WA - Court: L&I Can Recover $147K in Overpayments to Vocational School
05/01/2026 | 0
A Washington state appeals court has cleared the way for the Department of Labor and Industries to recover nearly $150,000 in overpayments from a vocational school with a job placement rate of 3.9%.
The Washington Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected an appeal from Office Careers, affirming that L&I was within its rights to recoup funds and to terminate the school's provider status.
L&I revoked Office Careers' authorization and stopped sending it injured workers after a 2019 audit found that the percentage of students employed after completing a training program was well ...
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An Ohio appellate court upheld the dismissal of a worker’s challenge to the administrative denial of his claim for benefits.
Case: Larrick v. W&S Construction LLC, No. 8-25-14, 04/13/2026, published.
Facts and procedural history: Jeremy L. Larrick filed a workers’ compensation claim, asserting that he had suffered injuries while working for W&S Construction LLC in November 2023.
The Bureau of Workers’ Compensation denied Larrick’s claim. A district hearing officer affirmed, finding that Larrick had not met his burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidenc...
West Virginia’s Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld a finding of compensability for a truck driver’s neck sprain caused by being rear-ended by another tractor-trailer.
Case: Haulin’ Jack Shipping Service Inc. v. Jackson, No. 25-ICA-378, 04/07/2026, published.
Facts: Thomas Jackson underwent a C5-T1 laminectomy and decompression surgery in September 2020. He then had postoperative complications that led to septic shock.
Dr. Scott Brown diagnosed Jackson with an abscess in the epidural space of the cervical spine, cervical radiculopathy at C5, physical decondition...
A New York appellate court ruled that a mason should have been granted summary judgment on his Labor Law claim and that the defendants were entitled to conditional summary judgment on their indemnification claim against his employer.
Case: Moreno-Santos v. Real Builders Inc., No. 26421/19, 04/09/2026, published.
Facts: Jairo Moreno-Santos worked as a mason for North South Masonry Inc. He suffered injuries when he fell from a ladder while working on a construction project.
According to Moreno-Santos, the ladder was only the upper part of an extension ladder that had been separated from ...
Diclofenac is becoming an increasingly popular medication in workers’ compensation and auto accident cases. It is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug available as a pill or as a topical medication.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved 1% diclofenac as a topical treatment to provide pain relief. The 1% concentration is sold over the counter under a variety of generic labels or under the brand name Voltaren, usually selling for about for $12-$25 per tube.
In workers’ compensation and auto accident cases, an alarming trend is sweeping the market. Instead of telling p...
A New York appellate court upheld the summary dismissal of a worker’s Labor Law claims for his injuries from being hit by a rock while working in a trench.
Case: Veloso v. City of New York, No. 158128/20, 04/09/2026, published.
Facts: Armindo Veloso was injured when he was hit by a rock while working in a trench. At the time of the injury, he was working on the excavation of the trench, in which utility lines were to be placed, and on shoring the sides.
Procedural history: Veloso filed suit against the City of New York, asserting claims for negligence and violations of the Labor Law.
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The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau on Thursday submitted its annual advisory pure premium rate filing to the California Department of Insurance.
The WCIRB is recommending that the department increase the advisory pure premium rate by 10.4%. The average proposed advisory rate for policies incepting on or after Sept. 1 would be $1.71 per $100 of payroll, up from $1.55.
Key drivers of the proposed increase include higher loss development, rising medical costs, increasing frequency of cumulative trauma claims, and sharp growth in average allocated loss adjustment expens...
NATL. - WCRI: Rural Hospital Closures Disrupt Access, Not Costs
Hospital closures in rural areas disrupt access to care for injured workers but do not significantly increase workers’ compensation claim costs or the duration of disability benefits, according to a Workers Compensation Research Institute study released Thursday.
The study found that when rural hospitals close, injured workers travel an average of 5 miles farther to reach emergency care and are 3.6 percentage points less likely to use emergency services after work-related injuries.
