Colorado Employer and Carrier Need Not Disclose if They Made Gifts to State Comp Judges

A Colorado workers’ compensation insurer and an employer’s counsel need not respond to a discovery request made by a workers’ compensation claimant that they disclose whether any of them had...

Juries Will Decide if Uber and Lyft Drivers are Employees

Supplementing my earlier post, in separate rulings yesterday, both Uber and Lyft failed to satisfy United States District Court judges that their drivers are independent contractors and not employees [see...

MN High Court Gives Math Lesson to Lower Court: “2/3 Does Not Equal 1/2”

Holding that the factual findings of a workers’ compensation judge were “self-contradictory,” the Supreme Court of Minnesota has, for the second time, reversed and remanded an award of benefits to...

Tell-Tale Web Page on Employee’s Blackberry Spells Doom for South Dakota Comp Claim

An employee’s injuries sustained in a one-car auto accident while he drove down a dead-end road some 2.5 miles from his office did not arise out of and in the...

Chicago Plumbing Inspector’s Trip & Fall on Street Curb is Compensable

A City of Chicago plumbing inspector, whose duties required him to travel throughout the city by car to inspect the plumbing in both residential and commercial buildings, sustained an injury...

Maine Home Treadmill Fatality Found Compensable

Illustrating the point that for telecommuting employees, who are often tethered to their employers by ubiquitous cell phones and tablets, the line between the employment world and private life is...

New Mexico: Health Care Provider’s “Certification” of Medical Marijuana is Functional Equivalent of Prescription for Injured Worker

An authorized treating health care provider’s “certification” authorizing the use of medical marijuana under New Mexico’s Compassionate Use Act [N.M. Stat. Ann. § 26–2B–1 et seq.] is the functional equivalent...

South Carolina Supreme Court Adopts What Amounts to Positional Risk Standard in Slip and Fall Cases

The Supreme Court of South Carolina, reversing the state court of appeals, recently held that an office worker who sustained injuries when she fell as she walked down an unobstructed,...

Kentucky High Court Splits in Case Involving Personal Comfort Doctrine

In a split decision dealing with the application of the personal comfort doctrine described in Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 21.01, et seq., a majority of the Supreme Court of...

For Now, Exclusivity Does Not Bar Workers’ Tort Cases Against BP Products Following 2011 Chemical Release at Refinery

A Federal District Court in Texas has refused to grant a motion for summary judgment filed by Defendant BP Products North America, Inc. (“BP Products”) in a civil action arising...

NY Employer’s Surveillance of Injured Worker Fails to Establish Fraud

A New York appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that an employer’s surveillance videos and testimony of its private investigator, which primarily showed a workers’...

NY Employer’s Surveillance of Injured Worker Fails to Establish Fraud

NY Employer’s Surveillance of Injured Worker Fails to Establish Fraud

New York Court Finds Worker’s Refusal of Light-Work Justified

A New York appellate court affirmed a decision of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that a claimant had not voluntarily withdrawn from the labor market by refusing a light duty...