Dallas attorney Bill Minick (Photo credit Dylan Hollingsworth for ProPublica) Texas and Oklahoma have both adopted an “opt-out” system for Workers’ Compensation. ProPublica along with NPR recently published an in-depth look at the results in these two states. Under this system, employers can opt-out of state mandated workers'’ compensation insurance by creating their own policy [...]
Recently I took photographs of two men who remind me of why I am thankful every day. One man is sitting in a wheelchair at a restaurant, with his right hand in a contorted position and he is being fed by another person. The other man, also in a restaurant, is in shorts and is [...]
Sometimes prospective clients ask whether they developed cancer as a result of their job. Most claims arise from accidents and obviously cancer is a slowly developing process. However, cancer can be an occupational-related disease for which medical and disability benefits may be awarded under the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act. A doctor must give his [...]
According to a recent article published by the U.S. Department of Labor, workplace fatalities have increased from 4,585 in 2013 to 4,679 in 2014. This is the highest number of workplace fatalities since 2008 when 5,214 deaths were reported to the Department of Labor. The most shocking rise in workplace deaths occurred in the oil-and-gas [...]
Last month our firm held a planning retreat in the beautiful town of Chapel Hill. We reaffirmed our firm’s slogan: “Accidents Happen, Sometimes You Need Help.” Frequently we speak to injured workers' during our free consultation about getting medical treatment. It’s frustrating and scary for an injured person to have to wait for authorization for [...]
A study titled “Does Public Financing Affect Judicial Behavior?...” was recently published by three political scientists who looked at North Carolina’s Supreme Court. From 2001 until 2013 (for eleven years) North Carolina had an optional public financing system, making it the perfect case study. The conclusion of the study? Yes. Public financing made justices on [...]
Leonard Jernigan & Betsy Jernigan with David McCulloughMy wife and I recently attended a presentation in Raleigh, N.C. by David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and narrator of Ken Burns’ The Civil War, about his most recent book, The Wright Brothers. He explained that although neither Wilbur nor Orville had a college degree they [...]
NY Times article "Friends at Work? Not So Much" The New York Times recently published an op-ed claiming that the amount of people who seek or maintain friendships in the workplace has dropped in recent decades. Where people once looked to the workplace as a main source of long-term friendships, by 2004 only 30% of [...]
One question that comes up frequently, or at least routinely, in North Carolina workers'’ compensation claims involves employees injured while playing or participating in recreational activities while on-the-clock or part of an employer-sponsored team building event. The North Carolina Supreme Court clearly answered this question in Frost v. Salter Path Fire & Rescue, 361 [...]
A sports agent called me recently about a baseball player who was about to have “Tommy John surgery” and asked whether it would be covered under workers'’ compensation. I had heard about this surgery for years but never knew much about it, so I asked Elayna Slocum, a paralegal in my office, to do some [...]