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An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands Of Coal Miners. Regulators Could Have Stopped It
An epidemic is killing thousands of coal miners. Regulators could have stopped it
Over the last two years, Nelson, Bryan & Cross has received dozens of favorable decisions in federal black lung cases. Contact us today if you have not applied or have been turned down.
The Black Lung Benefits Act creates a compensation system for a disabled miner and, after his death, for his surviving dependents. Miners are considered disabled under the law if they can prove their lung function is impaired enough to render them incapable of further work, and that the lung impairment is caused by pneumoconiosis (Black Lung).
A recent court decision was a significant win for families of miners. The significant “takeaway” is this: it is better to have your miner apply for Black Lung benefits while he is still alive, even if he is totally disabled, because there may be a higher burden of proof on survivor benefits claims after he dies.
If your family has a miner who you think may be disabled, we encourage you to talk to an attorney. Nelson, Bryan and Cross has handled Black Lung Cases for over 30 years. Give us a call at 387-7777.
Greg Kelly’s grandson, Caden, scampers to the tree-shaded creek behind his grandfather’s house to catch crawdads, as Kelly shuffles along, trying to keep up. Kelly’s small day pack holds an oxygen tank with a clear tube clipped to his nose. He has chairs spaced out on the short route so he can stop every few minutes, sit down and catch his breath, until he has enough wind and strength to start out again for the creek.
“I just pray that the Lord give me as much time as I can with him,” Kelly said, his eyes welling with tears. “He just lightens my life. I want to be as fun with him as I can. And do as much as I can with him.”
Caden is 9 years old, and even at his age he knows what happened to his paw-paw at the Harlan County, Ky., coal mines where Kelly labored as a roof bolter for 31 years.
“That coal mine made your lungs dirty, didn’t it?'” Kelly recalled Caden asking. “Yeah it did. … And I can’t breathe and I have to have my backpack to breathe,” Kelly told him.
It’s a familiar tale across Appalachia. Two hours north and east, beyond twisting mountain roads, Danny Smith revved up a lawn mower. He wore jeans, a T-shirt and a white face mask stretching from eyes to chin, and he pushed only about 15 feet before he suddenly shut off the mower, bent to his knees and started hacking uncontrollably.
“Oh God,” he gasped, as he spit up a crusty black substance with gray streaks, and then stared at the dead lung tissue staining the grass. Still coughing and breathing hard, Smith settled into a chair on his porch and clipped an oxygen tube to his nose.
After spending just 12 years underground, his lungs are so bad he faces what coal miners decades older and with decades more in mining have endured. His lung tissue is dying so fast, his respiratory therapist says, it just peels away.
“I’m terrified,” Smith said, as he remembered his father’s suffering when he was struggling with the same coal miner’s disease.
“I sure don’t want to go through what he went through.
I seen a lot of guys that died of black lung and they all suffered like that.”
A multiyear investigation by NPR and the PBS program Frontline found that Smith and Kelly are part of a tragic and recently discovered outbreak of the advanced stage of black lung disease, known as complicated black lung or progressive massive fibrosis.
A federal monitoring program reported just 99 cases of advanced black lung disease nationwide from 2011-2016. But NPR identified more than 2,000 coal miners suffering from the disease in the same time frame, and in just five Appalachian states.
And now, an NPR/Frontline analysis of federal regulatory data — decades of information recorded by dust-collection monitors placed where coal miners work — has revealed a tragic failure to recognize and respond to clear signs of danger.
For decades, government regulators had evidence of excessive and toxic mine dust exposures, the kind that can cause PMF, as they were happening. They knew that miners like Kelly and Smith were likely to become sick and die. They were urged to take specific and direct action to stop it. But they didn’t.
“We failed,” said Celeste Monforton, a former mine safety regulator in the Clinton administration who reviewed the NPR/Frontline findings.
“Had we taken action at that time, I really believe that we would not be seeing the disease we’re seeing now,” said Monforton, now a workplace safety advocate who teaches at George Washington and Texas State universities.
“Having miners die at such young ages from exposures that happened 20 years ago … I mean this is such a gross and frank example of regulatory failure.”
