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Settlement Reached In Syngenta Suit

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Another decision in a class-action lawsuit has been made, this time in favor of the plaintiffs in the case. The case involved corn grown from a company called Syngenta which was genetically modified. Several shipments were then rejected from China, a large importer of U.S. corn because the Chinese government had not approved the two strains that were then mixed in with other U.S. corn shipments. The Washington Post reports on the settlement and details. Tens of thousands of farmers, grain handling agencies, and ethanol producers will share in a $1.5 billion settlement reached against Syngenta. Syngenta, a Swiss-based agriculture firm, introduced genetically modified corn seed called Viptera and Duracade for the 2011 growing season. They introduced the seed before having the approval for import in China in 2014. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed that this decision cut off access to the lucrative China market and caused prices to drop for several years. China rejected…

I Think I was Fired Due to My St. Louis Workers Compensation Claim

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It is illegal for an employer to retaliate against any employee for making a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. In the state of Missouri, companies and employers are required to carry workmens compensation insurance coverage. This is a type of insurance that is used to ensure that if a worker is injured while working, they are fairly compensated for their injuries. Often, employees may be afraid to tell their employers when they are injured on the job. The fear of retaliation keeps many employees from telling their employer, therefore paying for their injuries on their own and having no recourse to have their medical bills paid. If you are an employee and you were injured while were working, then you do not have to fear reprisal from filing a claim. It is illegal for an employer to retaliate against any employee for making a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. Workers’ compensation eligibility is not based on negligence. That means that you can…

EARLY RETIREMENT INCLUDES A COMPLETE ESTATE PLAN

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By Lane V. Erickson, Idaho Estate Planning Attorney It is the dream of almost every person who is an employee. All of us envision ourselves retiring early and enjoying our free time traveling, and doing those things that we don’t get to do while we are working. While this is a dream for most people, there are some people who do in fact retire early. Regardless of whether you are seeking early retirement or are simply thinking about your future, you should include a complete estate plan as part of your planning. Here are three specific things that you should know about estate planning can help you in your future regardless of whether you have or are about to retire early. Continue reading → The post EARLY RETIREMENT INCLUDES A COMPLETE ESTATE PLAN appeared first on Idaho Law Blog.

4 Mistakes to Avoid When Applying for Disability Benefits

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Applying for disability benefits can be an overwhelming, intimidating process. There is a lot at stake – your health, your financial security, your ability to care for yourself and your family. When you’re struggling with a life-changing injury or illness, the stress can be difficult to handle. And, unfortunately, it is easy to make a few key errors that may result in a denial of benefits. If you simply cannot afford to make mistakes, read on for advice from top SSD benefits attorneys: Mistake #1: Lack of Medical Evidence Your injury is obvious to you. But the Disability Determination Service (DDS) requires proof. Many applications for benefits are denied because there is not enough medical evidence backing them. Even when people have conditions that are on the list of “Compassionate Allowances” (so severe they automatically qualify the sufferer for benefits), they must still provide documentation. To qualify for SSD, you must prove that you:…

Employer Catering to Discriminatory Harassment and Preferences by Influential Outsiders

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Dallan F. Flake, Employer Liability for Non-Employee Discrimination, 58 B.C. L. Rev. 1169 (2017). Michael Z. Green In a recent Boston College Law Review article, Employer Liability for Non-Employee Discrimination, Professor Dallan Flake (Ohio Northern) addresses a subject that has generally perplexed me as well as many employees and employers—how courts can develop a cohesive framework under Title VII to address employer liability for employment discrimination actions due to the behavior of company outsiders. In particular, I have always wondered about the usual trope that customer preference cannot be a defense in discrimination claims while recognizing that there is nothing more important to employers than the preferences of their customers. This article catalogues a host of very interesting cases describing the acts of customers and other non-employee harassers or their biased preferences that raised liability concerns for employers in discrimination claims brought…

Cybersecurity: CMS to Issue New Medicare Cards

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To protect unauthorized disclosure in case of a cybersecurity attack, the Federal government will be issuing new Medicare cards as of April 1, 2018. The rollout and transition will be over a one-year basis. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015, requires The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS] to remove Social Security Numbers (SSNs) from all Medicare cards by April 2019. A new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) will replace the SSN-based Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) on the new Medicare cards for Medicare transactions like billing, eligibility status, and claim status. You can find more details in a CMS 5/30/17 press release and latest Open Door Forum slides.The workers' compensation community, under new Federal rules, will also be required to maintain better cyber hygiene, have better application update procedures and establish an adequate plan to respond to breaches. Client and…

Trump nominates General Counsel to EEOC

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It's the attorney who won the ground-breaking "pregnancy accommodation" case.

