Quote of the day
"When innocent parties are charged and you don't have an opportunity to tell your side ... you don't know what's going to happen. You begin to wonder, is the truth going to come out. But the judicial system did what it does."
Sandy Blunt, director of North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance, after prosecutors drop charges of conspiracy against Blunt and another agency executive
Florida Insurance Chief Rejects NCCI Filing
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty disapproves the most recent workers’ compensation rate filing by the National Council on Compensation Insurance, which had requested a 16.5 percent decrease. McCarty wants NCCI to amend the filing to reduce rates by 18.4 percent. South Florida Business Journal
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WSI Execs Ask for Whistleblower Protection; Director Reinstated
As North Dakota state workers’ compensation board votes to reinstate Sandy Blunt as director of Workforce Safety and Insurance in response to prosecutors’ dropping criminal conspiracy charges against him, three agency executives ask the state’s attorney general for whistleblower protection, saying they fear retaliation for disclosing irregularities at their agency. Meanwhile, a top agency lawyer contends a prosecutor defamed her in dismissing the felony charges against Blunt and another agency executive last week. By Dale Wetzel, AP via Grand Forks Herald
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Commentary: ‘Comptroversy’ in the Mountain State Legislature
Since it was announced during this month’s legislative interims meetings that a special oversight committee would be formed to govern workers’ compensation policies, battle lines appear to be forming between West Virginia’s legislative chambers. Beckley Register-Herald
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Q&A: Missouri Employers Mutual CEO
Dennis Smith, president and chief executive of Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance, discusses a host of questions, including the key challenges Show Me State employers face in the workers’ compensation realm. By Maria Hoover, Springfield Business Journal
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Japan Railway Workers Win Asbestos-Related Workers’ Comp
Three subcontracted asbestos-removal workers of West Japan Railway Co. win a workers’ compensation award, the first subcontractors found to have suffered asbestos-related diseases. By AP via Yomiuri Shimbun
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Oklahoma Appeals Court Rules on Conflicting Facts
It is the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Court’s job to determine the facts witnesses present conflicting testimony, and it is not the duty of the appeals court to criticize the trial court’s reasoning, the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals rules. By Janice Francis-Smith, Journal Record (Oklahoma City)
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Granite State Law Rattles Construction Industry
A new law in New Hampshire would require hundreds of small contractors to acquire workers’ compensation coverage if they are working on a construction site in the state. Some contractors reportedly skirt workers’ comp requirements by making one or two employees principal members of a limited liability company and hiring subcontractors to do the rest of the work. By Kate Davidson, Concord Monitor
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Firefighter Still Recovering, Five Years After Acoustic Concussion
A former New York firefighter, who suffered a brain injury in 2002 when a fire truck horn blasted near his head, and who struggled with the workers’ compensation system for years following the incident, believes that a better diagnosis of his injury could have limited his medical problems. Brent Feuz, is unable to work but spends his time trying to organize other brain injury survivors to rally for a diagnosis protocol. By Jennifer Gish, Albany Times Union [With Photo] Go to the Full Story…