Quote of the day
"What have I learned from all this? Don't work in fast food."
David Gross, who was burned at work in a fryer accident and was involved in a workers' comp dispute that twice ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court
N.C. to See Lowest Rate Boost in Four Years
After a compromise between the North Carolina Rate Bureau and state insurance officials, workers’ comp rates for North Carolina employers will rise an average 1.6 percent in 2008, the lowest increase since 2004. The bureau originally had sought a 5.9 increase. By David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer
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Buckeye State Ruling Preserves No-Fault Coverage
A recent Ohio Supreme Court ruling in favor of a former fast food worker who was burned in a fryer accident was crucial for Ohio workers because it preserved the “no-fault” coverage of Ohio’s workers’ comp system, according to the worker’s attorneys. The franchise fired him three weeks after the 2003 accident because they say he had ignored repeated safety warnings. By Jim DeBrosse, Dayton Daily News [With Audio] Go to the Full Story…
Federal Prosecutor Calls Investment Plan ‘Suicidal’
An assistant U.S. attorney says the risk Pittsburgh investment manager Mark Lay took with $215 million of Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation funds in a Bermuda-based hedge fund could be equated with someone driving more than 7,000 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone. By AP via Akron Beacon Journal
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WSI Ordered to Correct Open Meetings Violation
North Dakota’s workers compensation board of directors is taking steps to fix a violation of the state’s open meetings law. According to an assistant attorney general, Workforce Safety and Insurance officials should have notified the public that the board had amended a meeting agenda when the board met for training and strategic planning. By AP via Dickinson Press
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Missouri County ‘Readjusts’ to Stay in Fund
Officials in Scott County, Mo., which has been on the Missouri Association of Counties’ watch list, is trying an accident-prevention tack cut down on potential workers’ comp claims. Getting kicked out of the association would be a “disaster,” according to the county’s presiding commissioner.
Go to the full story by Matt Sanders, Southeast Missourian
Go to the full story by Michelle Felter, Sikeston Standard Democrat
Opinion: Another Win for First State’s Self-Insurance Bandwagon
Various studies have ranked Delaware in the top five or 10 states for workers’ comp costs, so it’s welcome news that 26 towns and two counties have formed a self-insurance group to slash them. Wilmington News-Journal
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Canada Still Promotes Asbestos to Developing World
Once heralded as the “magic mineral” for its durability in construction projects, asbestos now is responsible for 90,000 deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. And although Canada does not use much of it anymore, the country is one of the carcinogenic mineral’s biggest purveyors, selling 95 percent of the output from the country’s two remaining mines to foreign countries. By Martin Mittelstaedt, Toronto Globe and Mail
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