Worker's Steep, Sudden Decline Due to On-the-Job Exposure, Court Finds

The Tennessee Supreme Court's workers' compensation panel upheld an award of death benefits to a steelworker's widow after her husband's physical condition rapidly deteriorated on a work trip without warning, resulting in his death. The court decided she had successfully proved that his death was linked to an occupational exposure, though experts could not point to exactly what had been inhaled. Dennis Holbert worked for the steel installer JBM Inc. On Aug. 12, 2012, he went to Stockertown, Pennsylvania, to work on an installation project at a cement plant. A little over a w...