OH - Supreme Court Vacates Writ Directing Commission to Consider Adult's Status as Dependent
06/29/2026 | 0
The Ohio Supreme Court vacated a decision by an appellate court directing the Industrial Commission to consider whether a worker’s adult daughter was entitled to death benefits as a dependent.
Darrell W. Holderman worked as a security officer for Merchant Security Services of Dayton, Ohio Inc. He was shot and killed by a prisoner he was guarding in June 2022.
Holderman’s daughter applied for death benefits. She was 39 at the time and alleged that she lived with Holderman and her two minor children. The daughter asserted that he made all payments on the mortgage, trash and sewer s
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The Connecticut Appellate Court ruled that a worker’s catastrophic injuries were not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of a vendor’s presumed failure to secure its products to a pallet.
Case: Cruz v. Spec Personnel LLC, No. AC 46515, 06/02/2026, published.
Facts: Signify North America Corp. sells lighting products. In 2017, it sold a packaged load of lights weighing approximately 1,300 pounds to Rexel USA Inc., a wholesale electrical distributor.
Signify loaded the lights and a pallet onto a tractor-trailer for shipment to Rexel’s warehouse in Hartford, Connecticut
A New York appellate court ruled that a worker was entitled to summary judgment on his Labor Law claim, as the defendants were not alter egos of his employer.
Case: Martin v. Poe Affiliates LP, No. 816210/22, 06/11/2026, published.
Facts: Hector Martin worked for SMC General Contracting Inc. He allegedly suffered injuries while working on a construction project at a property owned by Poe Affiliates LP.
Schur Management Co. Ltd. managed the property, and it hired SMC as the general contractor for the project.
Procedural history: Martin filed suit against Poe and Schur, asserting a claim for
A New York appellate court upheld the summary dismissal of a worker’s claims for her alleged slip-and-fall accident.
Case: Aguilar-Lopez v. iDust Cleaning Services Corp., No. 156599/19, 06/11/2026, published.
Facts: Lafayette Street Partners II LLC rented a property owned by 380 Lafayette Retail Owner LLC.
Lafayette Street hired iDust Cleaning Services Corp., a commercial cleaning service, to clean the property.
Lidia Aguilar-Lopez worked for Lafayette Street. She allegedly suffered injuries when she slipped and fell on a wet staircase at her workplace.
Procedural history: Aguilar-L
May 20, 2026
As California employers face increasing pressure to control operating expenses, a new actuarial study finds that self-insurance continues to provide a significant financial advantage over traditional workers' compensation insurance.
The study, conducted by Bickmore Actuarial and commissioned by the California Self-Insurers' Security Fund, found that self-insured employers spend between 14% and 22% less on workers' compensation than employers purchasing traditional insurance policies. Across the employers analyzed, the average savings was 19%.
The independent actuarial analysi
The California Senate unanimously voted to send the governor a bill that would make the option to pay indemnity benefits with prepaid debit cards permanent.
The Senate on Thursday voted 36-0 to pass AB 1683, which would eliminate the Jan. 1, 2027, scheduled sunsetting of the pilot program that allows employers and carriers to use electronic payment cards with the written consent of the injured worker.
In February, the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation recommended that lawmakers permanently authorize the program first launched in 2018.
Although State Compensation
The New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board is holding its 2026 Workers' Compensation Forum on Sept. 15 in New York City.
NYCIRB President and CEO Jeremy Attie and Julia Stenberg, chair of the board of governors, are scheduled to deliver opening remarks. Avani Shah, executive deputy superintendent of insurance for the New York State Department of Financial Services, is also scheduled to speak at the event.
Ziv Kimmel, senior vice president and chief actuary for the board, and Guo Harrison, director of actuarial production, will deliver the 2026 "State of the System" presen
New York State Workers’ Compensation Fraud Inspector General Lucy Lang on Friday announced that a man was ordered to pay nearly $10,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to fraud.
Thomas O. Malicki pleaded guilty on June 23 to charges that he defrauded the workers' compensation system by stealing wage replacement checks intended for the deceased mother of his then-girlfriend.
