East Rutherford, NJ (Sports Network) – New York Jets center Nick Mangold left Sunday’s game against the Jaguars with an ankle injury.
With less than a minute to play in the first quarter, Mangold injured his ankle on a running play.
The All-Pro did not return to the game. He will have an MRI on Monday.
September 18, 2011 – 6:00am
There are service providers, bloggers, anti-drug organizations and even state agencies that claim alcohol or drugs are involved in up to half of workers compensation cases, but experts say the data appears to be bogus.
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Insurers, workers comp research organizations and federal workplace safety agencies say that neither they nor any group or agency they know of collects data on the number of comp claims where the use of drugs or alcohol is a factor.
Yet certain vendors, blogs, anti-drug groups and state agencies claim on their websites that drugs or alcohol are involved in 38% to 50% of all workers comp claims.
They typically attribute the data to research that can’t be verified.
Rita Nowak, vp of commercial lines and workers comp for the Property Casualty Insurers Assn. of America in Des Plaines, Ill., said she does not know of any industry statistics on workers comp claims stemming from drug or alcohol use. She also said she does not believe state regulatory agencies request that insurers or employers report such information.
Claiming that 38% to 50% of comp claims stem from alcohol or drugs does not make sense and is insulting to workers, Ms. Nowak said.
“I don’t think that is even within the realm of realistic data points,” Ms. Nowak said. “It basically implies that half the U.S. workforce is predominantly high at work.”
Yet the National Drug-Free Workplace Alliance, a division of Drug Free America Foundation Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla., cites the 38% to 50% statistic on its website. In one location, the NDWA attributes that finding to NCCI Holdings Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based workers comp research and rating organization.
But a spokesman for NCCI said the organization examined more than 20 years of its research and found no such statistics. NCCI now plans to ask organizations to remove such attributions to its research, the spokesman said.
In another place on its website, NDWA attributes the 38% to 50% statistic to a 1992 “Working Partners, National Conference Proceedings Report,” sponsored by several federal agencies including the U.S. Labor Department. But an online copy of the proceedings report shows that while conference speakers addressed drug and alcohol issues and solutions for small businesses, it does not show that any speaker raised the 38% to 50% statistic.
In addition, neither the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration nor its Bureau of Labor Statistics track such data, representatives for both agencies said.
The NDWA could not be reached for comment.
The statistic pops up again on the website of the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, which says that “38% to 50% of all workers compensation claims are related to substance abuse in the workplace.”
“That seems kind of high to me,” a spokesman for the Tennessee agency said when asked about the numbers. But he cited the source of the information as the “Working Partners, National Conference Proceedings Report.”
Likewise, attorney Bill Judge states on the Work Comp Roundup blog that NCCI estimates that 38% to 50% of workers comp claims involve a drug or alcohol issue, which the NCCI denied was the case.
But Mr. Judge said the real percentage may be even greater. Mr. Judge is a research attorney for Park-Dickens Group L.L.C. in Chicago, which helps employers comply with regulations for drug testing so they can argue an intoxication defense against workers comp claims.
“I can understand where people might say, “Wait a second,’ but a lot of the insurance companies that we talk to on a regular basis believe that (38% to 50%) number is probably low,” Mr. Judge said.
However, several of the nation’s largest workers comp insurers say they do not collect such data, in part because it’s up to employers to report to them whether a claimant was under the influence at the time of an accident and not all employers test for intoxication.
But a spokeswoman for the California State Compensation Insurance Fund estimated that just less than 1% of its claimants are intoxicated at the time of their injury.
Numerous studies have linked the potential for intoxication impairment to contribute to occupational injuries, said Eric Goplerud, senior vp of the NORC Department of Substance Abuse, Mental Health and Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Chicago.
But Mr. Goplerud said he is not familiar with any study substantiating that 50% of workers comp claims are related to drugs or alcohol.
Any such statistics would be “very shaky and not defensible from data,” in part because of state laws exempting workers comp benefits for persons injured while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, he said.
