rule that allows an injured employee to sue his...
Because a retaliatory discharge action was “integrally related” to the West Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act, it could not be removed to federal court under 28 U.S.C.S. § 1445(c), held the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of...
Construing the special exception to the Texas version of the exclusive remedy rule—that the survivors of an employee may maintain a wrongful death action against the employer if the employee's death was caused by an intentional act or omission of the...
Construing New Jersey’s “substantially certain” rule, as applied to intentional tort claims filed against employers and co-employees, a state appellate court held that a former employee of a pharmaceutical company could not move forward against...
Stressing that the employer is responsible for all sequelae that flow from the primary work-related injury, a Virginia appellate court affirmed an award of benefits to a claimant who developed a right knee condition more than a decade after sustaining a work-related...
Acknowledging that an employer may be liable to third parties for indemnification or contribution where the employer’s employee suffers a “grave injury,” as defined by N.Y. Workers Comp. Law § 11, a New York appellate court nevertheless reversed a trial court’s...
The Supreme Court of Vermont again refused to adopt the “substantial certainty” rule for intentional tort cases filed by an injured employee against an employer. Citing its earlier decision in Kittell v. Vermont Weatherboard, Inc. , 138 Vt. 439, 417 A.2d 926 (1980...