A 24-year-old worker at the Yankee Candle Co. warehouse in Deerfield died after falling from a forklift. The man started his employment at the warehouse only a few months before the accident. He obtained the position through a local temp agency. The man fell approximately 30 feet from the forklift.…
Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on fatalities in the workplace. While the final figures will not be released until April of 2010, the preliminary report states that there were 4,340 fatal work injuries in 2009. The number of fatal work injuries has decreased 17 percent…
A Worcester Superior Court has ordered a 35-year-old man and his company to pay $500,000 in restitution after the man pled guilty to over 60 charges of committing workers’ compensation insurance fraud and violating Massachusetts wage and hour laws. He has also been ordered to serve five years probation. Labor…
Our Boston workplace injury lawyers have learned that a man from Acushnet, Massachusetts is the lead plaintiff in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston against FedEx Corp. Thirty-one current and former truck drivers are suing the delivery company over improperly classifying them as independent contractors. They allege…
Our Boston worker’s compensation lawyers recently read about a study by the Cambridge-based Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI). The study found that there are dramatic differences among worker’s comp medical fee schedule levels in the 43 states which use them. It used each state’s Medicare fee schedule as a benchmark,…
Our Boston workers’ compensation lawyers have learned that the average payment per claim for prescription drugs in the Massachusetts workers’ compensation system was 30% lower than the median of 16 other states studied. Titled Prescription Benchmarks for Massachusetts, the report found that the average payment per claim was $289. Researchers…
This past week, two construction workers were working below street level in Bellingham Square in Chelsea when their equipment contacted an electrical line, causing an explosion. The explosion, which is currently under investigation by the Federal Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), injured two workers. One of the injured workers,…
William Nichols, a 58 year old electrician, passed away Friday night as a result of injuries he sustained from a Norfolk home explosion. William Nichols was working in his capacity as an electrician when the Norfolk home suddenly exploded, injuring Nichols and seven others. Nichols was airlifted to Brigham and…
Our workers’ compensation attorneys have learned that FedEx Ground has agreed to pay the Commonwealth of Massachusetts several million dollars to settle allegations that they misclassified drivers as independent contractors. According to the attorney general, FedEx’s classification of drivers denied the state workers’ compensation, payroll taxes, and unemployment assistance contributions,…
Despite a request from the Worker’s Compensation Rating Inspection Bureau of Massachusetts to raise rates by 4.5 percent, Attorney General Martha Coakley has reviewed the industry’s proposed rates and determined that current rates will need to be reduced by 2.4 percent. Coakley says the proposed rate hikes would have cost…