Packaging Firm Seeks Dismissal of Widow’s Lawsuit over Mill Disaster

chemical storage

Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. is asking Cowlitz County Superior Court in Washington to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed in September by the widow of a worker who was among 11 workers killed in the May 26 chemical tank collapse at the company’s Longview paper mill, arguing the state’s workers’ compensation exclusivity law prevents it. The company’s attorneys say liability would require that it had actual knowledge an injury to the worker was certain to occur and willfully disregarded that knowledge.
Under the state’s workers’ compensation system, employers are largely immune from liability in exchange for workers receiving rapid payment for on-the-job injuries. Experts said that Washington’s negligence test is very high, that lawsuits over a workplace death are rare unless the employer did not pay into workers’ compensation, and that benefits families receive are likely far less than what litigation could bring. It is not clear how much the families will receive through the state program.
The suit alleges the mill operated on a “run-to-failure” policy and cites a U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigation showing outside inspectors warned the company three times that the tank walls were weakened and had a “high likelihood” of failing. It seeks undisclosed damages. It is one of two lawsuits filed against the mill over the deaths.
About 900,000 gallons of caustic chemicals were released in the collapse, which also injured nine people.

A jail sergeant in Cuyahoga County Jail in Ohio is on unpaid leave and faces felony workers’ compensation fraud and grand theft charges in Franklin County, Ohio, for allegedly receiving benefits he was not entitled to. He pleaded not guilty and is free on bond.
The indictment says the amount was between $7,500 and $150,000, covering only the period from late December 2023 to the end of February 2024. The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation had paid Brewer $18,712.89 in benefits as of January 2024, and it is unclear how much the state believes he fraudulently received.
Brewer was on leave collecting benefits for a shoulder injury he suffered in an April 2023 altercation with an inmate. Emails show a jail warden reported that staff saw him cooking and serving at the grand opening of his BBQ restaurant that May, and later wrote that staff continued to see him doing physically demanding work at his other job.
In November 2023, a claims examiner wrote that the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation would open an investigation. Brewer has worked at the jail since 1997 and eventually returned to duty, records show.

New York’s Appellate Division, Third Department Court on Oct. 8 affirmed a Workers’ Compensation Board decision establishing a carpenter’s claim for a heart attack suffered after he helped wrestle a runaway donkey at the home of his employer, Moy Construction Corp.’s owner. The insurance company missed New York’s 25-day deadline to file a notice of controversy, so it was barred from disputing employment, accident or injury, and the Board had to weigh the worker’s evidence without regard to the carrier’s proof.
The worker had been asked to repair an animal shed at the owner’s home when the owner’s spouse, also the company’s vice president, asked him to help get a loose donkey back inside. After they forced it in, it tried to break out again, and he grabbed it.
After securing the donkey, he unloaded his tools and began work but quickly developed chest pains, lightheadedness and vomiting. Doctors at a hospital confirmed a heart attack. A workers’ compensation law judge initially disallowed the claim because he had not produced emergency room records, but he showed on appeal to the Board that the records were already in the file.
The court found sufficient, unrebutted and credible medical evidence: his emergency room records noted chest tightness “while exerting himself at work,” and his treating physician linked the heart attack to overexertion with the donkey.