A television station in Raleigh, North Carolina (NBC-17) reported the other week that a paving contractor was awarded a new contract because its bid was $6,000 lower than other bids. The bids ranged from $996,000 to $1.2 million. Nothing unusual about that, except the winning company, Triangle Grading and Paving Company, has "dozens more construction-related [...]
Today we have a guest post from my colleague Matthew Funk of New York. When an injured worker needs emergency medical care, prior authorization isn’t always possible. However, not being able to obtain it does not bar a workers'’ compensation claim. When a worker is hurt at work and is rushed to the [...]
Today’s post comes from our colleague Kate Fitzgerald of New York. We represent a client whose hands were directly injured a few years ago. The insurance company, as part of its defense, is raising a provision in the law which requires an injured worker to file a claim for a direct injury within two years of [...]
Today we have a guest post from my colleague Tom Domer of Wisconsin. According to a growing number of scientists and doctors the newest TSA airport body scanners, known as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners, may pose a cancer threat.* The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) insists the scanners are safe, and cites independent studies saying [...]
Today’s guest post comes to us from my colleague Tom Domer of Wisconsin. I read this headline in the Insurance Journal while ago. My assumption, even though I represent injured workers’, was that the headline concerned an employee who had defrauded an insurance company. Why did I immediately jump to that conclusion? Because most of [...]
My good friend and colleague Jon Gelman posted this recent piece of news on his blog the other week: A New Hampshire insurance group has been charged by the State with improperly appropriating millions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds to a workers’ compensation insurance plan. The improper allocation is described in a petition filed by [...]
A recent blog post (below) by Jon Gelman about OSHA violations at the Anthony River, Inc plant is another example of why we need to change the lax culture of safely compliance in America. It’s human nature to pick out articles in newspapers, magazines and on-line that interest you, and when I see articles about [...]
On January 13, the North Carolina Department of Labor announced that 53 people died on the job in North Carolina in 2011. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry was quoted as saying: “the real tragedy is that all of the these fatalities could have been avoided.” I wholeheartedly agree. 53 deaths is 53 too many. When I see news [...]
Several years ago I had a client in North Carolina who was an insurance man. While taking some papers out of the back of his car at work he slipped, hit his head and developed a neurological conditon called “Dystonia.” I did some research and discovered that it is a disorder that affects the nervous [...]
As you have seen me mention several times on this blog, the failure of many employers to play by the rules continues to plague the nation’s workers'’ compensation system. In one type of fraud, known as misclassification, employers incorrectly designate workers' as outside consultants or independent contractors. When workers' are misclassified, insurance companies do not [...]