It’s an “epidemic” and “clearly one of the worst industrial medicine disasters that’s ever been described,” said Scott Laney, an epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
“We’re counting thousands of cases,” he said. “Thousands and thousands and thousands of black lung cases. Thousands of cases of the most severe form of black lung. And we’re not done counting yet.”
“They’re essentially suffocating while alive”
This advanced stage of black lung leaves lungs crusty and useless, says Dr. Robert Cohen, a pulmonologist at the University of Illinois, Chicago who has spent decades studying black lung and PMF disease.
“You have a much harder time breathing so that you can’t exercise,” Cohen noted. “Then you can’t do some simple activities. Then you can barely breathe just sitting still. And then you require oxygen. And then even the oxygen isn’t enough. And so … they’re essentially suffocating while alive.”
The toxic mine dust that causes severe disease isn’t coal dust alone. It includes silica, which is generated when miners cut sandstone as they mine coal. Many coal seams in central Appalachia are embedded in sandstone that contains quartz. And when quartz is cut by mining machines, it creates fine and barbed particles of silica dust — fine enough to be easily inhaled and sharp enough to lodge in lungs forever.
In the past 30 years, the biggest coal seams were mined out in Appalachia, leaving thinner seams coursing through sandstone.
“All the good seams were gone because there were hardly no solid seams of coal left,” the 54-year-old Kelly remembered. “And there [was] more rock in the coal.”
The silica dust that resulted from cutting that rock was far more dangerous than coal dust alone.
Silica is “somewhere around 20 times more toxic and can cause disease much more rapidly,” said Laney.
The NPR/Frontline investigation found thousands of instances in which miners were exposed — not just to coal dust but to dangerous levels of toxic silica dust. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration’s own data chronicle 21,000 instances of excessive exposure to silica since 1986.
At the same time, NPR identified black lung diagnoses involving miners in their 30s who also experienced rapid progression to the advanced stage of PMF. Smith says he was diagnosed with PMF at 39. NIOSH has confirmed this trend in its studies.
“We’ve got the bodies to prove it”
NPR/Frontline analyzed 30 years of data collected by federal regulators. They measure coal and silica dust where miners are working, and in 85 percent of the samples collected silica was at safe levels. But for that other 15 percent — which amounts to 21,000 dust samples — the data show that miners were exposed to excessive silica levels that violated federal health standards.
“That’s what causes disease, is the excessive exposure,” said Jim Weeks, an industrial hygienist and mine dust specialist at MSHA in the Obama administration and at the United Mine Workers union before that.
An NPR review of mine dust regulations also found that federal enforcement does not directly address silica dust. If regulators measure too much silica in mine air, they place coal mines on much tougher limits for coal dust. That’s supposed to lower the silica exposure because coal and silica dust are often mixed.
But our investigation found that this indirect approach to controlling silica dust didn’t always work. MSHA’s 30 years’ dust sampling data show dangerous levels of silica or quartz where miners were working close to 9,000 times, even after coal mines were required to meet reduced limits for coal mine dust.
“They didn’t pay sufficient attention,” Weeks concludes. “And …we’ve got the bodies to prove it. I mean these guys wouldn’t be dying if people had been paying attention to quartz. It’s that simple.”
We found another example of overexposure in MSHA’s data. Each time federal mine inspectors issued citations for too much silica, which they did only a fraction of the time, they included an estimate of how many miners were affected. A review of those data shows more than 9,000 workers were exposed to silica levels that the regulations considered dangerous.
This excessive exposure to silica almost certainly happens more often than the data suggest. That’s because the data show only what happens when regulators are checking. The inspectors don’t check most of the time miners are working. Dust sampling takes place during regular mine inspections, which are scheduled four times a year in underground mines and twice a year at surface operations.
And until recently, sampling did not take place every hour miners worked or while mines were at full production.
Another finding of the NPR/Frontline investigation: During some of the heaviest periods of exposure to silica, regulations allow miners to work without any monitoring for it at all.
A white rock dust
Smith drove us past a pair of adjacent coal mines near his home in Canada, Ky., where he and other miners cut nothing but rock for months.
