Proposed Legislation

Currently there are bills pending in the Nebraska Legislature which, if approved, will affect Workers’ Compensation claims. This is a sampling of the some of the more drastic proposed bills.

One bill proposes to change First Injury Reports of Injury under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act to confidential and not open to the public for inspection or copying. An employee would be permitted to waive confidentiality for reports. There would also be exceptions for availability for the employee, their attorney, the employer or their attorney, and an attorney for an insurer or third party administrator.

Another bill seeks to deny compensation under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act in situations of false representation. The bills provides that an employee who made a knowing and willful false representation as to his or her physical or medical condition that is relied upon by the employer and causes an injury shall not be eligible for workers’ compensation.

Another bills aims to provide time limits for late medical payments under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act. Under this bill all medical payments under the Act shall be payable within 30 days, and if delinquent, fifty percent shall be added to the amount shall be paid to the employee.

An additional bill seeks to provide an employee more potential remedies if an employer is willfully negligent. Under this bill if an employee is found by the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court or any judge thereof to have been injured by reason of the willful negligence of the employer, the employee shall be entitled to bring an action at law for his or her damages.

While each of these bills are merely proposed at this time, if approved they could result in significant changes to the workers’ compensation landscape. If you have any questions regarding any of these bills or other proposed bills and how they possibly affect workers’ compensation claims, please feel free to contact any of the Baylor Evnen Workers’ Compensation attorneys at (402) 475-1075.