Case Study: $13,885.64 in Savings Through Resolution of Conditional Payment Recovery Dispute

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Complying with the ever-changing rules and regulations covering Medicare Secondary Payer issues is challenging enough, but adding in the complex conditional payment resolution and recovery process could push a workers’ compensation payer off the deep end.   Unless you strictly follow all the requirements of this system, you risk a referral for collections to the U.S. Department of Treasury. Knowing when to call in an expert is a good bet to keep you out of the government’s crosshairs.     Conditional Payments   Medicare does not pay for medical services or treatments which it believes are the responsibility of another entity, such as workers’ compensation. In those cases, Medicare is the secondary payer involved.   A conditional payment occurs when there is evidence that the other entity, workers’ compensation, has not promptly paid the bill. Medicare will then make the payment on the condition it will be reimbursed once the…

Credibility Concerns Sink Workers' Compensation Claim

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In the latest of a series of back-and-forth court rulings, an Illinois appellate court denied a woman’s workers’ compensation claim because it believed she had not sufficiently proven that her injuries arose from her work. The case of Rechenberg v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission started with an arbitrator awarding the claimant more than 34 weeks of temporary total disability benefits and medical expenses. The IWCC reversed the decision, which the claimant appealed. A circuit court overturned the IWCC decision, saying it went against the manifest weight of the evidence. The appellate court ruled that the circuit court was mistaken in its decision. The case against the claimant came down to an accident that occurred outside of work and doubts about her credibility. The Case The claimant is a nurse seeking workers’ compensation benefits due to a torn shoulder tendon she claims arose out of her work. The woman cited a day at work when…

Aggravation of a Preexisting Condition in Georgia Workers’ Compensation Claims

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Luckily for employees, they do not have to be in perfect health before an injury in order to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits in Georgia. This means that if an employee is injured on the job, the employee may qualify for benefits if the work injury aggravates a preexisting injury. Court Rejects Employee’s Aggravation Claim In a recent case, one state’s supreme court considered whether an employee’s left knee injury aggravated a preexisting injury to his right knee. In that case, the employee injured his left knee while he was working for the city’s street department, first in 2009 and again in 2012. His injuries were covered under the state’s workers’ compensation act. However, the employee later reported pain in his right knee, and he was diagnosed with severe degenerative joint disease of the right knee. The employee underwent surgery on his right knee but did not seek workers’ compensation approval for the procedure.…

Can Non-Economic Damages Be Recovered Through Workers’ Compensation?

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In most cases, you are not allowed to sue your employer and recover non-economic damages in Missouri. Those who run a business or company in Missouri are required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. Workers’ compensation can also be taken out by a privately owned company, and it seeks to ensure that a company has the assets necessary to cover an employee if they are hurt while working. It is also a way to make sure that if an employee is injured while at work, a business doesn’t go bankrupt paying for it. The workers’ compensation system is set up so that both employers and employees are covered should someone get hurt. The only drawback to collecting workers’ compensation benefits is that although the employee doesn’t have to prove negligence on behalf of their employers, they are also not entitled to collect non-economic damages. Non-economic damages are things that the injured person experiences both physically and emotionally, like…

What Exactly is Double Jeopardy?

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Just about everyone has heard the term “double jeopardy.” However, what does it really mean? Is it something that moves past tabloids and out of real-life courtrooms? Absolutely. In fact, one of the most critical protections provided by the Constitution is the guarantee that you can never be “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” In other words, you can never be charged with the same crime of which you have been acquitted But the law varies across the country when it comes to double jeopardy. Can you be charged a second time for a similar crime regarding the same incident you’ve previously been acquitted of? It may depend on a special “test.” Many states have adopted the so-called Blockburger test to determine if two statutes are similar enough that they constitute the same offense and would violate double jeopardy. In 2017, New Jersey joined the group of states that recognize this test. The…

Nudging American Drivers To Drive More Safely Might Slash Staggering Motor Vehicle Death Toll

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Improving road safety among drivers is a matter of psychology — traffic psychology. An entirely new psychology discipline — traffic psychology — has emerged from the need to understand why drivers act the way they do behind the wheel despite knowing their decisions will endanger their lives and those of their passengers. Texting or calling […]

New Hearing On Speed Of Takata Airbag Recall

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Recently, Takata airbags came under further scrutiny when lawsuits were filed against automakers claiming they were aware of the issue and claimed that they misrepresented the safety of their vehicles. The recall efforts aren’t going so well either. Estimates indicate that about only half of the vehicles affected have been repaired. Now. Legislators are scheduling a hearing to come to an understanding on how the recall and repair efforts are going. Auto News reports on the hearing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that only just over half of the estimated 40 million faulty airbags have been repaired. The airbags, which explode with deadly force, have been responsible for 22 deaths worldwide. Ford Motor Company recently recalled about 33,000 older Ranger model pickup trucks after a second death related to the airbags. The other 20 deaths have been in Honda vehicles. Now, U.S. Senators are going to convene a special hearing to learn about the…

