NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
Shareholder Adam
Brown, who also serves as our
Director of Professional Development, was invited to speak on a panel for the
MSBA's New Lawyers Section on March 29. The program was called Preparing for
the Interview Process from an Employer's Perspective.
The National Workers' Compensation Defense Network will hold its spring conference in Philadelphia on April 27 and 28. Please click here for more details about the event. If you are able to attend, please connect with Tom Kieselbach, who will be there in his capacity as Immediate Past President of the NWCDN.
Save the date for the 2022 NWCDN Annual Conference, which will be held in Nashville on August 3 and 4.
NWCDN is a national network of the top workers'
compensation firms across the country and Canada. CWK is the sole member firm
from Minnesota, and CWK has a strong presence in the organization, with Tom Kieselbach serving as Immediate Past President, Parker Olson serving as Midwest Regional Vice-Chair,
and Adam Brown serving on the Inclusion and Diversity Committee.
Please click here for summaries of Minnesota workers' compensation cases from February 2022. Issues include Petitions to Vacate Stipulations because of changes in medical conditions, judicial discretion in cases involving choice of medical experts, and cases involving witness credibility.
February 2022 summaries by Eric Behr.
Shareholder Whitney Teel has been asked to speak at this year's Minnesota Workers' Compensation Symposium, which will take place on Thursday, May 12, 2022. Please click here for the Symposium's webpage and registration information.
Whitney will present at 11:10 a.m. during Breakout Session 2B. She will be addressing vocational rehabilitation benefits in a session entitled Vocational Rehabilitation Bootcamp - Managing Services and Expenses.
CWK will once again be an exhibitor at the
Symposium, and we hope you will stop by our booth to say hello. Please make
sure to sign up for Breakout Session 2B for a great presentation from Whitney!
CWK's popular Annual Seminar will be back in person this year! The seminar will be held on Friday, September 30, 2022 at the Hilton Minneapolis/Bloomington.
More details will follow over the next few months, but please save the
date now. We hope to see you, live and in person, in September!
On Thursday, February 3, 2022, Governor Walz signed a bill into law that extended the workers’ compensation presumption for certain frontline professions through 2022. The prior law addressing this presumption expired on December 31, 2021. As of now, the new law is not retroactive to January 2022, but there may be legislation that addresses this question later this year.
This law extends the presumption that has been in place for much of the pandemic. By way of reminder, this presumption indicates that employees working in first responder or healthcare occupations will be presumed eligible for workers’ compensation benefits if they either test positive for COVID-19 or are diagnosed by a licensed physician, physician’s assistant, or APRN without a test. In situations where a test has not been done, a copy of written documentation of the diagnosis shall be provided to the Employer and Insurer. The following occupations fall into this presumption:
In summary, if an employee shows that he or she works within one of these occupations and either tests positive for or is diagnosed with COVID-19, the burden of proof will shift to the Employer and Insurer to rebut the presumption. Employers and Insurers will still be able to show that the employment was not a direct cause of the disease, but it will be much more difficult to prevail on a denial of liability when one of these types of employees contract COVID-19. To note, the date of injury in these situations shall be the date the employee is no longer able to work due to a diagnosis of COVID-19 or due to the symptoms later diagnosed as COVID-19, whichever occurs first.
This Legislative Update was prepared by Parker Olson.
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