June 3, 2016 By

New Jersey waste and recycle giant Action Environmental Group has implemented company-wide measures to improve employee safety and minimize the risk of workers’ compensation claims.

According to the company’s Director of Safety, Ken Levine, the company has been using video cameras for more than a year, filming employees as they go about their duties on the road and during trash pickups. The stated objectives of the program—to learn from any accidents or incidents that do occur, and to provide training opportunities to all employees.

Levine said that the cameras, mounted on the dashboard of each vehicle, monitor both the driver and the road ahead, so that company officials can determine reactions to different situations. Company officials do not review the videos, but send them over to a third party for analysis and to determine if drivers are following safety guidelines and abiding by the laws, specifically with respect to seat belts and other safety measures. If the third-party vendor observes violations, the tapes are sent to Action Environmental and are used to coach employees to avoid safety risks.

According to Levine, during the first three months of the program, there was nearly a 50% drop in the incidents of risky behavior by drivers. He said the company has also seen a similar decrease in workers’ compensation claims filed by company employees. The company has also used videotape as evidence in workers’ compensation proceedings.

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At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured people throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact us online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Workers Compensation Tagged With: , , , , ,
May 23, 2016 By Leave a Comment

So you’ve been hurt on the job and you’ve filed an application for workers’ compensation benefits. If your injury isn’t permanent, you may be looking forward to returning to work, but fear that your position will be filled in your absence. Can you protect your job? What can you do to ensure that you’ll have a job to return to when you’re healthy?

As a matter of law in New Jersey, your employer cannot terminate you because you’ve filed a workers’ compensation claim. In fact, your employer cannot discriminate against you in any way because of your claim. So you can’t be denied benefits that workers in similar jobs receive, can’t be denied a raise or a promotion, or given undesirable assignments as punishment for filing a workers’ compensation claim. Obviously, it can be difficult to prove some of these things, but if you can, you will have a claim for discrimination against your employer.

You also have rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a federal statute that protects workers. The FMLA allows you to take up to 12 weeks off (without pay) for legitimate medical reasons without the risk of losing your job. If your employer must fill the position in your absence, you are entitled to your job or a similar position when you return to work.

If you belong to a union, you should also check with union officials regarding the protection of your job. Most union agreements include provisions guaranteeing the right to return to the same or a similar position after a legitimate medical leave.

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At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Workers Compensation Tagged With: , , ,
May 6, 2016 By Leave a Comment

When you’ve been hurt on the job, the first thing you want to do is notify your employer and file a workers’ compensation claim? But what if you’re not on the company’s payroll? Maybe you’re paid off the books, so the company can avoid payroll taxes. Maybe the company wrongfully considers you an independent contractor, a fairly common way that employers try to avoid responsibility for paying workers’ compensation claims.

If you are simply paid off the books, you will always have the opportunity to collect workers’ compensation benefits from the employer. If you meet all the tests to be an employee, other than being on the payroll, you are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits as long as two conditions are met: you were working for the company and your injury occurred at work.

If you have been designated as an independent contractor, the situation becomes a little more complicated. The IRS has a test to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The workers’ compensation judge will typically look at the test and see whether you meet the criteria for being an employee. If you do, you can file a workers’ compensation claim, regardless of how the employer classifies you. The workers’ compensation board generally won’t let an employer avoid responsibility for a work-related injury simply by calling an employee an independent contractor.

If, however, you meet the test to qualify as an independent contractor, you won’t be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits unless you can show fraud or misrepresentation by the employer. For example, if you were led to believe that you were an employee, there’s a good chance you will be treated as such.

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At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Work - Related Injury, Workers Compensation Tagged With: ,
April 21, 2016 By Leave a Comment

When you’ve been hurt on the job, your first (and often only) recourse is to file a workers’ compensation claim. But don’t be surprised if what is obviously a legitimate claim is turned down. A large percentage of initial claims are rejected as a matter of course, as your employer and the workers’ compensation insurance company seek to minimize costs. One of the most common arguments used to deny workers’ compensation benefits is the assertion that the injury was pre-existing or only happened because of a pre-existing condition.

Alleging that your injury was caused by a pre-existing condition simply says that you had some prior injury and what you are experiencing now is due to that prior injury. For example, if you were in a car accident and hurt your back, your employer and/or the workers’ compensation insurance company may assert that any discomfort you experience because of work-related trauma is only because of your prior injury—that the pain you feel is entirely because of your earlier injury or that the work-related injury exacerbated a condition that made you more susceptible to injury.

Just because your employer can show the existence of a pre-existing condition, however, does not mean that you can receive workers’ compensation benefits. If you can show that your employer was negligent and you would not have suffered any injury without that negligence, you can still receive compensation. Furthermore, if you can show that the pre-existing condition had completely healed, any new injury is compensable. For example, if you had a car accident 20 years ago and hurt your back, you can still recover workers’ compensation benefits for a back injury at work if you can demonstrate that you had medical treatment for the car injury and that it had healed.