That same day, he paid full restitution of $9,777 and was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge.
The Inspector General’s Office said its investigation determined that between September 2
Pennsylvania lawmakers are proposing a special fund to cover annual cancer screenings not paid for by firefighters' health insurance policies.
SB 1398, by Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Beaver, would establish the Firefighter Cancer Screening Program within the Department of Insurance to pay for the screenings.
Bartolotta said in a statement that though firefighters work in dangerous conditions, one of the greatest threats they face is repeated exposure to cancer-causing chemicals.
"Cancer is now one of the leading causes of firefighter line-of-duty deaths," she said. "Ye
The California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board issued an en banc decision that rescinded two dozen orders suspending action on settlements that it said were issued in ways that violated the parties' due process rights.
The WCAB in Calvin Gaines et al. v. AMB Aviation Inc. et al. also said the judge's statements that claimants were exploiting the workers' compensation system demonstrated bias requiring disqualification and reassignment of the cases to new judges on remand.
Van Nuys Workers' Compensation Judge Karinneh Aslanian between Jan. 23 and April 14 issued orders
A New York appellate court upheld the denial of benefits to a correction officer who witnessed the death of an incarcerated individual whom she had known previously.
Case: Matter of Croom v. New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, No. CV-24-1886, 06/11/2026, published.
Facts: Jennifer Croom worked as a correction sergeant at the Albion Correctional Facility. One of the incarcerated individuals in the facility, who Croom had met over a decade earlier while working at a juvenile residential center, experienced a medical emergency in 2023.
Croom and the facility nur
A New York appellate court upheld the denial of benefits to a train conductor for his claimed psychological injury arising from the death of a passenger who had fallen between two cars.
Case: Matter of Williams v. New York City Transit Authority, No. CV-24-0860, 06/11/2026, published.
Facts: Charles Williams worked for the New York City Transit Authority as a conductor.
He filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits contending that he sustained post-traumatic stress disorder following an incident on March 15, 2021, when a passenger was discovered to have fallen between train cars a
The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld a determination that an automobile insurance provider was entitled to an offset for an injured worker’s recovery from the at-fault motorist’s insurance carrier.
Case: Cline v. Everest National Insurance Co., No. 25A-CT-1976, 05/28/2026, published.
Facts: Michael Cline and Jacob Sofronko both worked for the Ohio Valley Gas Corp. Sofronko was driving and Cline was a passenger in a company-owned dump truck when it collided with a commercial cargo van at the intersection of State Road 26 and County Road 200 West in Jay County.
Cline and Sofr
West Virginia’s Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld the calculation of temporary total disability benefits owed to a worker for his carpal tunnel syndrome.
Case: Seech v. Frontier Kemper Constructors Inc., No. 25-ICA-328, 06/022026, published.
Facts: Jud Seech worked for Frontier Kemper Constructors Inc. He filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits for his carpal tunnel syndrome.
Frontier’s insurance carrier accepted liability for this condition and began paying Seech temporary total disability benefits at a rate of $576.03 per week.
Seech objected to this amount.
A key figure in what California officials once called the largest workers' compensation fraud scheme in state history has pleaded guilty to orchestrating a new $270 million Medicaid scam, landing him squarely in the crosshairs of a record-setting $6.5 billion nationwide federal healthcare fraud takedown.
While Paul Richard Randall's latest scheme exclusively targeted Medi-Cal, the case helps illustrate the motivation behind anti-fraud measures enacted 10 years ago that bar convicted fraudsters from participating in the state's workers' compensation system and disallow their li
The Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that a firefighter’s widow was not entitled to line-of-duty compensation for his death, even though his death was deemed compensable.
Case: Wynn v. City of Kansas City, No. WD88290, 05/26/2026, published.
Facts: Raymond Wynn served as a firefighter for the City of Kansas City for 31 years. Due to his exposure to multiple workplace carcinogens, he developed squamous cell lung cancer in 2018.
Wynn died as a result of his cancer in March 2021.
Procedural history: Wynn’s widow filed a workers’ compensation claim, asserting Wynns&rsqu