He was reluctant to pull over at the Rockhouse Energy Mine, even though it is closed, because security guards were watching from a parking lot. So he slowly passed by, describing work shifts that lasted 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for months, while cutting through solid rock. They used drills and mining machines to dig from one coal seam to another underground.
“It wasn’t coal dust that you would see,” Smith said. “It was more of a white rock … dust.”
Smith and his coworkers were cutting what’s called a slope mine. It’s not really mining because there’s no coal involved. It’s all about cutting through mountainsides or blocks of rock to reach coal seams.
And because there’s no coal, it is considered development mining or construction. So sampling the air for toxic dust is not required, even though it is the most dangerous dust. Former MSHA officials told us some inspectors did it, but most did not.
Smith spent months cutting at least two slope mines in his career and believes that could explain his severe disease, even though he worked underground only 12 years.
“Very possible,” he said, as we passed the mine’s abandoned conveyor belts that stretch over the road. “Most of my mining career I run a continuous miner. I run a roof bolter also. And it’s very possible from all the hours we worked.”
Roof bolters operate a machine that pins roof supports into underground mines by drilling into solid rock. The machines have customized dust-control systems that suck away dust, but miners complain they get bursts of silica dust when they begin drilling and then later when they empty boxes that collect the dust that was sucked away during drilling.
The machine known as a continuous miner grinds up rock and coal. Dust is supposed to be controlled by massive ventilation fans that pump air through the mine, while heavy curtains channel that air to sweep away dust. Mining machines spray water as they cut, to tamp down dust.
NPR interviewed 34 coal miners, all diagnosed with PMF and with 12 to 40 years in mining in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky. Sometimes the dust controls worked, most told us, and sometimes they didn’t.
Federal law requires mining companies to offer dust masks or respirators to miners, but their use is not required. The law considers them a secondary and optional means of protection. Mines are required to provide air clear of dangerous dust, first and foremost.
Most of the sick and dying miners we interviewed who used dust masks said they often didn’t work.
“They would clog up with dust, sweat and spit,” said Edward Wayne Brown, who spent 21 years underground in Buchanan County, Va. “And then it feels like somebody just sitting there with their hand over your face.”
In fact, dozens of miners, including Smith, have filed product liability lawsuits against dust mask suppliers. Most cases are still pending but a few have resulted in multimillion-dollar verdicts for the miners.
“This is probably the oldest known occupational hazard,” said retired industrial hygienist Weeks, who has a collection of antique books to prove it — with references to mine dust hazards from Pliny the Elder in the first century and another dating to the 15th century.
“There’s nothing new about this,” Weeks added. “And you’d think by now we’d have figured out how to deal with it.”
Awareness of silica dust as a hazard in the United States goes back at least 100 years, with a series of studies and reports beginning in 1908. In the 1930s, hundreds of workers were sickened and killed by exposure to silica dust while tunneling through a mountain of solid rock in West Virginia.
In 1974, NIOSH first called for silica exposure limits twice as strict as those in place for coal miners and other workers. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that MSHA and others began to get serious about silica in coal mines.
NPR and Frontline obtained internal memos from the Clinton administration that showed alarm back then about clusters of advanced lung disease among coal miners as young as 40. MSHA sent out alerts to coal mining companies, warning about excessive exposure to silica dust and severe disease among miners. NIOSH again called for a silica exposure limit that would be twice as tough, plus separate regulation of silica, as did a Department of Labor advisory committee.
“We started a national campaign first to raise awareness,” recalled Davitt McAteer, the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health from 1994 to 2000.
“And it was that campaign that began to try to go after the silica requirements, raise the silica standard, and start on a separate path to control silica.”
McAteer proposed a major overhaul of the dust sampling system, which included other loopholes that permitted excessive exposures and inaccurate measurement of coal mine dust. But the effort encountered stiff opposition from the National Mining Association, the industry’s biggest lobbying group. The group sued over some elements of the plan and won.
“And then we ran out of time,” McAteer says. “And it’s something that’s unfortunate and put a lot of lives at risk.”
Mine dust loopholes
The regulation of silica dust wasn’t addressed during the administration of George W. Bush. During the Obama administration, mine safety advocate Joe Main was in charge of MSHA. Main was the longtime health and safety director at the mineworkers union and was on that Labor Department advisory committee that sought tougher regulation of silica back in 1996.
