Workers Comp Insider: Disability Law

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Disability Law Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Disability Law

Workers Comp Insider

About workers compensation insurance, risk management, workplace health and safety, occupational medicine, and related topics.
By Lynch Ryan

Post Frequency: 5.3/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:16:48

Cavalcade of Risk and other new briefs

Posted on April 07, 2010
The 102nd edition of Cavalcade of Risk is posted at Political Calculations, where blogger Ironman offers a rating for each post based on topicality, information quality and readability. Check it out. More on the West Virginia Mining tragedy - On Monday, we were thrilled to hear of the miracle of the surviving miners in China, only to learn of the...

A Breath of Fresh Air

Posted on April 06, 2010
Whatever you may be doing as you read this, take a moment to focus on your breath - the simple act of breathing in fresh air and then exhaling. Then think for a moment of the all the people who work in conditions where clean air is nowhere to be found...

West Virginia's Dr. Feelgood

Posted on April 05, 2010
Dr. Diane Shafer practices medicine in the Tug Valley area of West Virginia. The Tug River runs along the Kentucky border. It's a hard-scrabble part of the state, famous mostly for the Matewan coal mine strike in the 1920s. (Mother Jones, featured recently in one of our blogs, led the miners in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a union...

Job Loss Coda: Boston Hyatt Workers Fade Away

Posted on April 02, 2010
We have blogged the sad tale of housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Boston, who were fired and replaced by low wage workers hired by an outsourcing firm. The workers unknowingly trained their replacements in their final months on the job. Katie Johnston Chace of the Boston Globe has done a follow up on the 98 laid off workers...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Health Wonk Review and other noteworthy news briefs

Posted on April 01, 2010
Rich Elmore has posted a most excellent Health Wonk Review: Special Edition on Health Care Reform, which might also be called the "when pigs fly" edition. It has a good roundup of the health policy blogosphere's reaction to the landmark legislation and a handy, must-see one page info-graphic of the time line...

Mining safety: not just for China

Posted on March 30, 2010
When the whistle blows each morning And I walk down in this cold dark mine, I say a prayer to my dear savior Please let me see the sunshine one more day. A Miner's Prayer Our Google alert for safety today turned up the tragic story of 153 Chinese mine workers trapped underground in a flooded mine...

Performance Dis-incentive Programs

Posted on March 29, 2010
Performance incentive programs are a good idea - except when they aren't. The Insider has always viewed such programs with ambivalence: yes, it's a good idea to reward employees for safe performance over a given time period. The problem is that these programs can discourage employees from reporting legitimate injuries...

Pilot with a Death Wish

Posted on March 26, 2010
Bryan Griffin was a pilot for Australia's Qantas Air from 1966 to 1982. In 1979 he began to have "uncontrollable urges" to switch off the engines in mid-flight in order to bring down the airplane. He would leave the flight deck and smoke a few cigarettes until he calmed down...

Cavalcade of Risk #101; vote for best student safety video

Posted on March 25, 2010
Cavalcade of Risk #101 - Andrew of Ozrisk hosts this week's edition of Cavalcade of Risk - check it out. In other news this week, Roberto Ceniceros posts about making safety more fun than a workplace prank - a video contest sponsored by the Oregon Young Worker Health & Safety Coalition...

Health Reform Roundup

Posted on March 24, 2010
We've compiled a variety of resources on the health care reform developments this week: First stop, see Joe Paduda's excellent analysis of Health Reform's implications for workers' comp, part 1, part 2 and part 3. Joe's expertise in the inner workings of the medical side of workers comp make this a must-read...

Maine's Fee Schedule: Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted on March 23, 2010
Three months ago we blogged the ongoing agony of Bath Iron Works (BIW), the people who build destroyers for the navy. You may recall that BIW self insures for workers comp, and as such must pay the "usual and customary" fees for medical services provided to injured workers...

New York Weighs In on Obesity

Posted on March 22, 2010
Last August we blogged the case of Adam Childers, a morbidly obese pizza maker in Indiana who suffered a back injury. Childers's weight was in itself a substantial obstacle to his getting better, so the court ordered the comp carrier to pay for gastric by-pass surgery...

Walmart: Shopping for Souls in Aisle Three

Posted on March 19, 2010
Joseph Casias was the Associate of the Year in 2008 for the Walmart in Battle Creek, Michigan. He achieved this despite his ongoing struggle with sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor. During his five years with the organization, the 29 year old Casias went to work every day determined to be the best...

Health Wonk Review and other noteworthy news briefs

Posted on March 18, 2010
It's Health Wonk review week, and Minna Jung serves up the March Madness of both the basketball court and the health care reform process in this week's Health Wonk Review. Visit this week's post at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's blog The Users' Guide to the Health Reform Galaxy...

Mother Jones: from County Cork to the Coal Mines

Posted on March 17, 2010
"I'm not a humanitarian. I'm a hell-raiser" Top of the morning to you this St. Patrick's Day! We thought that the day might be a fitting time to commemorate the life of an Irish immigrant who was hailed as "the the grandmother of all agitators," the "Miners' Angel," "labor's Joan of Arc," and "The Most Dangerous Woman in America...

