Helpful Tips for Employers in Preventing an Employee From Making a Successful Retaliation Claim in Nebraska
In order to minimize its exposure to successful retaliation claims, an employer should focus on timing, consistency, and documentation. Timing – the shorter the period of time between an employer’s...
Computation of Permanent Partial Disability Benefits Under Iowa Law When Impairment is to Two Scheduled Members
In Iowa, the question is often raised as to the proper method for determining permanent partial disability indemnity benefits when a claimant has permanent injuries to two scheduled members. The answer...
Important Fee Schedule Deadlines For Employers to Remember Under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-125.02
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-125.02 sets forth certain deadlines employers and workers’ compensation carriers must adhere to in order to benefit from the fee schedule of the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court....
Defense of Psychological Injury Claims Under Iowa Workers’ Compensation Law
For the past 20 years, Iowa Workers’ Compensation law has been interpreted to allow an employee to bring a workers’ compensation claim for purely mental injuries. By that, a claimant in Iowa has the...
The Nebraska Supreme Court Issues Surprising Ruling on an Employee’s Entitlement to Penalties and Attorney’s Fees After the Employee Signs a Release
Traditionally, settlements of workers’ compensation claims under the Nebraska’s Workers’ Compensation Act required that the Court review lump sum settlement applications and then determine whether the...
What Constitutes a “Reasonable” Redirection of Care Under Iowa Law?
Under Iowa workers’ compensation law, the employer/insurer has the right and obligation to direct reasonable medical care for accepted work injuries. Therefore, absent an abandonment of care by the...
Practice Pointers Under Iowa Law For Timely Payment of Benefits and Avoidance of Allegations of Entitlement of Penalties.
Under Iowa Workers’ Compensation Law an employee may be entitled to penalty benefits if there has been a delay in payment without reasonable cause or excuse by the payor. I.C.A. §86.13. However, a...
The Nebraska Supreme Court Upholds the Exclusive Remedy Doctrine of the Workers’ Compensation Act in a Case Where an Employer Willfully Violated Multiple OSHA Safety Violations, Thus Causing the Tragic Death of One of its Employees.
On May, 31, 2013, in Estate of Teague v. Crossroads Co-Op Assn, 286 Neb. 1 (2013), the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the exclusive remedy doctrine of the Workers’ Compensation Act in a case that probably...
The Iowa Court of Appeals Elaborates on the Standard for Assessing Permanent Disability in Cases of Mixed Hearing Loss and Tinnitus
In PMX Industries v. Reich, the Court of Appeals of Iowa was faced with the issue of how to assess permanent disability when a Claimant had simultaneously incurred both a scheduled member hearing loss and a separate diagnosis of tinnitus. Typically, tinnitus is...
The Court of Appeals of Iowa Appears to Increase Employers’ Liability Even in Cases of Purely Idiopathic Falls.
Recently, in AARP v. Whitacre, the Court of Appeals of Iowa found an employer liable for a workers’ compensation claim even when the parties admitted that the fall leading to the Claimant’s injury arose...