“It was very obvious that that whole scheme that had been in place, that has left so many people sick, had to be changed and had to be fixed,” Main said.
He was successful in closing major mine dust loopholes, and he deployed new technology — dust sampling devices that measured coal dust in real time and helped make sampling more immediate, honest and accurate.
Main also made the exposure limit for coal mine dust tougher. But not the exposure limit for silica. He didn’t include any specific action on silica in his plan.
“A high tide rises all boats, as the saying goes,” Main explained. “We were going to get a benefit out of reducing overall dust exposure by what we did. [That] would not only lower coal mine dust but all dust that was part of that, including silica.”
But as the NPR/Frontline data analysis shows, that formula failed thousands of times in the past. Lowering overall mine dust doesn’t necessarily reduce silica exposure to safe levels.
Monforton wonders why MSHA missed or ignored that part of the dust sampling data.
“The fact that [NPR and Frontline] went back for 30 years and looked at that data, and that data was available to the agency to assess as well, why wasn’t that problem recognized and rectified?” Monforton asked.
Main and other former MSHA officials say they thought they were doing what they needed to do to control silica.
Another agency did act on silica during the Obama administration. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded a 44-year review of silica exposure by enacting tougher regulation of silica dust.
So now, every industry in the country that cuts rock, every industry except mining, has separate regulation of silica and an exposure limit twice as tough — the limit first recommended by NIOSH in 1974.
Mining companies also knew they were cutting more quartz, creating more silica dust, and exposing miners to toxic dust. They were not only clearly warned by MSHA in the 1990s; they could see what was going on in their mines. Cutting rock slows mining machines and hurts production. And rock has to be removed from coal before it can be sold.
So NPR and Frontline wanted to know why mining companies didn’t act on their own to protect their workers.
“Sure they could have done that,” responded Bruce Watzman, the National Mining Association’s top lobbyist for more than 30 years. “But … I’m not going to speculate on why they did or didn’t do what they chose.”
“Our focus here is forward looking,” he said. “How do we prevent this in the future? I can’t answer for … what happened in the past.”
Watzman also asserted that the industry “is doing far better today than we did in the past, far better.”
That assessment is based on new data from MSHA following the new coal mine dust rules that began to take effect in 2014. Since then, mining companies have met exposure limits for coal and silica dust 99 percent of the time, the data show.
MSHA cited the same data in a written statement to NPR and Frontline.
“The dust rule … has greatly reduced miners’ exposure to respirable dust,” wrote MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere, who also noted a sharp drop in the past 10 years in the percentage of mine dust samples with excess silica. Her statement did not address the NPR/Frontline findings showing 30 years of excessive exposure to silica.
“MSHA continues to work diligently to protect coal miners’ health,” Louviere said.
But NIOSH epidemiologist Laney isn’t convinced the problem is solved.
“They’re sampled very infrequently so we don’t know what’s going on with these miners when they’re not being sampled,” Laney said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time we don’t have information on that.”
That’s also the conclusion of a recent review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The new coal dust rules, the review committee said, “may not guarantee that exposures will be controlled adequately or that future disease rates will decline.”
It will also take 10 years or more to know whether the new dust rules result in fewer cases of disease. It takes that long for disease to develop.
“I said I suspect silica. I didn’t say it was”
MSHA declined multiple requests for interviews with top agency officials, including David Zatezalo, a former coal company executive and industry lobbyist who now heads the agency.
So we showed up at West Virginia University in September where Zatezalo was scheduled to make a rare public appearance.
“You hear the phrase in health circles of progressive massive fibrosis, these sorts of things,” Zatezalo told an audience of mining engineering students, agency employees and industry executives and lobbyists.
“To me, I believe those are all clearly silica problems,” Zatezalo continued. “Silica is something that has to be controlled.”
But immediately after his speech, when NPR and Frontline approached him, Zatezalo seemed suddenly uncertain about silica and PMF.
“I don’t think that the science of the causation is that well-defined,” Zatezalo said.
Asked about the direct link between silica and disease he described in his speech, Zatezalo became defensive.
