Articles Posted in Personal Injury

Massachusetts lawmakers are mulling whether to change the state’s workers’ compensation laws – a move that those who have suffered workplace injuries in Bangor staunchly oppose.

Our Bangor personal injury attorneys are closely following the developments surrounding legislative request 2781, which would cap the amount of time people can receive workers’ compensation claims for partial but permanent injury to less than 12 years. As of right now, certain types of injury claims are limited to a cap of 10 years, though the most serious have no cap at all.

The portion of the proposal that is causing the greatest stir is that dealing with permanent, partial injury. This would not be a case in which you, say, broke your leg on the job and you are going to be receiving workers’ compensation benefits until it heals, and then you return to work. Instead, these are for cases in which you have suffered an injury on the job that is going to impact you forever. So instead of breaking a limb, say you lost one. Or, maybe your back has been permanently injured.

Workers’ compensation laws are fairly complicated, but they basically ensure that the 25 percent of people who have suffered the most serious permanent, partial injury are going to get benefits for life. The other 75 percent have a 10-year cap. Legislative request 2781 would change that.

Among those testifying at a recent hearing:

• A nurse who fell and seriously injured her back while treating a patient, leaving her unable to continue working in her field;
• An electrician who was jolted with more than 200,000 volts of electricity, rendering him disabled;
• The widow of a construction worker whose boss accidentally backed over him with a truck.

Each of these individuals is very much against the changes, though any alteration of the law thankfully would not impact those who are already getting workers’ compensation benefits.

Those who proposed the bill say the state’s decades-old workers’ compensation system is need of an overhaul. They say consistency is required because the law the way it is now is strange in that a person with a certain injury might not qualify for lifetime benefits one year, but someone with the exact same injury would the next. It would all depend on what kinds of other injuries there were in the state that year.

Payouts for these permanent, partial injuries are generally higher here – about $185,000 annually – than the national average – which is about $90,000 a year. However, they don’t represent a large portion of overall workers’ compensation claims in the state. For example, as the Bangor Daily News reported, there were about 2,200 workers’ compensation claims in the state in 2010, each of those averaging about 13 weeks. That was down a great deal from 1993, when there were more than 7,100 claims that generally spanned about 33 weeks.

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Many parents have embraced the Bumbo – a soft, foam seat that allows their infants to sit upright. However, consumer safety groups are now pleading with the U. . federal government for a recall, following a number of child injuries in Maine and throughout the country.

An article recently ran in the Bangor Daily News about this very issue.

Our Bangor child injury attorneys understand that there have been nearly 100 reports of infants being hurt while using this product. That is only in the last five years, following a voluntary recall in 2007, when the manufacturer pulled all the seats from the shelves because there weren’t adequate warning labels.

At that time, there were 46 injuries reported to the U. . Consumer Product Safety Commission. In 14 of those cases, babies suffered serious head injuries.

After the recall, the South African manufacturer of the Bumbo seat agreed to print warning labels on the side of the seats, saying parents shouldn’t put their children in the seats if they are on an elevated surface, like a desk or table.

But that apparently wasn’t enough because after the recall, there have been 45 more children who fell out of the seat when it had been placed on a tall surface. Of those, 17 infants had skull fractures. Another 50 babies were said to have fallen out of the seat when it had been on the floor. Of those, one had a concussion and two others suffered head injuries.

Still, the government has given no indication that it will issue a recall, though one official from the safety commission admitted it seemed as if there were a large number of injuries. What’s perhaps more confusing is that often times, recalls are issued when there haven’t been any reports of death or injury. So why would the government hesitate to recall a product that has been proven to cause injuries to babies?

Even if there isn’t a second recall, we believe this warrants parent attention – and perhaps avoiding use of this product, given its track record.

While some might argue the number of injuries is relatively small in comparison to the number of seats sold (about 4 million) you have to consider whether your child’s safety is worth the risk.

The Bumbo seat is designed in such a way that it does not have straps or buckles or restraints. There are tray tables that are also available for purchase with these seats, but they are not meant to act as a securing device.

Manufacturers of the seat say it’s safe when used as intended, and that parents should be nearby at all times. But there have been numerous reports of parents who HAVE been nearby, and their children were still seriously injured.

In one case, a father in Washington reported his son was seated in the Bumbo seat on the kitchen table. He was right next to him. The boy arched his back, and fell onto the kitchen floor, landing on his head. The baby boy had to be rushed to the hospital, and undergo emergency brain surgery for his injuries. While the child’s parents are hopeful he will make a full recovery, they are still watching him closely for signs that he may have suffered permanent injuries.

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