The laws undoubtedly suppress accurate reporting as some doctors treating injured workers are not likely to ask about alcohol or drugs out of concern the workers comp system won’t pay for their patients’ injury expenses, he added.
Some observers say inflating the influence of intoxicants is dangerous because it can lead to blaming workers for accidents rather than implementing procedures that address real safety problems.
“If you hang on to that (38% to 50%) number, you are basically going to start blaming the people for getting hurt as opposed to saying maybe there is a systemic (safety) problem we need to fix,” said Thomas Cecich, a member of the board of directors for the Des Plaines, Ill.-based American Society of Safety Engineers.
Many states that allow denial of workers comp benefits when drugs or alcohol cause an accident require the intoxicants to be the sole cause of the accident, Ms. Nowak said. But it is probably frequent that other factors contribute to accidents, such as failing to use proper safety guards on machinery.
Therefore, it is difficult to pin down how often intoxication contributes to injuries, Ms. Nowak said. But compared with 20 years ago, there are more drug- and alcohol-free workplaces because of education programs sponsored by insurers and state and federal agencies, Ms. Nowak added.
A 2009 Rand Corp. Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace study titled “The Effects of Substance Use on Workplace Injuries” reviewed existing literature examining the topic.
The Rand researchers found that the association between substance use and occupational injuries is greater in certain industries such as manufacturing and construction. But overall, the Rand researchers concluded that the proportion of occupational injuries caused by substance use is “relatively small.”
“Instead, there is mounting evidence that harmful substance use is one of a constellation of behaviors exhibited by certain individuals who may avoid work-related safety precautions and take greater work-related risks,” Rand’s report states. “Thus, we suspect that it is more likely that risk-taking dispositions…and other omitted factors can explain most empirical associations between substance use and injuries at work.”
In my Aug. 15 and Sept. 5 columns, I described eligibility for and calculation of disability retirement benefits. In this column, I’ll discuss workers’ compensation, which may be a better option if you are disabled or injured in the line of duty.
To be considered disabled, you and your agency must provide the Office of Personnel Management with proof that you are unable to perform on the job because of a disabling condition. It doesn’t matter if the disease or injury that disabled you was incurred on or off the job. Further, your agency must certify that you aren’t qualified for reassignment to any other vacant position within your agency and in your commuting area. If OPM agrees that you are disabled for any “useful and efficient service,” it will approve your application for disability retirement. The annuity you receive will partially replace your lost salary.
On the other hand, if you have a permanent, total or partial disability because of disease or injury that occurred on the job while you were performing your assigned duties, the Labor Department’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) will pay you lump-sum benefits in the form of scheduled and nonscheduled awards.
Nonscheduled awards are compensation for the loss of wage-earning capacity. They are paid for the period during which you are unable to resume regular work because of an injury or a disease-related disability. The amount of compensation is based on the difference between your capacity to earn wages and the wages of the job you held when injured.
Scheduled awards are paid for a permanent impairment incurred on the job, such as the loss of an eye. The amount you can receive is spelled out in law. With one exception, you can receive a scheduled award even if you are still employed or have retired. The exception is that you can’t receive both a scheduled and an unscheduled award for the same injury.
If you apply for workers’ comp, you should also apply for disability retirement benefits. That way, you can preserve your rights and those of your survivors if you should die. If you are a Federal Employees Retirement System employee who applies for disability retirement, you must file for Social Security disability benefits. If you don’t, OPM won’t process your application.
If you are approved for both workers’ comp and the disability benefits, you’ll have to decide which one to take. That’s because you can’t get both benefits at the same time. Since workers’ comp benefits are usually greater, employees usually choose them.
If you have applied for both benefits, as a rule OPM will make its decision before OWCP does. If it approves your application for disability retirement, it will start making annuity payments. If OWCP later awards workers’ comp benefits and you elect to accept them, the annuity payments you’ve already received must be repaid to OPM. However, in most cases, OWCP will handle this by withholding the required amount from your workers’ comp payment or payments, which will be retroactive to the day when you separated from your agency.
