Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines

All the headlines from our Workers' Compensation Topic Page, ordered by recency.

California Chiropractor Sentenced to 54 Years for $150M Workers’ Comp Scheme

Apr 16 2024 // A former chiropractor was sentenced to 54 years in state prison and ordered to pay more than $23 million in fines for his role in orchestrating a massive workers’ compensation fraud scheme totaling $150...

Kansas Governor Signs Law to Increase Benefits to Injured Workers

Apr 15 2024 // TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will increase what have been among the lowest benefits in the U.S. for workers who are injured or killed on the job under bipartisan legislation that Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law...

Oregon OSHA Fines Bend Contractor $103K for Repeated Fall Protection Violations

Apr 15 2024 // The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division fined a Bend construction company $103,438 for repeatedly violating a requirement to provide protective systems to safeguard workers from fall hazards.The division cited...

California Self-Insured Group Applauds Workers’ Comp Classification Changes

Apr 12 2024 // The California Restaurant Mutual Benefit Corp. is applauding upcoming changes in workers’ compensation classifications for California’s restaurant and hospitality sectors, The changes were announced by the...

Report: Four-in-10 California Workers’ Comp Claims from Workers with Less Than a Year of Tenure

Apr 4 2024 // Roughly four-in-10 workers’ compensation claims come from workers with less than one year of tenure, a new report from the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California shows.The report shows 40%...

Virginia Gov. Youngkin Vetoes Retail Marijuana, Minimum Wage Hike, Workers’ Comp Bills

Apr 3 2024 // Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed two top Democratic legislative priorities last Thursday: bills that would have allowed the recreational retail sales of marijuana to begin next year and measures mandating a...

Oregon OSHA Fines Bend Contractor $103K for Repeated Fall Protection Violations

Apr 1 2024 // The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division fined a Bend construction company $103,438 for repeatedly violating a requirement to provide protective systems to safeguard workers from fall hazards.The division cited...

Two Iowa Men Sentenced in Workers’ Comp Fraud Scheme

Mar 27 2024 // Two Iowa men were sentenced this month in connection with workers’ compensation fraud.Trey Wysocki, age 40, of New Virginia was sentenced on March 11, 2024, after pleading guilty to one count of Insurance Fraud...

Dean’s Sausage Faces $116K OSHA Penalty Over Alleged Workplace Hazards

Mar 27 2024 // The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says that a second inspection of Dean Sausage Co. Inc. in Ayyalia, Alabama found similar workplace safety hazards as identified in a 2022 inspection,...

Maine Approves 19% Drop in Workers’ Compensation Costs Starting in April

Mar 26 2024 // Newly-installed Maine Insurance Superintendent Robert Carey announced approval of an average workers’ compensation insurance loss cost decrease of 19%. The new loss costs go into effect for new and renewing policies...

Coming and Going, Extended Premises Rules Don’t Help Employee Injured on Crosswalk

Mar 25 2024 // An employee of a diagnostics firm in Virginia who was injured when she fell on a crosswalk on her way to work is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.The Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission...

Report Looks at Cumulative Trauma and Litigated Claims in California Workers’ Comp

Mar 18 2024 // A California Workers’ Compensation Institute study shows nearly half of all litigated claims in the Los Angeles Basin are cumulative trauma claims that involve physical or mental injuries from repetitive stress,...

Massachusetts Couple Charged With $627K in Workers’ Compensation Fraud and More

Mar 15 2024 // A Hopkinton, Massachusetts couple has been arrested and charged in connection with separate schemes to defraud their workers’ compensation insurance carriers, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and their...

Airport Driver Who Died When Forklift Tipped Was Not Wearing Seat Belt: OSHA

Mar 12 2024 // The Aug. 29, 2023, death of a forklift operator at Boston’s Logan International Airport may have been prevented if his employer had ensured proper safeguards for operating and maintaining forklifts, an Occupational...

New York Inspector General Reports on 2 Workers’ Compensation Fraud Cases

Mar 11 2024 // New York State Inspector General Lucy announced a sentencing and a guilty plea in two separate workers’ compensation fraud cases.Lang announced the sentencing of Brian Simpson, 55, of Monroe County, who defrauded the...

OSHA Seeks $551K Penalty for Frozen Food Manufacturer After Worker’s Amputation

Mar 8 2024 // A Robbinsville, New Jersey frozen food manufacturer with a history of violating federal safety and health standards was cited again by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), after a worker suffered an...

Cal/OSHA Increases Civil Penalty Amounts for 2024

Mar 6 2024 // California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health recently increased penalties for certain violations, with some maximum penalties planned to rise as much as $4,983 this year, a smaller increase than in the...

Report Looks at Cumulative Trauma and Litigated Claims in California Workers’ Comp

Mar 4 2024 // A California Workers’ Compensation Institute study shows nearly half of all litigated claims in the Los Angeles Basin are cumulative trauma claims that involve physical or mental injuries from repetitive stress,...

Woman Gets 5-10 Years for Workers’ Comp Scam of Family Dollar, Restaurant

Mar 1 2024 // A Delaware woman will serve 5 to 10 years in state prison for a workers’ compensation scam that spanned 2.5 years, two states, and cost a Pennsylvania employer more than $170,000, according to Pennsylvania Attorney...

Employee Wins Workers’ Compensation Under Exception to ‘Coming-and-Going’ Bar

Feb 27 2024 // An exception to the workers’ compensation “coming-and-going” rule applies where the employer provides the transportation even if the employer says there was no explicit agreement that he would supply...