Vol. 6, Issue 42

Find Solutions & Strategies                   October 19, 2015

ProPublica/NPR Report on Corporate America's Campaign for Opt Out Laws 
In This Issue
A Note From the Editor
inside corporate america's campaign to ditch workers' comp
One Texas lawyer is helping companies opt out of workers' compensation and write their own rules. What does it mean for injured workers?

By Michael Grabell, ProPublica, and Howard Berkes, NPR

S
tanding before a giant map in his Dallas office, Bill Minick doesn't seem like anyone's idea of a bomb thrower. But backed by some of the biggest names in corporate America, this mild-mannered son of an evangelist is plotting a revolution in how companies take care of injured workers.

His idea: Let them opt out of state workers' compensation laws - and write their own rules.

Minick swept his hand past pushpins marking the headquarters of Walmart, McDonald's and dozens of his other well-known clients, and hailed his plan as not only cheaper for employers, but better for workers too...
read more. 
LARSON'S SPOTLIGHT ON RECENT CASES
Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., our Feature National Columnist, is the co-author of Larson's Workers' Compensation Law (LexisNexis). 
  
New York: Nurse Gets 90 Percent Wage Loss Award for Hand Sanitizer Allergy. An employee sustained a causally related 90 percent loss of wage-earning capacity under N.Y. Workers' Comp. Law � 15(3)(w) and (5-a) since the employee's wage-earning capacity was based upon her actual earnings at a...read more.

Iowa: Occasional Work at Home Does Not Create Dual Employment Premises. In a case of first impression, a court held that catching up on occasional work at home or completing tasks at home that could be completed at the employer's premises is an insufficient basis...read more.

Oklahoma: Multiple Injury Trust Liability Hinges on Prior Adjudication of Disability. Where a claimant, who had no previously adjudicated injury, sustained a work-related injury in 2009, and a trial court determined that as a result of the 2009 incident the claimant had sustained...read more.

Louisiana: Trial Court May Not Rule on Constitutionality Issue at Preliminary Injunction Hearing. The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that a district court erred when it determined, following a hearing on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, that various provisions of the medical treatment schedule...read more.
national & state news

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