“No, I said I suspect silica. I didn’t say it was. … I think until such time as you figure out what it is you don’t really know,” Zatezalo responded.
So far, under Zatezalo, MSHA has no plan to address a tougher limit for silica dust or separate regulation of silica in coal mines.
In the meantime, the PMF epidemic continues. The biggest cluster of disease ever reported, according to NIOSH, continues to build at the Stone Mountain Health Services black lung clinics in Southwestern Virginia. The clinics continue to diagnose new cases at the rate of about a dozen a month.
“I’m not seeing any slowdown whatsoever,” says Ron Carson, who directed the Stone Mountain clinics for 28 years before retiring earlier this year.
“I think that America needs to know that these miners … have paid a price,” Carson added, his voice breaking. Carson cited the nation’s decades of dependence on coal for power and steel production.
“They paid a price so that we can have luxury and … so many have died. Thousands have died.”
“Every one of us is either crippled or dead”
Kelly has a long list of simple tasks he can no longer accomplish: walking up his driveway to the mailbox; climbing the few steps to his barn; riding horses; even just getting up to head to the bathroom. He has to stop and rest on the way, he says.
But what hurts the most are the things he can’t do with his grandson, Caden, especially playful wrestling on the floor.
“Now he has to wrestle a pillow while I call the match,” Kelly said, his voice halting and his eyes red. “It’s still fun, but …” and Kelly paused, his face tight and the tears flowing.
“I want to be that pillow.”
Smith pulled up to another mine, which was also closed but had no guards in its weed-choked parking lot. This Solid Energy mine, along with the Rockhouse mine he drove by earlier, was operated by Massey Energy, now a defunct company with deadly mine disasters in its history and a CEO who went to prison for conspiracy to violate mine safety laws.
Smith got out and walked up to a rusted fence with a padlock. A ball cap shaded his face. Sunglasses hid his tears.
“It’s [been] eating at me for the last two years,” he said, “that I’m going to die over this. … Of all the things that could’ve killed me while I did work there, the rockfalls and all that stuff, I lived through all of that. And I find out years later I’m going to die over black lung. And it’s heartbreaking.”
Smith then mentioned his wife and two daughters and wondered what will happen to them when he’s gone. He wondered about the grandchildren he may never see. His voice breaking again, he talked about the excitement of being a young miner, about the hope and promise of good pay and good lives.
“We was all young and strong and stout and they took advantage of us. Every one of us is either crippled or dead. We was all young men,” he said, crying softly.
Back at his house in a narrow valley — a holler — in Canada, Ky., Smith pointed to a family cemetery on a knoll at the edge of the lawn he has so much difficulty mowing. It features a single gravestone with bright flowers and the names of his parents. Behind it, Smith told us, in the shade, is the burial plot he has picked out for himself. He’s 46 years old.
NPR’s Adelina Lancianese, Barbara Van Woerkom, Katie Lawrie and Cat Schuknecht; Elaine McMillion Sheldon of FRONTLINE; Benny Becker and Jeff Young of Ohio Valley ReSource; and Ellen Smith of Mine Safety and Health News contributed to this story.
This story is reposted from NPR. Here is a link to the original article:
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/18/675253856/an-epidemic-is-killing-thousands-of-coal-miners-regulators-could-have-stopped-it
The period between Memorial Day and Labor Day is historically the most dangerous time of year for teen drivers. Some research shows up to 30% of all teen driving fatalities occur during the summer months. Teen drivers lack experience, and the summer months provide multiple reasons for increased risk. Not only is there more daylight and warmer weather, but most teens are out of school and have more free time to be behind the wheel. Here are five safety tips for your teen driver to practice, not just in the summer months but all year long. 1. Avoid Distraction . Research shows as high as 60% of all teen vehicle crashes involve driver distraction. One common misconception is that cell phones are the number one cause of distraction for teen drivers but that is actually not the case. Other passengers create more distractions for teen drivers than any other source. 2. Buckle Up . It is discussed so often that it may seem trite but seatbelt use is proven to reduce fatality rates in motor vehicle accidents. but data shows buckling up can reduce the risk of fatal injury by as much as 45%. 3. Impaired Driving . As high as 15% of all teen driving fatalities involve a blood alcohol content of more than twice the legal limit. 4. Limit Passengers. Most states, including Alabama, have graduated license laws restricting the number of passengers in vehicles operated by teen drivers. Literally all available data associates fewer passengers with lower fatality rates in motor vehicle accidents involving teen drivers. 5. Reduce Nighttime Driving. The fatal crash rate of 16-19-year-olds is nearly 400 times higher at night than during the day.
