The NJ Supreme Court has ruled that employees have 90 days to notify their employers after the diagnosis of an occupational disease. If the employee fails to notify his employer, a claim for workers' compensation benefits may be barred.
The State of New Jersey recently adopted new Administrative Rules which appear to be the most sweeping reform of the NJ Workers' Compensation system in the last 17 tears. The rules address substantive and procedural aspects that may result in a detrimental effect upon the rights of many litigants. The Rules were adopted on March 3, 1997 with the support of business and the insurance company lobbying teams.
The nursing home industry is one of America's fastest growing industries. Today nursing homes and personal care facilities employ approximately 1.6 million workers at 21,000 work sites. By the year 2005, industry employment levels will rise to an estimated 2.4 million workers.
While working in various capacities for approximately 30 years, an employee was exposed to asbestos fiber. During 1987 the employee retired. In 1988 the retired employee consulted with both a lawyer and a doctor. In November of 1989 the employee had actual knowledge that he suffered from asbestosis.
In a decision that could open the doors to lawsuits by employees harmed by exposure to secondhand smoke or other indirect hazards in the workplace, an appeals court Tuesday upheld benefits for a West Milford custodian who died of cancer after exposure to asbestos in a school.
Studies linking asbestos to disease began in the early 1900's. Direct exposure to asbestos has been implicated in various diseases, principally mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and lung scarring. The risks in all four diseases are closely influenced by dose and duration of asbestos exposure, and they involve long and variable latent periods after initial exposure (20-40 years).
Asbestos Award Could Be Largest In U.S.
A federal jury in Newark has awarded $5.8 million in compensatory damages to a widow, and her two sons , whose husband died of asbestos-related lung cancer last year.
Temporary Benefits While on "Light Duty"
A Haledon man is suing his World War II employer for damages in connection with the death of his wife, claiming that she died from asbestos particles from his job. In what Jon Gelman, a Wayne lawyer, said was the first action of its kind, James D. Parker filed suit yesterday in Superior Court in Paterson, seeking damages from the Union Asbestos and Rubber Co. for the estate of his wife, Angelina, who died of cancer last year at age 61.
The concept of a compensable industrial disease has developed only recently and its acceptance has lagged far behind that of industrial accidents. The original Workers' Compensation Acts, as promulgated from the year 1911 forward by many of the states, did not provide for the recognition of occupational illness and disease as compensable events. As demands have been placed upon the medical system to treat and to prevent occupational illness, the legal system, under social, economic, and political pressure, has sought to provide a remedy for the thousands of injured workers who have suffered and who are continuing to suffer from occupational illness and disease.
Unto the second generation, deadly asbestos fibers are now destroying the lungs of children of Paterson area asbestos workers of the 1940's, most of whom already have succumbed or are totally incapacitated from lung cancers and related diseases.