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Work Injury During Sex: Ridiculous?

This post comes to us from our colleague Charlie Domer in Wisconsin. While the topic of sex provides some entertaining context, Charlie does point out that, when you are traveling for business, even injuries that happen during non-work-related activities may be covered by workers’ compensation. While this article addresses Wisconsin law specifically, New York law is very similar.

Work Injury During Sex: Ridiculous? Not really. From time to time lurid headlines raise eyebrows about employees who claim worker’s compensation for injuries occurred during sex. The most common response is “How ridiculous . . . The employee is not being paid to have sex (unless she is a hooker).”

A most recent headline notes an Australian woman who had hotel sex with an acquaintance and was injured when a wall-mounted light fell on her during the encounter. She sought worker’s compensation because the incident occurred during a business trip and she claimed having sex on a business trip is “an ordinary incident of life” that entitles her to payment under worker’s compensation law.

Traveling employees are deemed to be in the course of employment at all times while on a trip

Traveling employees receive broad worker’s compensation coverage Continue reading

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The NFL’s surprising occupational hazard: obesity that kills

Today's NFL linemen have to be bigger than ever.

Today’s guest post comes to us from our colleague Len Jernigan of North Carolina.

Most people know that football is dangerous. We see reports of NFL players with every kind of gruesome injury imaginable. Even suicidal depression, it turns out, is a potential hazard of playing football. Of course playing in the NFL is both rewarding and risky.

There is one common health problem among NFL players, however, that usually goes unmentioned. We thought it was a fitting topic for our workers’ law blog because NFL linemen must embrace this condition in order to stay in peak performance. It’s called chronic obesity.

These days, to be an NFL lineman, you not only have to be fast and strong, you also have to be fat.

Since the 1990s, Continue reading

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Senior Partner Edgar Romano Included in 2011 Top Trial Lawyers in N.Y.

Edgar Romano

Edgar Romano, Senior Partner at Pasternack Tilker Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano LLP, has been included in the 2011 Top 100 Trial Lawyers in N.Y. by the National Trial Lawyers, an organization composed of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers from each state.

Membership in the National Trial Lawyers organization is obtained through special invitation only to those attorneys who exemplify superior qualifications, reputation, influence, stature, and profile as trial lawyers, both civil plaintiff and criminal defense.

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Victor Pasternack to Speak at DECISIONS 2011, 9/9 – 9/10

Partner Victor Pasternack will be presenting on Workers’ Compensation at DECISIONS 2011 in New York City.

Keep abreast of the key developments in tort law by attending DECISIONS 2011. This annual event is the most comprehensive and effective way to review last year’s decisions, amendments and other changes in New York tort law

NEW YORK CITY: FRIDAY & SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH & 10TH
Prince George Ballroom

15 East 27th St., New York, NY
Member $420 | Non-Member $520 | Young Lawyer & Govt Employee $320

Lawyers who attend both NYC sessions will receive 13 credits, including 2 Ethics credits. Attendees will receive the Decisions 2011 book and CD-ROM.

Register here.

Register by September 2 and receive $30 off your registration fee.

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Employee Penalized For Not Following Safety Rules

In this guest post our colleague Jon L. Gelman of New Jersey highlights a worrisome recent ruling. In the state of Missouri, if an employee does not follow their employers’ safety rules and is injured, their award may be significantly reduced. He points out that this logic works in opposition of what the workers’ compensation act was originally supposed to do, which is to protect workers. With that as its goal, “It would be far more logical to… prevent the unsafe work in the first place.”

An employee’s workers’ compensation award maybe be reduced for failing to follow an employer’s safety rules.

An employee’s workers’ compensation award maybe be reduced for failing to follow an employer’s safety rules. A Missouri Court ruled that reducing an injured employee’s award by 25% to 50% for failing to follow an employer’s safety rules was not unconstitutional. Continue reading

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Workers’ Comp Benefits Off the Work Site: Work At Home, Travel

This post is the first of many you’ll be seeing on our blog by guest writer Tom Domer of Wisconsin. In this post, Tom notes that over 18-million people work from home today. He smartly questions the traditional criteria for whether work done from home can be applied to a workers’ compensation claim. 

We are living in a digital age.

After all, we’re living in a digital age. Increased use of things like cell phones and laptops challenges standard ideas of what a work-related injury is. 

A whole host of “Course of Employment” issues accompanies the increased prevalence of work done at home, enhanced significantly by computer technology. Many employees contract with their employers to work frequently or exclusively from their homes. Does an accident in the employee’s kitchen Continue reading

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Mental Injuries in Workers’ Compensation

Today we’re featuring another guest post by our colleague Tom Domer of Wisconsin. Here Tom shares the legal tests that establish whether damages for mental injury will be awarded. For mental injuries following a physical injury, the standard is “Is the mental disability… related to the work injury?” For cases that don’t involve a physical injury, some states require that the stress that triggered the mental injury be extraordinary “beyond those stresses than the day to day emotional strain and tension which all employees must experience.” While these criteria can be difficult to meet, mental injuries are real and can be as debilitating as physical ones.

From time to time, headline stories appear in the national news about workers claiming compensation benefits for “mental stress” injuries.  Continue reading

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Why is the US Still in the Asbestos Business?

This is another post by frequent contributor Jon L. Gelman who practices law in New Jersey. The post speaks for itself – shockingly the US has still not banned asbestos. We haven’t mined it here since 2002, but we import it from Canada. The fact of the matter is that, as Jon points out “the US imports 99% of the asbestos it consumes from Canada.” In 2010 that was over 1,000 metric tons.

The US still has not banned asbestos. The recently released US Geological Survey just published the latest statistics reporting that 1,040 metric tons of asbestos, a known carcinogen and the cause of mesothelioma, Continue reading

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