The growing epidemic of chronic opioid use and addiction, and its consequences, permeates the American medical and legal landscape. Since the spike in the use of ubiquitous pain medications in the late 1990s, there has been little actual oversight in the health care industry to regulate the prescription of these highly addicting drugs. In March…
On May 16, 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its own final regulations regarding employer wellness programs. This was in direct response to the two recent court decisions – EEOC v. Flambeau, Inc. and Seff v. Broward County. In its recently issued regulations, which you can access HERE and HERE The EEOC has…
BACKGROUND In 2007 the Colorado Legislature enacted a firefighter cancer presumption statute at Section 8-41-209, C.R.S. The statute created a presumption that certain cancers were caused by work as a firefighter if the individual diagnosed with the cancer worked in the capacity for at least five years. For the cancer to be deemed a compensable…
A new era of discrimination lawsuits is upon employers nationwide. Last month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) filed its first lawsuits alleging sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII against employers in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The lawsuits are the latest step by the Commission to confirm its view that “sex” discrimination under Title VII…
The 2016 legislative session is half over. The deadline for introduction of bills has come and gone; however, late bill introduction is very common. This is a brief summary of some of the introduced legislation of interest to clients: Workers Compensation Right now there are no pending bills regarding workers’ compensation. It is anticipated that…
This is the final piece of a three-part series surveying the history of workers’ compensation. Prior to 1911, an individual residing in the United States, regardless of their state residency, who suffered a workplace injury could only recover damages by utilizing traditional tort based law. In other words, an injured worker would need to sue…
This is a question that I repeatedly see throughout the year and it comes in a variety of contexts. Often times, employers who may have recently terminated an employee, are suddenly posed with a request from that former employee for his/her personnel file. Sometimes, within a workers’ compensation or other employment related claim, the worker…
This second segment, of the three part series on the history of workers’ compensation law, briefly summarizes how the industrial revolution fueled the workers’ compensation system. The first resemblances of workers’ compensation insurance coverage primarily arose because of increased revolutionized industrial practices and socialist schisms in European political ideals. Around the 1860s, the industrial revolution was…
Intermittent FMLA leave is a giant thorn in the side of human resource professionals across the country. The struggle is that not all intermittent leave requests are equal. Here’s a look at some of the most common scenarios, and how to handle them. The FMLA allows employers some flexibility in granting different kinds of intermittent…
The modern day workers’ compensation system has a long, and often dark, history. The concept of an individual’s right to recover monetary compensation for sustaining an injury caused by another is one of the oldest legal concepts in recorded human history. One observer has pointed out that “the history of workers’ compensation begins shortly after…
As you are probably aware, the Colorado Workers’ Compensation Act has a statute giving a subrogation right to the payer of workers’ compensation benefits. This statute is § 8-41-203, C.R.S. Although referred to as a subrogation lien, it is actually a right of recovery that operates as an assignment. Once benefits are paid under the Act,…
The Colorado Supreme Court, one-week ago, issued a highly anticipated decision implicating employment law related decisions as they pertain to employees using lawful medical marijuana for activities outside the course and scope of employment. In the decision of Coats v. Dish Network, the Colorado Supreme Court, for the first time, provided its position on whether…