Saturday, December 30, 2017

Conk on Occupational Health and Safety - Torts Prof Blog



Conk on role of occupational health in workers comp and torts  - Torts Prof Blog

Many observers, looking back at the early twentieth century’s creation by states of the workers compensation laws have seen a grand bargain. In this view tort remedies were compromised for the certainty of more modest scheduled statutory benefits. This study argues that the tort laws were a major victory for labor. Workers gained the right to medical treatment, temporary total disability benefits, and permanent disability benefits. The medical benefits and temporary disability were prompt and reliable for all work related accidental injuries. The loss of the tort remedy against the employer was of little significance since compensation via tort was highly uncertain. Further the right to sue third parties in tort was preserved – and enabled to some degree by the workers compensation benefits received.

But occupational diseases were excluded until pressure by labor and pro labor interests achieved reforms. Much of the driving force was the recognition of pneumoconiosis – particularly silicosis. The granite cutters of Vermont spurred studies which demonstrate the limits of the germ theory of disease and identified the deadly granite dust as the cause of lung disease. Many states broadened their definitions of occupational disease.

Asbestos related disease – particularly the form of pneumoconiosis known as asbestosis advanced the science of pulmonary disease. The landmark studies by Irving Selikoff of morbidity and mortality of insulation workers created a body of evidence that supported the massive wave of third party asbestos litigation. The asbestos epidemic litigation advanced the doctrines of strict product liability law, drove courts to advance management of “mass torts” via multi-district litigation, and increased the competence of courts to deal with epidemiological and other forms of scientific evidence of disease causation.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Judge Alex Kozinski made us all victims and accomplices.

Dahlia Lithwick is a brilliant lawyer-journalist who writes for Slate.  In this shocking confessional piece she describes how women acquiesced in the shameful and humiliating behaviour of a brilliant, powerful, and - now we all know- nefarious judge.

It's a must read. - gwc

Judge Alex Kozinski made us all victims and accomplices.

by Dahlia Lithwick

The first time I met Alex Kozinski was in 1996. I was clerking for the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and there was an orientation for new clerks in San Francisco. One of my co-clerks and I were introduced to the already legendary, lifetime-tenured young judge at a reception, and we talked for a while. I cannot recall what we talked about. I remember only feeling quite small and very dirty. Without my prompting, my former co-clerk described this interaction in an email to me this week. “He completely ignored me and appeared to be undressing you with his eyes,” he wrote. “I had never seen anyone ogle another person like that and still have not seen anything like it. Was so uncomfortable to watch, and I wasn’t even the subject of the stare.”***

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

OTHERWISE: Roy Reed, Times Reporter Who Covered the Civil Rights Era, Dies at 87 - The New York Times



Jim Dwyer writes

"‪Roy Reed, reporter, was near Meredith when he got shot, at the Selma jailhouse when King walked out, at the Pettus Bridge when blacks were bull whipped and clubbed. He would’ve been called fake news but he was the real deal. Don’t miss the John Schwartz obit "
When Dwyer, himself the "real deal",  uses the honorific "reporter" it reminds us of the heroics of the men and women, writers and photographers,  who bring us the stories of life and death, suffering and beauty around the world.

OTHERWISE: Roy Reed, Times Reporter Who Covered the Civil Rights Era, Dies at 87 - The New York Times