Dueling Shrinks: Uncompensable Depression

Posted on March 15, 2010
Depression is by no means a rare occurrence in the workplace, but depressions that lead to compensable claims under workers comp are very rare, indeed. The burden of proof on the claimant is substantial, generally requiring a conclusive demonstration that work is the "predominant cause" of the depression...

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI): in the workplace and in the field

Posted on March 11, 2010
The Brain Injury Association reminds us that March is Brain Injury Awareness Month, so it was timely to see that our colleague Peter Rousmaniere has an important piece on brain injury recovery in the current issue of Risk Management magazine: Gray Matters: The Employer's Role in Brain Injury Recovery...

Cavalcade of Risk #100 (!) and other news of note

Posted on March 10, 2010
Is the 100th time the charm? Cavalcade of Risk celebrates its centesimal issue today - that's a lot of risk coverage! Our host for this landmark issue is Russell Hutchinson of moneyblog - tip of the hat to him for a good issue. And kudos to Cavalcade founder and visionary, Hank Stern of InsureBlog...

Annals of Compensability: Mountain Dew, Mountain Don't

Posted on March 09, 2010
Henri Cyr was a part-time mechanic for McDermott's, a Vermont company that transports milk from dairies to processing plants. A co-worker offered Cyr a bottle of Mountain Dew. As he was not thirsty at the time, he put the bottle in the workplace fridge...

AIG: Equal Opportunity Thievery?

Posted on March 08, 2010
As the holder of a couple hundred shares of AIG stock (your condolences are accepted), I feel compelled to track the remnants of the former empire, rather like an archeologist who finds fragments of an ancient civilization buried in a forgotten forest...

The Annals of Law: The Caper of the Counselor's Coat

Posted on March 05, 2010
William Ogletree practices personal injury law in Texas. On the most recent New Year's Eve he planned to fly from Houston to Las Vegas, presumably to celebrate the new year with libation, games of chance, and, who knows, a little extra fun in the city that tells no tales...

Health Wonk Review, kabuki style, and other noteworthy news briefs

Posted on March 04, 2010
Fresh HWR - Health Wonk Review, Kabuki Theater Edition is freshly posted by Brad Wright at Wright on Health. In this edition of the biweekly best of the health policy blogoshphere, Brad rounds up recaps and rounds up reactions to last week's Health Care Summit...

Medicare and Physician Pay: Jim Bunning's Bean Ball

Posted on March 03, 2010
There are four things that are memorable about Jim Bunning's professional baseball career: First, tossing a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies against Trace Stallard and the New York Mets on the afternoon of 21 June 1964, lowering his ERA to 2...

Noe Go: Con Man in a Corner

Posted on March 02, 2010
Four years ago (time flies when you're having fun!) we blogged the saga of Thomas Noe, the power broker who parlayed his relationships with highly-place politicos into lucrative contracts with the Ohio workers comp bureau. The state invested $50 million of comp funds in his coin business...

On redefining disability

Posted on March 01, 2010
When is a worker disabled and unable to do his or her job? This is an issue that surfaced in a recent post about an employer that was reluctant to make workplace accommodations for employees who had been injured on the job but who wanted to return to work...

Chronic pain management in workers' comp

Posted on February 26, 2010
Recently, I attended the 2010 Health and Productivity Forum jointly sponsored by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) and the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) in San Antonio. I had been invited to participate in a panel discussion by Gary Anderberg, of Broadspire, who, as I have written previously, is one of the smartest people I'm fortunate to know...

Cavalcade of Risk and News You Can Use

Posted on February 24, 2010
New Cavalcade of Risk - David Williams of Health Business Blog is this week's host of Cavalcade of Risk. He offers a concise array of postings, including one method of improving immune response that you absolutely do not want to miss. While stopping by, check out his other posts - he always has the scoop on interesting new issues and...

(Uncompensable) Nightmare at Work

Posted on February 23, 2010
In December we blogged the horrendous case of Carla Nash, a lovely woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee owned by Sandra Herold, a friend. The 200 pound chimp literally ripped her face apart. Nash, who lacks health insurance, has been hospitalized for over a year at the Cleveland Clinic...

Independent Contractors and the (Deadly) Spirit of 1706

Posted on February 22, 2010
Joseph Stack set his house on fire and then piloted a small plane into a building housing the IRS in Austin, Texas. His daughter calls him a hero. Most of us would call him a terrorist. But whatever you call him, he was motivated in part by section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reforms...

Obscenity Laced Latte

Posted on February 19, 2010
Robert Friedman went to his local Starbucks in Boca Raton and ordered a coffee. He sat at a table and began swearing loudly while punching the wall with his fist. Alarmed by this behavior, the baristas called the cops and had Friedman removed. They asked that he not return to the store or he would be arrested for trespassing...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Columnist: Economy Hurt By Lack Of Immigrant Workers
A columnist for the newspaper where I worked my way through colleg...

Religious Workers In The United States
Leaders of religious organizations and institutes are often unawar...

Religious Workers - R Visa
A religious organization in the United States may sponsor an indiv...