Identity theft affects millions of people each year and can cause serious harm. Protect yourself by securing your personal information, understanding the threat of identity theft, and exercising caution. Here are 10 things you can start doing now to protect yourself and your loved ones from identity theft: Protect your Social Security number by keeping your Social Security card in a safe place at home. Don’t carry it with you or provide your number unnecessarily. Be careful when you speak with unknown callers. Scammers may mislead you by using legitimate phone numbers or the real names of officials. If they threaten you or make you feel uneasy, hang up. Create strong, unique passwords so others can’t easily access your accounts. Use different passwords for different accounts so if a hacker compromises one account, they can’t access other accounts. Check out the Federal Trade Commission’s password checklist for tips. Never give your personal or financial information in response to an unsolicited call or message, and never post it on social media. Shred paper documents that contain personal information, like your name, birth date, and Social Security number. Protect your mobile device from unauthorized access by securing it with a PIN, adding a fingerprinting feature, or using facial recognition. You can also add a password and adjust the time before your screen automatically locks. Regularly check your financial accounts for suspicious transactions. You can also request and check a free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus every year: TransUnion , Equifax , and Experian . Avoid internet threats by installing and maintaining strong anti-virus software on all your devices—including your mobile device and personal computer. Use a virtual private network (VPN) to stay safe on public Wi-Fi. Do not perform certain activities that involve sensitive data, like online shopping and banking, on public Wi-Fi networks. Protect yourself on social media by customizing your security settings and deleting accounts you no longer use. Also, double-check suspicious messages from your contacts, as hackers may create fake accounts of people you know. Never click on any link sent via unsolicited email or text message—type in the web address yourself. Only provide information on secure websites.
Every accident case is different. Some settle more quickly than others. However, it is not uncommon, for a personal injury case to take a year or more to resolve after the case has been filed in court. Evaluating the Injury Prior to filing a lawsuit, it takes time to determine the full extent of your injuries. Doctors are often unable to give an opinion about the seriousness of an injury until your condition has stabilized. In serious injury cases, it may even take a year after the accident before your doctor can say whether or not your injuries are permanent. It is extremely important to take the necessary time to fully evaluate your injuries. You have only one chance to prove the extent to which you have been harmed. Once you accept a settlement offer, that decision is final. You cannot go back and ask for more money if you later find out your injuries are more serious. An experienced personal injury attorney knows how to keep your case moving through the legal system. Your personal injury case may move through these stages: 1. Written Discovery The written discovery period can last over six months. You will be asked to answer written questions (interrogatories) under oath. You will also be asked to produce documents or authorize others to produce documents such as accident reports and medical records. 2. Depositions During a deposition, you will be asked questions under oath. A court reporter types a record of everything that is said. Not only will you be questioned about the accident and your injuries, you will be asked questions about what your health, education, and work were like before the accident. 3. Mediation and Settlement The Court almost always requires a settlement conference or mediation before personal injury cases can go to trial. At mediation, a neutral trained mediator goes over the issues and evidence with the parties to help guide them toward a settlement agreement. 4. Trial If your case does not settle and goes to trial, a jury decides what your injury is worth. It can take eighteen months or longer to get the trial scheduled. Once the trial is over, there may be further appeals and motions. It's possible for the parties to settle the case during trial or even after trial in order to end an appeal. Your best strategy is to contact an attorney with experience in handling personal injury cases. Your attorney can give you an estimate about the length of time it takes to resolve your type of case. Also, ask your attorney to give you frequent reports on the status of your case so you know that your case is making its way through the legal process. It's understandable that you may be frustrated at the speed your case seems to be moving. However, you should never rush to take the first settlement offer made by an insurance company. The first offer is rarely your best settlement offer. .