Court Rejects Plaintiff’s Premises Liability Case Because Hazard Was “Open and Obvious”

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Earlier this month, a federal appellate court issued a written opinion in a premises liability lawsuit brought by a man who was injured while loading purchased rolls of insulation into his truck. The case required the court to determine whether the large, unstable stack of insulation that fell on top of the plaintiff was an “open and obvious” hazard. Ultimately, the court concluded that the hazard was open and obvious, and thus it determined that the business did not owe a duty to the plaintiff. The case is important for Maryland accident victims to understand because it illustrates one of the avenues a defendant in a Maryland premises liability lawsuit may take in an attempt to evade legal responsibility. The Facts of the Case The plaintiff and his son purchased several large rolls of insulation from the defendant hardware store. Due to their size, the rolls were kept in a separate storage warehouse. The cashier told the plaintiff to drive to the warehouse, where…

How a Joint Statutory Settlement Offer Can Work for You in Your California Personal Injury Case

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Sometimes, even cases that are factually very different from your own can still be very helpful and instructive. For example, it might seem like a wrongful death case stemming from a house fire has little in common with a vehicle or pedestrian accident case, but that isn’t necessarily true. One recent California wrongful death case contained important information about a certain type of statutory case settlement offers, which occur in many types of injury lawsuits, and how they work when there are multiple plaintiffs (which can also happen with some frequency in vehicle accident cases). Whether your personal injury case involves just you and one defendant, or it involves multiple parties, make sure that you are equipped for all possible litigation scenarios by retaining experienced injury counsel for your case. A recent case from Los Angeles County involved the use of these statutory settlement offers. The case arose out of a tragic accident in Southern California. A…

Why Rating Your Pain Matters for Your Iowa Personal Injury Claim

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In the state of Iowa, you are entitled to compensation for pain and suffering for your personal injury claim. This means that if you were injured because of someone else’s fault, and that injury ca... This article Why Rating Your Pain Matters for Your Iowa Personal Injury Claim first appeared on RSH Legal

Preliminary Agreements as Signposts Instead of Mini-Contracts

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Cathy Hwang, Deal Momentum, 65 UCLA L. Rev. (forthcoming, 2018), available at SSRN. Martha Ertman Cathy Hwang’s article Deal Momentum offers empirical evidence to support a new view of preliminary agreements that could reshape the way we think about these hybrids between contract and non-contract. Her data – interviews with deal lawyers and a review of practitioner literature – challenge the conventional wisdom that businesspeople in large mergers and acquisitions hire counsel to draft memoranda of understanding (“MOU”), letters of intent (“LOI”), or term sheets to resolve either deal uncertainty or deal complexity. That view coheres with the standard statement in a LOI – often on every page – that the parties do not intend it legally bind them on substantive provisions such as price. Yet Hwang’s interviews with corporate counsel, her review of practitioner literature and case law suggest that most…

New Laws in Illinois That Take Effect This Year (2018)

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The year is already nearing the end of the first quarter, and numerous laws that were promised have already gone into effect – with a few more trailing behind. Illinois lawmakers have passed over 200 new laws that were expected to hit January 1, 2018, and many of these laws will affect you as a resident; therefore, you should be aware of them and what they mean for the rest of the year. What are the New Laws for 2018 in Chicago? You have a handful of laws that might seem silly, but they were explicitly designed to protect consumers and residents of the state. Other laws will protect business owners, and many others you would not have to worry about unless you were in a specific situation yourself. Price List for Services Here is an interesting new law that went into effect January 1, 2018. In Chicago and the rest of the state, all dry cleaners, hair salons, and tailors are required to provide a price list of their services. The purpose of this law is to create…

Eliminate Physician Dispensing To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs

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One of the driving factors in workers’ compensation cost containment is pharmaceutical waste.  This waste is having a significant impact on the medical costs associated with claims.  Seeking partners that have solutions to reduce waste can lead to a more effective program and benefit all interested stakeholders.     Waste in Pharmacy Benefits Defined   The concept of “waste” can be defined as the extra amount of money spent with no incremental gain in health outcomes.  In the area of pharmacy benefits, this most often takes place when prescription medications are dispensed through more expensive methods of delivery to the injured worker, for example through the physician’s office directly. It can also be the result of inexperienced healthcare consumers—the injured worker—making misinformed decisions on where to receive their prescription medications.     Trends in Work Comp Pharmacy Benefits Costs…
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