While on workers’ comp, your disability annuity payments will be suspended. If workers’ comp benefits end for any reason, including personal choice, OPM will reinstate your annuity as long as you haven’t recovered from your disability or been restored to earning capacity.
If your disability annuity is reactivated, the time you spent on workers’ comp won’t be included when OPM computes your new disability annuity or regular annuity. Instead, your annuity will be based on your actual service and high-three salary — the average of your highest-three consecutive annual salaries — on the day you retired on disability, increased by any cost-of-living-adjustments that have occurred since then.
Clearly, not all job-related injuries or disabilities cases require that you separate from the service. If they are of short duration, you may be able to receive of workers’ comp while you are on leave without pay (LWOP).
In that case, all the time you spend on LWOP is creditable for future retirement computation and high-three purposes. Unlike regular LWOP, the time spent on workers’ comp isn’t subject to the six-month per year limitation on creditable service.
Despite a grinding unemployment rate, at least some New York employers are desperately struggling in a different way — to find skilled employees.
Talent is so scarce in certain white-hot fields — in finance, accountancy, law, technology, medical and other sectors — that finding qualified candidates is like mining for gold, according to local employment experts.
After searching nearly a year for a specialized tech worker, Michael Crom, executive vice president at Dale Carnegie Training in Hauppauge, knows the pain. The company finally recruited the right candidate for the well-paid job.
“I am really thrilled. He’s the right guy and is ready to relocate,” said Crom. “The challenge today is matching people’s backgrounds and talents exactly with what you are looking for.”
Even as the city’s unemployment rate edged up in August to 8.7 percent from July’s 8.6 percent, many employers can’t find what they are looking for, fast enough.
“Some employers need to be mindful of retaining the best talent with certain sectors expanding. That could mean more compensation, more time off, the whole nine yards for staff,“ said Rich Deosingh, regional manager at recruiter Robert Half International.
A separate survey this week by the Manpower staffing firm described an overall “positive” jobs market in the latter part of 2011 in the New York regional area.
Hiring won’t be gangbusters. But from October to December, 19 percent of the companies polled said they plan to hire more workers; 12 percent expect to reduce payroll. The majority plan to keep payroll steady.
“It is good news,” said John Garofala, New York regional director at Manpower. “We are very encouraged by the survey. A lot of employers are saying they are going to ramp up in the fourth quarter.”
A 74-year-old woman who said she was injured after falling in a Costco store in Florida beat back the retailer’s effort to move the case to that state because it was too much trouble to defend itself in New York.
Theresa Danza sued Costco in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, claiming she was hospitalized for spinal and shoulder trauma and needed months of treatment by a chiropractor after a tumble in a Costco in North Miami, Florida, on Jan. 24, 2009.
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“I didn’t know what hit me,” she said. “I just went flying. I went up in the air and down I went. It seems I slipped on a slurpee that was all over the floor.”
Costco sought to move her case to Florida. It said it would be prejudiced if the case stayed in New York, and cited the cost of locating and interviewing witnesses.
Not so, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack said in a decision Wednesday.
Schack said it would be more inconvenient for Danza to fly her witnesses to Florida than for Costco to fly its employee witnesses to New York.
He also said Issaquah, Washington-based Costco Wholesale Corp is hardly cash-starved, with profit of $1.3 billion on revenue of $77.95 billion in its last fiscal year.
“The court, in balancing the interests of plaintiff Danza against financial ‘goliath’ defendant Costco, holds that it would not be in the interest of substantial justice to try this action in Florida instead of New York,” Shack wrote.
A Costco spokeswoman declined to comment, citing a company policy not to discuss litigation.
Pursuing the case at home could avert more pain for Danza.
“I do not intend to be traveling to Florida in winter anymore as traveling is too painful and stressful for me,” she said in court papers quoted by Schack.
The case is Danza v. Costco Wholesale Corp, New York State Supreme Court, Kings County, No. 31512/2010.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel)