Nevada wants to look at how claims are being handled
- An influx of injured workers in Nevada is still waiting for their workers’ compensation cases to be resolved, according to independent research by The Review-Journal.
- Some of these workers were even waiting months and sometimes years before the pandemic slowed the process.
- Nevada’s Department of Administration’s Hearings and Appeals Division reported a backlog of about 13,842 workers’ compensation cases.
- The delays are also caused by the limited hours that the case officers in the hearing and appeals division are working.
Man charged for faking bomb on a university campus
- A Northeastern University employee from Texas who said he was injured when a package exploded on the Boston campus was charged with fabricating the incident.
- Jason Duhaime, of Texas, was charged with “conveying false and misleading information related to an explosive device” and then lying to federal investigators, according to court documents.
- Duhaime told investigators that the hard plastic case exploded when he opened it on Sept. 13, causing “sharp” objects to fly from the case and injure his arms.
- The inside and outside of the case did not bear any marks, dents, or cracks, according to the FBI affidavit.
OSHA orders ExxonMobil to reinstate two employees
- OSHA ordered ExxonMobil Corp. to immediately reinstate two employees and pay them more than $800,000 in back wages, interest and compensatory damages.
- A federal whistleblower investigation found the company terminated them illegally after suspecting them of leaking information to the Wall Street Journal.
- In September 2020, the Wall Street Journal alleged the global oil-and-gas company may have inflated production estimates and the reported value of oil and gas wells in the Texas Permian Basin.
- The newspaper reported ExxonMobil’s assumption that drilling speed would increase substantially in the next five years may have been inaccurate.
Supreme Court won’t hear vaccine challenge
- The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from 10 states seeking to appeal a mandate that healthcare workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 at medical facilities that receive federal funding.
- A high court upheld the rule in a 5-4 decision in January, declaring that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has the authority to enforce the mandate.
- The high court also blocked the rule that employees at large employers must be vaccinated or tested weekly.
- Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming filed the appeal.