Back on January 22 Professor Burton and I presented at a webinar conducted by the Workers’ Injury Law and Advocacy Group (WILG) and titled “COVID as an Occupational Disease: How Do Various States Handle these Claims?” In this report, published…

John Burton & Mike Duff on Workers’ Compensation Covid Presumptions — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

As I commence another semester teaching workers’ compensation law, blissfully if artificially abstracted from Covid contexts, I find myself befuddled by a fundamental and, I naïvely had imagined, simple question: why did state workers’ compensation statutes ever include an accident…

Is the Accident Element of Workers’ Compensation Itself an Historical Accident? — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

I’ve just published a very short piece on the above-captioned topic in a just released issue of the American Bar Association’s Journal of Labor & Employment law. You can access the piece here. Michael C. Duff

Can Workers’ Compensation “Work” in a Mega-Risk World?: The COVID-19 Experiment — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

To state the obvious, continued contraction of employee status in the national economy diminishes in importance all domains of employment law. Why would anyone need workers’ compensation if we did not have statutory employees? The glib response to this concern…

Letter to Congress From Labor and Activist Groups on Gig Economy — Workers’ Compensation Implications — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

In recent posts I have noted that disability and medical costs arising from adverse reactions to Covid vaccinations are likely to be covered either by workers’ compensation (when the employer requires vaccination as a condition of employment) or perhaps by…

“Red” States, the National Labor Relations Act, and Covid Vaccination Mandates — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

The Bloomberg Daily Labor Report says, here behind a paywall, that yesterday “the U.S. Labor Department sent to the White House for review a high-profile final rule to ease employers’ use of independent contractors, continuing the Trump administration’s deregulatory push…

Hustling Through the New DOL FLSA Employee Test – Will it Change Anything? — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

The (woefully inadequate) $900 billion Covid relief bill will not nationalize wrongdoer liability immunity. (Negligence law imposes liability on an actor for causing injury to another by being unreasonably risky as to the other’s safety—the actor is a wrongdoer not…

Congress (Apparently) Steps Back From Abyss of Nationalized Wrongdoer Liability Immunity — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

I fear that very soon we may be facing vaccine injuries in connection with the dispensing of essentially experimental Covid vaccines. I certainly hope it does not happen, but experience is a cruel teacher. In addition to potential workers’ compensation…

Coronavirus Vaccine Injuries May Be Covered by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

It appears that one of the most Draconian American tort immunity bills ever conceived is about to be foisted on states any minute now. (But don’t worry, it will only be in effect for a year OR until a Government…

Will Covid Federal Civil Immunity Preempt California OSHA Covid Rules? — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog

A member of the press asked me today whether illness caused by an adverse reaction to an employer-required Covid-19 vaccine would be covered under workers’ compensation. Suppose, in other words, the employer says I cannot come back to work unless…

Workers’ Compensation Coverage of Adverse Reactions from Employer-Required Covid-19 Vaccination? — Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog