Indiana lawmakers Tuesday read through a new bill that would require the state Department of Education to provide adequate employer liability and workers compensation insurance coverage for students enrolled in a work-based learning course. H.B. 1094 would also designate certain career and technical education programs as youth apprenticeship programs, providing $500 grants to school corporations for each pupil enrolled in…
A federal district court has refused to dismiss a putative class action lawsuit filed against Amazon.com Inc. by a former employee who contends the company violated Illinois’ biometric law. William Naughton, who worked for two months in 2020 as a “picker” at an Amazon fulfillment center in Joliet, Illinois, charges the company violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by…
Closed drug formularies continue to attract attention in states’ workers compensation systems as a tool to manage the utilization of prescription drugs and provide evidence-based guidance to physicians prescribing drug treatments for injured workers. The Official Disability Guidelines Workers Compensation Drug Formulary, also known as the ODG Formulary, has been adopted by several states including Indiana, Kentucky and Montana. In…
A contractor working at a Caterpillar Inc. foundry in central Illinois fell to his death when he apparently stepped off a ladder at the plant, authorities said. The Peoria County coroner said Scott M. Adams, 50, of East Peoria, was pronounced dead about 11 a.m. Thursday after his fall at the foundry in Mapleton. Autopsy findings are pending, the (Peoria)…
A construction worker injured in a building collapse was, in fact, an independent contractor, the Court of Appeals of Indiana has concluded, rejecting an earlier finding that the worker was actually an employee of the company he sued. In December 2018, Richard Palmer was injured while doing carpentry work on top of a pole barn that partially collapsed. The building…
Employers may be warming up to the idea that fighting some workers’ compensation claims and medical treatments can be counterproductive, and new emphasis should be placed on keeping injured workers happy – and out of the courtroom. “The workers’ comp system should be self-executing and so many times, it’s not,” said Michele Adams, vice president of risk management for Walmart….
A man claims he was fired in retaliation for filing a worker’s compensation claim. Gage Moore filed a federal lawsuit on Dec. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois against Advanced Technology Services, Inc., alleging retaliatory discharge, disability discrimination, retaliation, violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act – disability discrimination, disability retaliation, violation of the…
In the first year of the pandemic, COVID-19 claims in workers compensation made up roughly 1/10th of claims and on average were less costly than non-COVID claims in almost every state, according to new analysis published Wednesday by the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California. The COVID-19’s Impact on Workers Compensation report sourced data from 45 jurisdictions representing $630…
An appeals court in Illinois on Monday affirmed a previously overturned ruling denying workers compensation benefits for a gas journeyman with pre-existing asthma who was exposed to toxic fumes. Ricky A. Duncan, an employee at Ameren Corp. in Springfield, Illinois, was diagnosed with a “permanent and irreversible condition” of “severe irritant induced workplace associated bronchial reactivity” after inhaling gas fumes…
After 20 years of conflict, many U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors have returned home from Afghanistan and Iraq much different than when they first deployed. Psychological injuries are common in war zones, but a 2013 RAND Corporation Study found that civilian contractors suffer at a much greater rate. At the time of the study, 25% of private contractors showed PTSD…
