Tag Archives: STAA

UPS far from the only employer under-reporting workers’ compensation claims

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Fatima Hussein wrote a well-reported story for Bloomberg Law about UPS discouraging or under-reporting workers’ compensation claims.

This practice is sometimes known as claims suppression. Claims suppression is a common issue in workers’ compensation. Lawyers from coast to coast, Tara Reck in Washington state and Jeff Blackwell in Alabama, have recently written about the topic.

Washington state, to their credit, formally recognizes the concept of claims suppression in their law and identifies the practice. In Washington, employers guilty of claims suppression can be civilly fined. Employees can also apply to their workers’ compensation board to extend statute of limitations if claims suppression lead them not to file a claim.

Claims suppression in Nebraska

Though Nebraska doesn’t formally recognize the term claim suppression in our law, we have similar remedies to Washington state for the practice. Employers can be prosecuted for the misdemeanor of not filing a first report of injury with the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court. The failure of an employer to file a first report of injury also automatically extends the two-year statute of limitations to file a petition in the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court.

In my view the penalties for claims suppression in Nebraska are weak. I am unaware of any times where an employer was prosecuted for claims suppression in Nebraska.

Fighting claims suppression in the civil justice system

But I am a skeptic of criminalizing workers’ compensation — which at its core is a contractual issue between an employee and their employer. My view is that employees are more vulnerable to prosecution than employers. Since workers’ compensation is stigmatized, workers’ compensation fraud by employees is viewed as a variant of welfare fraud. Welfare fraud is prosecuted aggressively in many jurisdictions.

I believe that the civil justice system is a better forum for wrongs done in a commercial transaction. But many barriers exist to employees being able to bring civil claims for workers’ compensation claims suppression by their employers. The first barrier is the fact that workers’ compensation laws are the exclusive remedy for workplace injuries. For example, in Nebraska an employee can’t bring a bad faith action against their workers’ compensation insurer because their remedy for bad faith is the penalty and fee statute under Neb. Rev. Stat. 48-125.

The employment at-will doctrine and claims suppression

A related barrier to bringing civil claims for claims suppression, is the growing reluctance of courts to allow employees to sue their employers. I believe this is because of the overwhelming power to the doctrine of the employment at-will doctrine.

Claims suppression cases are often brought as retaliation cases. Earlier this year, a federal court in Pennsylvania narrowly interpreted Pennsylvania’s prohibition on workers’ compensation retaliation to rule against an employee. That case turned on the court finding the receipt of workers’ compensation benefits wasn’t actually claiming workers’ compensation benefits, so the employee wasn’t being retaliated against when they were fired after their work injury. The court’s narrow construction of Pennsylvania’s anti-workers’ compensation retaliation is based on the importance of the employment at-will doctrine.

Arguably in cases where an employee doesn’t file a claim because of claims suppression, then a court can find the employee isn’t being retaliated against because they never filed a claim in the first place. Recognizing a civil action for claims suppression requires more legal creativity than many courts are willing to give an injured employee.

But just because bringing a claim for claims suppression is difficult doesn’t mean that some lawyers aren’t trying. The Bloomberg article quotes Paul Taylor of the Truckers Justice Center, a nationally recognized expert on retaliation claims under the Surface Transportation Amendments Act (STAA) retaliation claims. Workers’ in industries covered under the STAA could bring suppression claims under the STAA. These claims have a more favorable burden of proof for workers’ than typical civil rights claims.

The Bloomberg story also mentions cases for workers’ compensation that have been brought under California state law. But, California state law is considered to be one of the most friendly for employees in the nation. I question what weight a Nebraska court would give to a ruling made under California law.

Ultimately claims suppression will probably have to be addressed by state legislatures as workers’ compensation laws are state laws. State legislatures can increase the penalties for claims suppression and create private causes of action for workers’ compensation claims suppression by statute. If federal minimum standards for workers’ compensation get momentum in Congress, stronger anti-claims suppression laws should be part of those standards.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Workers Compensation, Workers' Compensation. Workplace Injury and tagged , , , , .

Truckers Fired Over Workers’ Comp Claim: What to Do Next

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Truck drivers have a remedy if fired for making a workers’ compensation claim.

A recent award of over $100,000 to a truck driver who was fired for making a workers’ compensation claim illustrated the protection drivers have under the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA). New Prime of Springfield, Mo., had to pay the former employee lost wages, compensatory and punitive damages. “The company must also expunge the complainant’s employment and DAC Report records of any reference to his unlawful termination,” according to the article above. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is often criticized for a variety of reasons, enforced anti-retaliation laws that protect truck drivers who are unfairly punished for taking steps to protect their health and financial welfare. These laws can also be enforced through lawsuits as an alternative to the OSHA administrative process. 

Truck drivers need to be aware of this protection. Truck drivers also need to know that OSHA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have just announced an agreement to strengthen protections for transportation workers from coercion and retaliation.   

The industry publication FleetOwner gives more details about how OSHA and the FMCSA interact with the STAA in this article.   

Here is one helpful quote from the FleetOwner article:

“If OSHA finds that a complaint is valid, it can order the employer to reinstate the worker; pay back pay, interest and compensatory damages; pay punitive damages up to $250,000 where warranted; and/or take other remedial actions.”

In addition, “action by one agency didn’t preclude action by another in the same situation” when it comes to the STAA.

“OSHA’s mandate is protecting workers, while FMCSA’s mandate is safety, (an FMCSA document) said. And FMCSA can take action against a carrier or other entity but, unlike OSHA, it can’t compensate a driver. So a driver filing a complaint with FMCSA about coercion might be able to file a whistleblower protection complaint with OSHA and vice versa, FMCSA said.”

The recent award and very recent press release from OSHA are great news for truckers and their families. The laws that protect you work. There is an apparently serious effort to make them work better. It will now be easier to protect your health and welfare if you are injured on the job.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Truckers, Trucking, Workers' Compensation and tagged , , , , , , .

Has Online Filing Added to OSHA Whistleblower Backlog?

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OSHA’s recent decision to allow employees to file whistleblower cases online has led to a large increase in filings and has added more delay to claims that were already backlogged before online filing. According to OSHA investigators, this increase in filings hasn’t been met with a proportionate increase in staff. One investigator estimated it takes over 400 days for OSHA to conclude investigating claims.

The delay created by the backlog hurts investigations for many reasons. Witnesses become unavailable, and recollections of events change. Unscrupulous employers also can use the delay to hide or destroy documents and intimidate witnesses.

Of course, employees who feel they have been retaliated against oftentimes have the option of filing a state or local fair employment agency claim on the basis of retaliation. Employees might also have the option of filing for retaliatory discharge without filing a fair-employment claim, as is oftentimes the case if they are fired for filing workers’ compensation. However, this summer the U.S. Supreme Court likely made many types of retaliation cases more difficult to win with their decision in the Nasser case. The court ruled in Nasser that employees claiming retaliation cases under federal Title VII must prove that exercising their rights under Title VII was a “but for” cause of their termination.

But under whistleblower laws under OSHA – such as the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA), which protects interstate truckers, and Dodd-Frank, which protects workers in the financial services industry – an employee must only show that their report of illegal conduct was a contributing factor to their termination.

Employees with a retaliation case should consult with an experienced employment attorney to determine the best forum for any wrongful-termination case.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in employment law, Workplace Safety and tagged , , , , .