Distracted driving has been on the increase for the last several years and continues to be one of the leading causes of vehicle accidents throughout the United States. If you are texting and driving down the highway at 55 mph, that’s like traveling the length of a football field with your eyes closed. You can only drive safely when your full attention is on the road. Any activity that isn’t related to driving is a potential distraction and increases your risk of a collision. While most research points to a mobile phone as the number one culprit, it is far from the only activity potentially stealing a driver's attention. Eating or drinking, grooming, radios, other passengers - especially children, and even pets can also be significant factors. Distracted driving accidents are preventable 99% of the time. Driving can become mundane at times, but we all must remember when driving we have an obligation to the safety of not only ourselves but those who ride with us and other drivers we share the road with. Some studies show listening to podcasts or certain types of music can enhance our concentration. It’s important to practice safe habits behind the wheel. You want to make sure that your passengers know how serious you are about driving without distractions. One of the most effective ways to lead is through example. Be a good example for your friends and family by avoiding driving while you’re distracted.
We see this question all the time. The injured party doesn’t want to use their own health insurance to pay for an injury. They believe it is the responsibility of the person at fault to pay for their medical bills. That may feel like the right position for an accident victim to take but the truth is, most of the time the injured party will end up with a larger settlement if they do, in fact, use their own medical benefits. Here's why; Health insurance companies have a negotiated price for medical services that is about 15 percent less than what people have to pay who don’t have health insurance. If your medical bills are $50,000.00 but Blue Cross Blue Shield pays $15,000.00 and the person who caused the wreck has $50,000.00 in liability coverage, that leaves $35,000.00 available for the injured party versus $0.00. Generally speaking, Blue Cross Blue Shield will reduce the $15,000.00 to $10,000.00 leaving $40,000.00 available. The point is that there’s more money available when you take advantage of your healthcare negotiated rates whether it’s United Health Care, Medicare, Medicaid, or Blue Cross Blue Shield. More money is better. Using your health insurance to pay your medical bills if you are injured, will almost always end up maximizing your settlement.
Once you reach the age of 65 you have many more options than before. As you know if you go on Medicare and you are under the age of 65 your options for health plans are limited. When you turn 65 you will have another open enrollment period to sign up for any plan you wish to get. In other words, just because you are already on Medicare does not prohibit you from having all the options a person not on Medicare and turning 65 would have.
This is one of the questions we get asked the most. In most cases, the answer to this is “no”. When you turn 65, if you are still working and on your employer’s health insurance plan you probably will not need Medicare Part B. I say probably because most employer plans do not file on Medicare if you have a claim. Because you have to pay a premium for Part B, Medicare does not require a person to sign up for Part B as long as you are on your employer’s plan. Also, because the rules can differ for companies with less than 20 employees, the safest thing to do is check with the benefits coordinator at your place of employment for guidance or call us at our office.
Social Security: 3 main reasons why the Government can deny Disability Benefits
For many working Americans, when the unexpected happens and they can no longer work due to a serious medical condition, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits can be a financial lifeline. Most American workers contribute to Social Security through federal payroll taxes. Social Security is designed for income during retirement years however if an individual’s working years are cut short by a severe, long-term illness or injury, they may need income before reaching retirement age. For many who find themselves in these circumstances SSDI provides monthly financial assistance. Seven facts every American should know about the SSDI program 1. SSDI is coverage that workers earn. If an individual has paid enough Social Security taxes through their lifetime earnings, SSDI is intended to provide support by replacing some of their income when they become disabled and unable to work. 2. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a strict definition of disability. The SSA considers a person disabled if they can’t work due to a serious medical condition that is expected to last at least one year or result in death. SSDI is intended as a long-term solution and is not intended to offer temporary or partial disability benefits. 3. Disability can happen to anyone at any age. Serious medical conditions, such as cancer and mental illness, can affect the young and elderly alike. Studies prove one in four 20-year-olds will become disabled before retirement age. As a result, they may need to rely on Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits for income support. 4. SSDI payments help disabled workers to meet their basic needs. SSDI is not and was never intended to be a full wage replacement. The average monthly Social Security disability benefit is $1,280, as of April 2021, which is intended to allow an individual who has become disabled to meet their basic needs. 5. Social Security works aggressively to detect and prevent fraud. Every American worker who pays federal taxes invests in SSA. The agency is committed to protecting their investment by taking a zero-tolerance approach to fraud. The agency claims a fraud incidence rate that is a fraction of one percent. 6. SSA helps people return to work without losing benefits. Often, people would like to re-enter the workforce. However, many worry they will lose disability benefits if they try working again. They may also fear losing benefits if they are unsuccessful in returning to work. The agency has many programs designed to connect an individual to free employment support services while helping them maintain benefits, such as health care. 7. Millions of disabled Americans depend on SSDI benefits. Nearly 10 million disabled workers and their spouses and children receive benefits through SSA.