Despite these changes in access, researchers found little to no impact on medical payments per clai...
A Texas appellate court affirmed a decision denying a family's bid for workers' compensation death benefits, ruling that it could not find error in a lower court's decision to exclude an expert's opinion as unreliable.
The same issues that rendered the expert's opinion unpersuasive also doomed any non-expert evidence suggesting that John Hill contracted COVID-19 through his employment with Brazoria County, the court said in finding no error with the trial court granting no-evidence summary judgment for the county.
"In short, [the expert] did not explain his...
A federal appellate court ruled that a worker needs to prove only that he worked for 125 days in coal mines during a calendar year to have a “year” of qualifying coal mine employment for purposes of the Black Lung Benefits Act presumption.
Case: Hayes v. OWCP, No. 24-11260, 04/07/2026, published.
Facts: Ermine Hayes worked for Cowin & Co. from 1955 to 1986. Hayes intermittently worked underground constructing mine shafts, but not all of his work was done in mines.
Procedural history: In 2015, Hayes filed a claim under the Black Lung Benefits Act.
An administrative...
An Ohio appellate court upheld a grant of summary judgment that found a worker was entitled to benefits for her injury from an unexplained fall.
Case: Vega v. Grafton Correctional Facility, Nos. 25CA012240 and 25CA012247, 04/06/2026, published.
Facts: Nancy Vega worked for the Grafton Correctional Facility. She fell while at work while walking from one room to another to access a machine on which she intended to scan a document.
Vega was wearing tennis shoes and walking quickly when the accident happened. She did not identify any defects in the floor or any substances on the surfa...
A New York appellate court ruled that a third-party defendant in a Labor Law action was not entitled to summary judgment dismissing the indemnification and contribution claims against it.
Case: Jadan v. 414 Gerard Owner LLC, No. 815648/22, 04/07/2026, published.
Facts: 414 Gerard Owner LLC hired Monadnock Construction Inc. to serve as the general contractor for a construction project.
Monadnock contracted with Citywide Container Service Corp. to provide the construction site with mini containers to be used for the collection of construction debris.
According to Citywide, its practice was t...
West Virginia’s Intermediate Court of Appeals overturned a denial of additional treatment and the closure of a worker's claim.
Case: Dziatkowicz v. Hancock County Board of Education, No. 25-ICA-326, 04/07/2026, published.
Facts: William Dziatkowicz worked for the Hancock County Board of Education. He injured his back at work in March 2023 while performing heavy lifting.
Dziatkowicz went to the hospital and underwent a computed tomography scan.
The results revealed a mild annular bulge without stenosis at L1-L2; an annular bulge with moderate to severe bilateral stenosis at L...
A group of 20 state officials submitted a comment urging the U.S. Department of Labor to withdraw its proposal to relax standards for independent contractor classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The coalition includes attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia and several municipal labor offices.
In February, the department proposed adopting an economic realities test that will ...
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed bills that aim to make it easier for specified first responders to receive workers' compensation benefits for heart disease and hypertension.
The governor on Monday signed HB 878 and an identical companion measure, SB 449, which apply the heart disease and hypertension presumption to correctional deputies in Carroll County. He also signed HB 347, which clarifies how firefighters demonstrate disability for presumptive hypertension and heart disease claims.
Maryland law generally requires partial or total incapacitation for an injured worker to be consid...
The California Division of Workers' Compensation issued administrative penalties totaling a little more than $1 million following 36 random and four targeted audits in 2024 that found $442,661 in unpaid compensation.
The division, in its latest Profile Audit Review report, said about 10% of the 2,698 claims reviewed in 2024 had unpaid indemnity benefits. The division reports $201,696 in unpaid temporary disability or salary continuation benefits and $195,770 in unpaid permanent disability. An additional $44,158 in self-imposed increases for late payments was outstanding, as was $1,03...
