What some might call distracted driving, the Court of Appeals of Virginia called a valid workers' compensation claim. As reported at businessinsurance.com, a Virginia hospice nurse glanced at her cell phone while driving. While looking at her phone, she lost control of her vehicle and hit an embankment. She suffered injuries in the...
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Worker Performing Duties Not in Job Description Gets Work Comp Benefits
A Virginia grocery store employee was helping a delivery driver move some cases of beer that the store did not accept. The employee felt pain in her left shoulder after helping the driver for some time. She then tried to move a chair and felt more shoulder pain. She went to a doctor who...
Read MoreDefendants Trying to Pass the Buck on Liability in Wrongful Death Case
Defendants in a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit are fighting each other over liability in a 2004 steam explosion that killed two men on 17th Street in Northwest Washington, D.C. After six years of disputes amongst the various defendants, including the federal government, the case is showing signs of moving forward. The parties...
Read MoreRedskins Kicker Receives Maryland Workers Comp Benefits
The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the Washington Redskins football team has to pay workers’ compensation benefits to its former kicker, Tom Tupa. The appellate ruling upholds a 2009 jury award in Prince George County Circuit Court. The jury awarded Tupa a little over one year’s worth of disability benefits. In 2005, Tupa injured...
Read MoreDC Government Fails to Pay Injured Workers’ Premiums for Nearly a Decade
For nearly a decade, the District of Columbia neglected to pay health and life insurance premiums for city workers injured or killed on the job. A DC auditor found that the city stopped making a majority of the payments in 2001. The city recently paid the...
Read MoreWorker Survives 80 Foot Fall from Virginia Water Tower
A 38-year-old worker fell approximately 80 feet while painting a water tower in Culpeper, Virginia, last month. Rescue workers airlifted the man to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. A second worker was hanging from a safety harness, but responders were able to rescue him and he was not injured. The
Read MoreU.S. Representative Fined for Lack of Workers’ Comp Insurance
The state of Oregon fined David Wu’s campaign $1,000.00 last October for failing to maintain workers’ compensation insurance for the past three years. David Wu is the U.S. Representative for Oregon’s First Congressional District. A Wu campaign worker filed a workers’ compensation claim last October. When the staffer’s health care provider tried to...
Read MoreVirginia Officer’s Battle to Receive Compensation for Injuries Shows System’s Faults
A Virginia police officer suffered an injury while transporting a handcuffed man down a flight of stairs. The man slipped, and the officer grabbed the man’s arm to keep him from falling. The officer immediately felt a sharp pain in his back and groin. Doctors eventually diagnosed him as having a hernia and ruptured...
Read MoreMaryland Workplace Deaths Rise Despite Nationwide Drop
A report from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that workplace deaths in Maryland increased in 2009, rising to 65 from 60 the previous year. Washington, D.C. workplace fatalities numbered 10 in 2009, up from 9 in 2008, and Virginia saw a decrease from 156 to 118. Nationwide, 4,340 workers died...
Read MoreNationwide Study Finds that Workplace Safety is the Most Important Issue for Workers
Last month, the University of Chicago published the results of a study entitled “Public Attitudes Towards and Experiences with Workplace Safety”. The study looked at multiple surveys and polls and found that the most important labor issue for workers is workplace safety. Workplace safety even ranked higher than things like family and maternity leave...
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