A circuit judge in Sarasota ruled Monday that the verdict in a legal malpractice case against the Morgan & Morgan law firm should stand. The judge also denied Morgan & Morgan’s motion for a new trial and another motion to reduce the $5 million award determined by the jury. Attorney Donald St. Denis of St. Denis & Davey in Jacksonville, who represented the plaintiffs in the malpractice lawsuit, said Friday he has a hearing scheduled Tuesday in Sarasota on a motion to award his firm $1.6 million in attorney’s fees and costs. “We’ve been working on this for two years. I’ve got a ton of time in this case,” he said Friday. St. Denis made offers on behalf of his clients in August 2016 and again in January 2017 for $2.5 million and $4 million, respectively, to settle the malpractice suit before going to trial, but Morgan & Morgan’s counteroffer was only $1,000, he said. Morgan & Morgan intends to appeal the jury’s verdict. John Morgan “This case is a long way from over,” John Morgan said Friday in an email response. “We defended this case because we think we are right. And we will continue fighting it because we still believe we are right. We fully expect to win outright on appeal and have a judgment in our favor entered by the appellate courts.” St. Denis represented Shawna and Rock Pollack in the malpractice action related to Morgan & Morgan’s handling of a personal injury case the couple filed after their child was permanently injured during birth. On Oct. 17, a jury in circuit court in Sarasota County found that Morgan & Morgan attorney Armando Lauritano was 100 percent responsible for Shawna and Rock Pollock losing their rights to a medical malpractice claim against a Sarasota obstetrics practice, a nurse midwife and the hospital where their child was born. The case began Nov. 2, 2006, when Shawna Pollock was admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital to give birth. After she was given a hormone to induce labor, the unborn infant began to experience slowed fetal heartbeat and Pollock began writhing in pain. By the time an emergency cesarean section was performed, Pollock’s uterus had ruptured, depriving the fetus of oxygen, which caused permanent brain damage. After the birth, the Pollocks contacted Morgan & Morgan. An investigator from the firm met the couple at Ronald McDonald House, where they were staying while their infant son was in All Children’s Hospital in Tampa. On Feb. 17, 2007, the Pollocks agreed to be represented by Morgan & Morgan. They agreed to pay the firm up to 40 percent of a recovery up to $1 million, 30 percent between $1 million and $2 million and 20 percent of recovery in excess of $2 million. St. Denis argued to the jury that Morgan & Morgan was focused on collecting a large fee for the child’s brain injury claim to the point that its representative failed to provide the required presuit notice of claims for injuries sustained during the delivery by Shawna Pollock, including that she no longer is able to have children. After it became clear that the baby would qualify for no-fault benefits from the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Association, and after the statute of limitations period for submitting notice the Pollocks intended to seek compensation for their personal loss had expired, Morgan & Morgan withdrew from representing the Pollocks. The jury found that the OB-GYN practice, the nurse midwife and Sarasota Memorial Hospital were negligent in the care of Shawna Pollock. The medical practice and nurse midwife were found by the jury to be liable for $4.5 million in damages and the hospital was found liable for $500,000 in damages, if the Pollocks had not lost their rights to sue for damages. In its $5 million verdict, the jury further found that Lauritano was negligent in his handling of the Pollocks’ interests, that the Pollacks did not freely and intentionally give up their right to seek compensation from the physicians and hospital and that Lauritano was liable for the loss they incurred. original article https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/court-upholds-dollar5-million-malpractice-verdict-against-morgan-and-morgan