DOE Appealed More Than 500 Claims From Sick Nuclear Site Workers: report
- The U.S. Department of Energy has filed more than 500 appeals since 2018 against workers’ compensation claims by workers made sick at the Hanford nuclear site in Richmond, Washington, despite a state law meant to ease claims. In 102 new claims filed since 2023, the DOE did not recommend approving any. The state overruled it and approved 75%, and the DOE appealed all but seven of those approvals.
- About 152 claims are stranded in legal limbo, approved by the state but still under DOE appeal. Half of those workers are dead, and the DOE continues to fight survivors’ benefits. The agency that handles appeals has sided with workers nearly nine times out of 10 in cases the DOE appealed.
- A 2018 law flipped the burden of proof, requiring the DOE to show something other than the job caused certain cancers, neurological diseases and respiratory illnesses if it wanted to deny a claim. Since then,the DOE has spent nearly $12 million on outside lawyers and expert testimony, arguing other causes, such as smoking, drinking, obesity or genetics, played a role in the workers’ illnesses.
- One worker, who packaged plutonium and monitored radioactive waste for nearly 20 years, has faced more than 20 DOE appeals in eight years.
Court Eases Injured Workers’ Burden in Failure-to-Rehire Claims
- The Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled Oct. 6 that an injured worker bringing an “unreasonable failure to rehire” claim under the state’s Worker’s Compensation Act need only show he was an employee, was injured on the job and was later denied being rehired.
- The court held in Bartelt Custom Automotive, Inc. v. LIRC the Milwaukee metal fabrication employer had a duty to offer an open press brake operator job to the injured worker, even though he had declined that role before he was hired as a welder. The employer knew he had press brake experience, and he had told them he was able and willing to return to work.
- The worker was injured Jan. 9, 2017, and released without restrictions Feb. 28, 2017. By then the employer had filled his welding position and told him he was being laid off. The court affirmed the maximum award of one year of wage loss and said employees must only show good faith in looking for other work to meet their duty to mitigate.
- The takeaway for Wisconsin employers is that they should notify injured employees cleared to work of suitable open positions, even if the role differs from their prior one, and to document the process.
Preschool Ordered to Pay Fired Teacher’s Lifetime Medical Costs for Wrist Injury
- The Tennessee Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims ordered Ebenezer Children’s Academy on Oct. 20 to provide open lifetime medical benefits and pay $1,656.86 in permanent partial disability to a former lead teacher for a wrist injury, even though the school fired her while her claim was pending.
- The teacher fell in December 2021 and was treated for tenosynovitis. Ebenezer accepted the claim and accommodated her return with restrictions. Two wrist surgeries, in March and October 2022, failed to resolve the problem, and she cycled between work and medical leave into early 2023.
- She was fired in March 2023 after a disputed incident in which a child threw a shoe that hit another teacher. The court denied her request for increased disability benefits because she was earning at least as much at a new job by the time her initial benefit period expired Nov. 14, 2023.
- The court denied her claim for additional temporary disability and the employer’s counterclaim for overpayment