Every dollar spent on workers’ compensation falls into one of two broad categories: benefits paid to injured workers—medical care and wage replacement—and the costs of delivering those benefits. The second...
New York’s Hidden Cost Problem: WCRI Examines the Price of Delivering Benefits New York’s Hidden Cost Problem: WCRI Examines the Price of Delivering BenefitsPA Supreme Court Addresses Scope of Co-Employee Immunity In Brown v. Gaydos, 2026 Pa. LEXIS 267 (Pa. Feb. 18, 2026), a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s reversal...
Issue Commentary: Where PA Worker’s Injury is Compensable, Does That Automatically Mean Co-Employee is Immune from Tort Liability? Issue Commentary: Where PA Worker’s Injury is Compensable, Does That Automatically Mean Co-Employee is Immune from Tort Liability?Arkansas Court Reverses Commission and Applies Increased-Risk Analysis A ranch hand who developed alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a tick-borne allergy, after years of outdoor work in tick-infested conditions has had his...
Issue Commentary: Tick-Borne Alpha-Gal Syndrome Claim Reinstated Issue Commentary: Tick-Borne Alpha-Gal Syndrome Claim ReinstatedIn January 2026, the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) released a comprehensive study tracking joint replacement surgeries across 32 states over seven years, and the findings reveal both concerning trends...
WCRI’s New Data on Joint Replacement: A Shifting Landscape WCRI’s New Data on Joint Replacement: A Shifting LandscapeOregon Holds Immunity for State Employees Violates Constitution When Applied to Workers’ Compensation Recipients In a 5-2 decision, the Oregon Supreme Court has handed down a significant opinion addressing the...
Issue Commentary: Oregon Supreme Court Strikes Down Governmental Immunity Statute Under State’s Remedy Clause Issue Commentary: Oregon Supreme Court Strikes Down Governmental Immunity Statute Under State’s Remedy ClauseSkala v. Comfort Systems USA, Inc., 2025 Ark. 183, 2025 Ark. LEXIS 144 (Nov. 20, 2025), is one of those cases where the doctrinal lines between two distinct bodies of...
Borrowing Doctrines Across Systems: Arkansas Reconsiders Travel, Tort Liability, and the Temptation of Workers’ Compensation Analogies Borrowing Doctrines Across Systems: Arkansas Reconsiders Travel, Tort Liability, and the Temptation of Workers’ Compensation AnalogiesRecent clinical trials have demonstrated that cannabis-derived medications may be safer and more effective than opioids for treating chronic lower back pain—a finding with significant implications for workers’ compensation systems...
Cannabis-Derived Medications for Chronic Back Pain: Implications for Workers’ Compensation Cannabis-Derived Medications for Chronic Back Pain: Implications for Workers’ CompensationTexas Court Applies New Jurisdictional Framework in Workplace Violence Case In the long-running national debate over whether courts or workers’ compensation agencies should decide coverage disputes, Texas has now drawn...
Issue Commentary: What Forum Decides Exclusivity? Issue Commentary: What Forum Decides Exclusivity?When Retaliatory Discharge First Became Judicially Recognized Before 1973, in many states that followed the common-law doctrine of employment-at-will, a worker fired for asserting the right to workers’ compensation benefits...
Throwback Thursday: Frampton v. Central Indiana Gas Co. (Ind. 1973) Throwback Thursday: Frampton v. Central Indiana Gas Co. (Ind. 1973)Pre-Existing Conditions, Aggravation, and the Enduring Reach of Larson’s Rule In the evolving history of American workers’ compensation, few doctrines have proven more enduring—or more contentious—than the rule that employers...
Throwback Thursday: Cowart v. Pearl River Tung Co. (Miss. 1953) Throwback Thursday: Cowart v. Pearl River Tung Co. (Miss. 1953)When Cancer Meets Causation: Wrestling with Medical Mystery in 1951 In workers’ compensation law, few challenges prove more vexing than establishing causation when the medical community itself admits ignorance about...
Throwback Thursday: Boyd v. Young (1951) Throwback Thursday: Boyd v. Young (1951)A Horseplay Case That Shaped Utah’s Workers’ Compensation Doctrine In Prows v. Industrial Commission of Utah, 610 P.2d 1362 (Utah 1980), the Supreme Court of Utah was presented with a...
Throwback Thursday: Prows v. Industrial Commission of Utah (1980) Throwback Thursday: Prows v. Industrial Commission of Utah (1980)