The first trial of a claim in a consolidated State action by sensitized health care workers against latex glove manufacturers resulted in a California...

In one of the most significant decisions yet to be rendered by a Court, a surgical registered nurse was declared to be totally and permanently disable...

Connie R. Gates, who was awarded total disability benefits by the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court, was awarded Social Security Disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income benefits as a result of her sensitivity to latex products. 

 Workers’ compensation courts are now requiring employers to act swiftly in awarding benefits to workers who have been sensitized to latex products. 

The California Supreme Court recently decided that a special statute of limitations for injury or illness caused by exposure to asbestos does not bar an action for a second disease, mesothelioma, which was diagnosed several years after the original diagnosis of a related pulmonary condition. The asbestos worker was exposed to asbestos fiber in various industrial workplaces from the early 1940's until 1963, when he became a television repairman. 

A nurse who was exposed to latex gloves at a New Jersey nursing home has been awarded a Court-approved settlement for continuing medical treatment and medications.  

A Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court has ordered that a personal computer system be furnished to a homebound former health care worker suffering from latex sensitivity. This ruling is consistent with a national trend by the courts toward the recognition of the catastrophic impact of latex allergy upon general life pursuits. 

The statutory formula for compensability for occupational disease is similar to that for accidental injuries, that is, “compensation for personal injuries to or for death of such employee by any “compensable” occupational disease arising out of and in the course of the employment” Section 30. There appears to me to be three essential elements of Section 30. There must be an injury or death – due to a “compensable” occupational disease – which must arise out of and in the course of the employment. There is an exception for willful self-exposure but that exception has never been established, to my knowledge, so it is not that important.  

On March 9, the U.S. House of Representatives initiated markup of H.R. 1283, The Fairness in Asbestos Compensation Act. However, this bill is anything but fair to the victims and families of asbestos, and would only shield the manufacturers of deadly asbestos products from full accountability for the devastation they have caused by stripping dying and injured Americans of their legal right.  

Even as the battle over the asbestos industry bailout bill continues full steam ahead in the House, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO), the author of the bill, in an extraordinary April 4 colloquy on the floor of the Senate, declared the Senate version of the asbestos bill dead for the year.  

Delaware has always been known to be a corporate-friendly state, and a recent opinion in a latex claim continues to reflect that bias. The Superior Court of Delaware's ruling affirming the Industrial Accident Board's denial of benefits to a tire worker, who had been diagnosed with a latex allergy, reflects an archaic application of the rules of evidence that is inconsistent with current legal thinking. Richard Smith was employed on May 12, 1997 as a tire repairman by Service Tire Truck Center, Inc. 

An Alameda County jury has awarded $6.5 million to a Kansas woman dying of cancer, saying that her illness is the result of childhood exposure to asbestos that her parents carried from their shipyard job in the 1940s to their then-San Bruno home.  

The rules governing when a claim must be filed as a result of an occupational exposure to asbestos have been changed by the New Jersey Supreme Court. A signed and sworn workers’ compensation claim petition, even though unsupported by medical diagnosis, is sufficient to impute discovery of the existence of a claim and toll the statute of limitations.

 Janeth McFarlane worked at the Baptist Hospital in Florida for approximately two years prior to November 1, 1996. She had used latex powdered gloves. Her employer had ordered, but had not received, powder-less gloves. During her employment she did experience some respiratory difficulty but was unaware of the cause. On November 1, 1996, immediately after using latex powdered gloves, she went into respiratory failure. Her co-workers attempted to revive her but were unsuccessful. 

The Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Appeals Board has followed the theory adopted in a majority of jurisdictions that each discrete reaction to latex products constitutes a separate injury. Even though the worker may have suffered a reaction based upon a cumulative exposure to latex at many employments, the responsibility for compensating the injured worker falls upon the employer where the reaction in question occurred. Evans v. Phoebe Berks Health Care Cr., A98-3954 (Pa.Work.Comp.App.Bd. 2000), decided Feb. 1, 2000. 

 As the available workforce in the United States continues to decrease to historically low levels, disabled workers are being enticed to enter a ...

In a landmark case, the Iowa Supreme Court decided that latex allergy/sensitivity claims are to be considered work related accidents rather than occupational diseases and that sensitized workers are entitled to receive workers' compensation benefits including those for loss of functional ability. The Court's decision to pinpoint the reaction to a specific event rather than to a long period of occupational exposure will make it easier, less complicated, and less costly for injured workers to claim benefits.  

Tiny Libby, Mont., depended for years on the jobs at a vermiculite mine. But the mine is closed now, and a P-I investigation shows the town is paying a tragic price for those jobs. 

 Latex allergy sensitivity claims are becoming a more common phenomenon in workers’ compensation systems throughout the United States. Causal relationship between latex exposure and allergic reactions, including anaphylactic shock, has led to the reporting of 23 deaths to the Federal Drug Administration between 1988 and 1995. Although most commonly associated with latex gloves, natural latex rubber is used in more than 40,000 medical, surgical and household products. 

 The battlefield for the assault on state workers’ compensation programs has shifted from the state capitals to the halls of Congress. Industry and their insurers are now shifting gears from an attempt at tinkering with individual systems to a more generalized approach, where assets and energies can be concentrated uniformly through Federal modification of globalized issues that will place into jeopardy the rights of workers and significantly hamper the efforts of their attorneys in seeking recovery under state workers’ compensation systems.