Boston workers' compensation benefits

April 5, 2017

Workers’ Compensation Appeal After Big Box Store Injury

In a recent case from the South Carolina Court of Appeals, claimant was working at an employer’s big box hardware store when he was injured on the job. His injury occurred in September 2010 when he slipped and fell. This resulted in a serious injury to his back.

Following initial treatment for his back injury, claimant went to a neurologist who specialized in spinal cord injuries, and he was diagnosed with herniated disc that was compressing his spinal column, and this caused the serious pain from which he was suffering. Continue reading

March 23, 2017

Workers’ Compensation Denied for Costs of Botched Surgery for a Work Injury

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

It’s well-known that employees can be compensated for injuries they sustain the course of employment – and that includes medical expenses. However, what if you are injured in the course of receiving treatment for that work injury? Let’s say it is a case of medical malpractice. Should it be your employer that picks up the tab?

The Wyoming Supreme Court recently took on a case like this, and decided: Yes, but it didn’t apply here. It’s called the second compensable injury rule, and it applies when an initial compensable injury results in an injury or condition that requires additional compensation. Under this rule, a subsequent injury is compensable if it is causally related to the initial work injury that was compensable.

This relates to the general common law theory in Massachusetts under which a tortfeasor liable for the foreseeable consequences of their actions that are caused by subsequent tortfeasors. In layman’s terms, that means the person/ company that caused the original injury can be held responsible for medical malpractice – even if though those injuries weren’t directly a result of the original injury. Continue reading

April 10, 2016

Opioid Use in Boston Workers’ Compensation Cases Posing Serious Health Threat

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Chronic pain is one of the most common claims made to workers’ compensation carriers. There are often a range of treatments, including physical and occupational therapy and medication.

But it’s the medication part that has raised concern over the last two decades. In particular, the prescription of opioid drugs. These are medications that relieve pain by lowering the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain. Some of the most common include Oxycontine (oxycodone), Percocet, Vicodin (hydrocodone), morphine and fentanyl.

These drugs do have a legitimate purpose for those who have suffered a work-related injury. However, problems have been known to arise when opioids are used for long-term treatment. A recent report by WorkCompCentral revealed employees who are taking a medium-to-high dose of opioids for a year or more experience a death rate of 1.75 per 1,000 patients. That may not sound like a lot, but let’s compare that to the death rate for logging and fishing (the riskiest jobs in the U.S.). Those workers face an annual death rate of 1 worker for every 1,000. Opioid users are almost twice as likely to die. Continue reading