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At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Workers Compensation Tagged With: , ,
April 7, 2016 By

According to a statistics gathered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), automatic nailers or nail guns are responsible for nearly 40,000 ER visits every year. But the risk is not limited to construction workers. The CDC found that almost a third (32%) of annual nail gun injuries are sustained by consumers.

Nail guns are generally one of two types: contact nail guns or sequential nail guns. With a contact nail gun, there’s a spring loaded safety mechanism at the tip of the “barrel.” You can hold down the trigger and the gun will automatically fire when you make contact with something, as it will disengage the safety mechanism. With a sequential gun, you must first depress the safety mechanism and then pull the trigger. If you have already pulled the trigger and try to depress the safety mechanism, it won’t work. Not surprisingly, the CDC found twice as many injuries involving contact guns.

The Principal Causes of Nail Gun Injuries

Researchers found a number of causes of nail gun injuries:

  • Unfortunately, in many instances, people are hurt because they have bypassed or permanently disengaged the safety mechanisms
  • It’s not uncommon for a gun to double fire, with the second nail coming out after the gun has been pulled away from the board
  • A nail can ricochet off a metal surface or even a knot in a board
  • A framing nail can easily penetrate a stud, causing injury if a worker’s hand is on the back side of the board
  • A worker may accidentally push the gun against a leg, hand or other body part
  • A worker may miss the board, even though the safety mechanism has been depressed

Contact the Law Office of Taylor & Boguski

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured people throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact us online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Construction Accidents, Personal Injury, Work - Related Injury, Workers Compensation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
March 27, 2016 By

According to an annual census compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, nearly 4,700 people (4,679) died in 2014 as a result of occupational injuries, an increase of approximately two percent over the previous year. The death toll equates to about three workers out of every 100,000 in the United States.

Here are some of the key conclusions from the 2014 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries:

  • Deaths from slips and fall rose approximately 10%, from 724 to 793
  • There were more deaths among people who were self-employed—also a 10 percent increase, from 950 to 1,047
  • Occupations that saw the greatest increases included mining (17%), agriculture (14%) and manufacturing (9%). Deaths declined for government workers (12%) and in private, service-related sectors.
  • Older workers suffered more occupational deaths—there was a 9% increase in fatal accidents involving workers over 55.
  • Among ethnic workers, Asians and African-Americans saw increases, while Latino/Hispanic workers saw a decline
  • Work-related deaths involving women increased 13% over the prior year

Types of Workplace Accidents

In 2014, motor vehicle accidents accounted for four of every 10 occupational deaths. More than half of those fatalities involved collisions, and 17% involved pedestrian deaths. There was also a 34% increase in rail vehicle deaths.

Deaths caused by workplace violence declined over the prior year, from 773 to 749. One telling statistic—in workplace homicides where the victim was female, the perpetrator was most likely to be a relative or domestic partner. However, in workplace homicides where the victim was male, the greatest likelihood was that the assailant was attempting to rob the business.

Less than 10 percent (372) workers were killed in so-called “catastrophic” accidents, where more than one worker was killed in a single accident.

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At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

 

Filed Under: Personal Injury, Work - Related Injury, Workers Compensation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
March 17, 2016 By

Seven construction workers were injured in a Hackensack scaffolding collapse in early December—three critically. Authorities say the workers were performing repairs on the roof of an apartment complex on Tracy Place around 3:30 in the afternoon when the scaffolding fell. There were six workers on the scaffold at the time it collapsed. The workers fell approximately 45 feet to the ground.

The accident occurred at an apartment complex known as ‘The Brookdale’, which has approximately 200 apartments in 10 buildings.

According to witnesses, the scaffold was a makeshift one. One neighbor, who declined to be identified, said that it wasn’t “a real scaffolding,” but was “jerry-rigged” together with ladders and planks. The neighbor said the way the system was set up, it did not seem reasonable that it could support the weight of all the workers. Authorities confirmed that no permit had been pulled to do the work on the roof. Both OSHA and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Identification reportedly came to the site for an investigation.

Under state and federal laws and regulations, building owners and general contractors have to take certain steps to minimize the risk of injury to workers. Specifically, when workers are employed at levels above the ground, they must be provided with adequate safety equipment, which may include:

  • Properly installed scaffolding
  • Safety harnesses or hoists
  • Well-maintained and sufficient ladders

Witnesses said that the “scaffold” setup at the apartment complex consisted of so-called “ladder jacks” holding walk-boards between two extension ladders. Preliminary investigations indicated that there were no rails on the scaffolding, and that the workers did not have safety harnesses or similar devices. Authorities believe that the workers, who were unsupervised at the time, exceeded the weight limit of the walkboard.

Contact a Workers’ Compensation Lawyer Today

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured people – including workplace accidents and construction accidents – throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Construction Accidents, Current Events, Personal Injury, Work - Related Injury, Workers Compensation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
October 20, 2015 By

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Workers’ Compensation

Under the laws of every state, if you have suffered an injury on the job, you can seek benefits through the state’s workers’ compensation laws. While certain types of injuries are clearly covered—traumatic injury and repetitive stress/motion injuries are almost always covered—some are less certain. For workers who have been exposed to conditions that cause post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, many states have struggled to determine whether workers’ compensation should be provided.

The Sources of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Work-related PTSD has been reported as resulting from a broad range of events, including:

  • Witnessing work-related acts of violence, including co-worker attacks
  • Working in jobs that necessarily involve danger, violence or frightening activities, such as law enforcement, fire prevention, paramedic services or emergency medicine
  • Exposure to threats of violence by co-workers

The Basis for Compensation for Mental Disability in New Jersey

Under established New Jersey law, an employee may be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits for mental disability or injury (which covers PTSD) if five requirements can be shown:

  • The employee’s working conditions were stressful
  • Credible evidence must show that the employee found the working conditions stressful
  • The identified “stressful working conditions must be unique to the specific workplace
  • There must be medical testimony demonstrating a “psychiatric disability”—the finding cannot be based on the mere statement of the employee
  • The workplace must have been a (not necessarily “the”) material cause of the psychiatric disability

The Impact of a Pre-Existing Condition

One of the principal challenges in successfully prosecuting a workers’ compensation claim for PTSD or almost any other mental disability is the concept of a “pre-existing condition.” With most compensable workplace injuries, the employer is said to take the employee as they found them, i.e., if an employee has brittle bones or a weak heart, the employee can still seek workers’ compensation benefits if the condition is aggravated at work. However, in a recent New Jersey case, the court of appeals found that such is not the case with respect to mental disability. The court held that a potential claimant, who had experienced sexual abuse as a child, could not recover workers’ compensation benefits because of psychological injuries suffered when a threatening environment at work triggered reactions tied to the childhood sexual abuse.

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At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Workers Compensation
July 1, 2015 By

Connecticut Legislature Seeks to Expand Work Comp Coverage for Psychological Injury

Man under stressThe Connecticut legislature is entertaining two separate proposals to increase workers’ compensation benefits for people who experience psychological or emotional distress related to exposure to workplace violence. Efforts to amend the state’s workers’ compensation laws to address this concern have failed in each of the last two legislative sessions.

Connecticut seeks to join New Jersey and some other nearby states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York) in allowing workers to recover compensation for so-called “mental-mental” injuries. Workers’ compensation customarily views psychological injury three ways:

  • Physical-mental injuries, where a physical injury leads to mental disability, i.e., a blow to the head leads to memory loss or brain injury. These types of injuries are almost always compensable.
  • Mental-physical injuries, where stress, depression, anxiety or other mental conditions caused by some work-related activity result in physical problems, such as high blood pressure or heart disease. These types of injuries are frequently compensable.
  • Mental-mental injuries, where some mental experience at work, such as witnessing an accident, causes emotional or psychological impairment. These types of injuries are the most difficult to prove, and getting compensation for them poses significant challenges.

Ironically, Connecticut routinely provided workers’ compensation benefits to people suffering emotional or mental distress, even in the absence of physical symptoms, until 1993. Since the legislature amended the workers’ compensation laws that year, claimants in Connecticut may only recover for mental or emotional injuries if there are also physical injuries.

The bills before the Connecticut legislature specifically address the situation where a worker either witnesses the death or serious injury of a co-worker, is exposed to workplace violence, or witnesses the aftermath of either. The bill is opposed by ambulance workers, who fear that their workers’ compensation premiums will skyrocket if the bill is passed.

Contact Taylor & Boguski

At Taylor & Boguski, we have more than 70 years of combined experience representing injured workers across New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, send us an e-mail or call us at 856-200-8989.

Filed Under: Workers Compensation
June 3, 2015 By

Tennessee Legislature Considers “Workers’ Compensation Option”

Tennessee CapitalJoining the trend set by Texas and Oklahoma, the state of Tennessee is looking at a statute that will create a “free market” alternative to the requirement that Tennessee employers carry a policy or workers’ compensation insurance. Sponsors say there is strong legislative support to amend the state’s workers’ compensation laws to reduce costs to employers while still protecting workers and their families.

The main thrust of the proposed law is to allow private employers to “opt-out” of the state’s currently mandated workers’ compensation program and set up their own plans for compensating injured workers. The statute would require that employers meet certain financial requirements to qualify to opt out. The plan would not be accessible to employers in either coal mining or construction, because of the inherent job risks.

Proponents say the bill would allow many businesses to cut workers’ compensation costs in half.

One of the essential components of the workers’ compensation program in Tennessee, as in New Jersey and other states, is the “exclusive remedy” provision. As a general rule, when employers have a valid policy of workers’ compensation insurance, an injured worker must use the state’s workers’ compensation system as his or her “exclusive remedy” to recover for workplace injuries. Under the proposed Tennessee law, employers would lose this protection if they opt out of the state-mandated program.

Sponsors of the bill point to alleged successes in Texas and Oklahoma, citing statistics that show that approximately one out of every three employers in Texas opt out of the state’s workers’ compensation program. Nonetheless, employers have been able to successfully manage their own injury protection plans. Sponsors also note that the state currently allows cities, counties and school districts, as well as employers with fewer than five employees, to opt out.

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Filed Under: Workers Compensation
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