Articles Posted in Worker Comp Generally

In Pennsylvania workers’ comp, as in workers’ compensation systems throughout the U.S., the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment is being used to assess disability. In other words, an injured worker’s condition and ability to work is being determined by referencing a book, distancing any subjectivity at all. The Guides are now in the Sixth Edition (some States use a specific edition of the Guides, while others, like PA, use the most recent edition).

As discussed in a previous blog entry, PA has a ridiculously high standard to maintain total disability. In Pennsylvania, an injured worker can be deemed only “partially disabled” if they do not reach 50% “whole body impairment.” For point of comparison, as an example, a “very severe,” “approaching total functional loss,” of the cervical spine can reach a maximum whole body impairment of 30%. For the lumbar spine, the whole body impairment can be as high as 33%. Obviously, a devastating injury to the neck or low back, by these figures, will fall short of 50%. It is completely unrealistic, and just plain mean spirited, however, to suggest that an injured worker with this degree of impairment is capable of employment.

Fortunately, the debate is living on, at least on the Federal level. On November 17, 2010, testimony was given by Emily A. Spieler, J.D., Dean and Edwin W. Hadley Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, before the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections Committee on Education and Labor in the

Though workers’ compensation laws vary from State to State, there are some elements which remain fairly constant. Workers’ compensation laws are generally “no fault” statutes (no need for an injured worker to demonstrate negligence), and they generally exclude the recovery of “pain and suffering.” Workers’ compensation systems also are usually streamlined (as compared to general civil litigation) and procedures are often more relaxed than in ordinary State Court systems.

Therefore, trends, developments and concerns in workers’ compensation systems can frequently be addressed at a level relevant to every State in the Country. Recently, we were contacted by Gregory M. Duhl, Associate Professor of Law at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota, regarding an article he co-authored with Jaclyn Milner, an attorney in Minnesota. Since the article deals with the impact of social networking sites on workers’ compensation cases in general, it certainly appears to be of interest to injured workers in Pennsylvania, as well as every other State in the Country.

The full article can be found at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1675026 . I encourage all injured workers, and workers’ compensation attorneys, to read the article carefully. Our society is becoming more and more technologically advanced, and many injured workers, and perhaps even their attorneys, do not realize how social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, can impact a workers’ compensation case. As the article notes, both the information within social networking sites themselves, as well as the “guidance” for when and where future surveillance may be productive, these sites can be an enormous liability to a workers’ compensation case.