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The quality of a claimant's job searches while collecting temporary partial benefits in connection with you Connecticut Worker's Compensation Claim is a source of frequent consternation to insurance adjusters. To ensure the timely, uninterrupted receipt of your comp checks, it is imperative that...

SSD FAQ: Is it easier to get approved for Disability after age 50? Answer: Generally yes, depending on your specific situation. The SSA's "ability to work" rules are more relaxed for applicants who are 50 and older. As a result, a 50-year-old may be approved even though he or she is able to do so...

As the year begins to draw to close, insurance companies begin to think about getting older cases off their books. This can be used to your advantage if you know how to accurately price a case for settlement. We have 27 years of experiencing in resolving all manner of worker's compensation claims...

In a few certain, specific situations, an injured worker in Connecticut can still be awarded a monetary allowance for scarring or disfigurement. Notably, a scar on the face still qualifies for compensation. The value of the scarring award is at the discretion of the Commissioner and HAS to be ass...

10 Myths and Facts About Workers' Compensation Posted by LexisNexis Workers' Comp Law Community Staff The LexisNexis Workers' Compensation Law Community and the award-winning blog Work Comp Roundup have teamed up to present some common myths and facts about workers' compensation. Our contributors...

My opinion has always been that the best law firms are so because of the people, and for that reason I have always been blessed to be supported by some of the most wonderfuly talented people available. I hire my paralegals with an eye not only towards their ability to do (a lot) of work quickly a...

Hon. Clifton Thompson who was actively serving the citizens of the State of Connecticut as a Worker's Compensation Commissioner passed away on Friday, May 18th, 2004. At the time of his death, Commissioner Thompson was hearing cases in the Second and Sixth Districts. Commissioner Thompson will be...

I read today that apparently the Social Security Administration has banned its' Administrative Law Judges from using Facebook in particular and the internet in general to root out Claimant fraud. I have often suspected ALJ's dig around in he online world to discover whether or not the Claimants t...

We have received some good news from about the Governor's proposal to consolidate the Worker's Compensation Commission into the Department of Labor. In the latest version of the proposed state budget, funding for the WCC has been restored. The WCC will remain independent. There is some bad news,...

The Workers' Compensation Commission's Bulletin 49 is available to the public free of charge, and contains the entire Workers' Compensation Act, additional related statutes, and Workers' Compensation Administrative Regulations. Also included are illustrations of Connecticut's workers' compensatio...

The danger workers face on the job is not always compensated by higher pay. Life-threatening jobs can be mind-numbingly simple, easily performed by unskilled workers or children, or as physically and mentally demanding as one can imagine. Cable television shows like Deadliest Catch and Ice Road T...

A flurry of recent decisions have just come down from the Connecticut Compensation Review Board on a Myriad of issues, big and small. Not a single win for a Claimant. This is a tough enviornment in which to represent an injured worker in Connecticut. be sure you have and experienced Connecti...

From Lynch Ryan: Worker's Comp Insider Annals of Compensability: Of Heroes, Acts of God, and (No) Mercy When the category 5 hurricane hit Joplin, Missouri on May 22 this year, Mark Lindquist was perched on a mattress which covered his clients, three mentally disabled adults. Lindquist, a soci...

From Risk Management Magazine: by Morgan O'Rourke According to the latest numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Deadliest Catch," a popular television show on the Discovery Channel that chronicles the adventures of Alaskan king crab fishermen in the Bering Sea, is aptly named. ...

Here is the handy website for looking up a particular Administrative Law Judge's approval statistics. It is fairly out of date now, but it is fun to look at.

Back in the good old days when I first started doing Connecticut worker's comp law, musculoskeletal and low back claims used to be fairly straightforward. One was injured, they saw their orthopedist and either they did a short course of physical therapy or they were a surgical candidate and the...

View the memorandum addressing this issue here

I am absolutely up to my eyeballs in slip and fall on ice cases this Winter. Our near record snowfalls, cold temperatures, and the occasional thaw/freeze day, have all combined to keep the phones ringing with people calling to see if they have a case. In many instances they do. T...

The mileage reimbursement rate for all travel expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2011 is now 51.0 cents per mile. This rate change applies to all claimants, regardless of injury date, and coincides with the federal mileage reimbursement rate pursuant to Section 31-312(a) of the Workers' Com...

In a long awaited decision, the Connecticut Supreme Court provided some clarity in the murky waters of when must a police officer or fire fighter bring a heart or hypertension claim under Connnecticut General Statute section 7-433c. In Ciarelli v. Town of Hamden which was released on Dece...

The neurosurgeons and orthopedists at Neurosurgery Orthopedics Spine Specialists (NOSS) in Waterbury, together with two of their colleagues at Orthopedic Associates of Hartford were kind enough to dedicate their day to educating 100 or so of us lawyers toiling in the fields of Connect...

The trend nationally is to prohibit the use of cell phones in motor vehicles. Such a ban would make use of a cellphone while working a deviation from employment and accidents involving cell phone use at work would then be considered a deviation from employment and excluded from workers' compensa...

This week I have attended two hearings on behalf of clients that were injured on the job some time ago. In both cases neither client had a lawyer until they hired me. They came to see me because, as so often happens, they heard, through the grapevine, that they were not getting their just due und...

NOSSCR is reporting this month's wait times for an ALJ hearing at 330 days in hartford. that sounds about right. The time Judges are taking to render their decisions seems to be considerably longer.

PHENIX CITY, Ala. - The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited MDLG, doing business as Phenix Lumber Co., for 53 safety and health violations following the death of one worker and the critical injury of a second at its Phenix City facility. Proposed pen...