Legal issues compensation

The importance of preventing occupational contact psoriasis in the work environment goes beyond the morbidity and cost in managing these patients. As trauma may incite or trigger new lesions of psoriasis, it is potentially a medico-legal issue, especially in countries where workman s compensation is a major concern (Rietschel and Fowler 1995). 

No study has investigated the diagnostic performance of CT in detecting pleural plaques by comparison with autopsy as the method of reference, but more plaques are detected using CT than radiography and, except for obviously calcified plaques, CT eliminates false-positive diagnoses of asbestos-related pleural disease caused by extrapleural fat (Friedman et al. 1988). CT is, thus, now widely recommended to detect pleural plaques in asbestos-exposed workers and plays an important role in medico-legal and compensation issues. 

L. Matthews. Jefferson, NC McFarland, 1998. Contains chapters written by a psychologist, an attorney and two physicians with expertise in MCS. A medical section addresses porphyria, SPECT scan studies, and psychological issues related to MCS. A legal section discusses how one state s workers compensation system fails workers in a toxic age. A personal section discusses the author s experience in the workers compensation system science and the literature is addressed in yet another section. 

The U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 required careful analysis of the consequences of any federally funded project. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 established guidelines for handling, transport, and hauling of hazardous materials, such as required in cleanup of soil contaminants. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 established, for the hrst time, strict mles on legal liability for soil contamination. CERCLA stimulated identihcation and cleanup of thousands of contaminated land sites, and consequently raised awareness of property buyers and sellers to make soil contamination a focal issue of land use and management practices (US-EPA 2007c). 

A much needed book on legal and ethical dilemmas in occupational health is now available (ref. 18). The chapter by Whorton, "Considerations About Reproductive Hazards", is of special interest. The book consists of 38 chapters grouped into five sections occupational safety and health act issues, workers rights and responsibilities, workers compensation, job discrimination, and ethics. 

Free allocation of allowances probably qualifies as State aid under the State Aids Directive (Johnston, this issue). Countries may thus have to make State aid declarations (otherwise, allocations could be challenged in national courts). State aid could be justified as a compensation for forgone profits due to the environmental regulation, but in this situation the proportionality principle applies - the amount of State aid should be proportional to the forgone profit. To the extent that profits may be deemed to amount to excessive compensation, this may create considerable legal pressures to reduce the scale of free allocations. 

Far from having a right to compensation, the balance of legal arguments seem heavily (and increasingly) weighted to the view that any such compensation is prohibited under State aid rules. Indeed, European competition law may create pressures to reduce the free allocations to industrial emitters so that they are proportionate with the (otherwise) forgone profits from prior to the introduction of ETS (Johnston, this issue). 

This chapter discusses acute and chronic toxicities of MIC and the possible mechanisms. Although the effect of the accident on the environment, the consequences of consuming polluted underground water, the cause of the accident, legal aspects of the tragedy, and the issues of compensation and rehabilitation of the population are extremely important, these are not covered in this chapter. These can be found elsewhere (Eckerman, 2005 Everest, 1985 Lapierre and Moro, 2001 Sufrin, 1985 Varnia, 1986). Instead, the chemistry and toxicity of MIC are situated in relation to other members of the isocyanate family, all of which are toxic. Also, the cyanide-sodium thiosulfate controversy is briefly discussed. 

Although safety professionals are not often involved in compensation issues with most companies or organizations, it is important for safety professionals to know the requirements of these laws and to identify situations where the laws may be in play in order to proactively notify their companies or organization to take corrective actions prior to any legal actions by the employee. 

The incident resulted in major cleanup costs, project delays, legal batties, and compensation awards costing millions of dollars. OSHA issued 539,000 in fines to three companies involved in the project. There was some argument whether the wind load was properly included in pre-lift load calculations. ... 

To document the circumstances for legal and workers compensation issues... 

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