Reading Room

Quantity and quality marked the 1990-1991 Court term, with the entire spectrum of the Workers' Compensation Act and the Rules of the New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation, the subject of significant decisions. 

A federal jury in Newark has awarded $5.8 million in compensatory damages to a widow, and her two sons , whose husband died of mesothelioma.

The court sought to focus on major issues confronting workers' compensation law, including the concepts of "light duty," the existence of the "coming and going rule," concerns over what risks are incidental to employment, the problem of the employee who is perceived to be working for multiple employers simultaneously, and other major issues such as [the "Fireman's Rule," the Falcon Doctrine, the Second Injury Fund, pension offsets, third party matters, medical treatment, and] what remedies are available to the employer where benefits appear to have been overpaid. 

The 1988-1989 court term has resulted in significant developments in the New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation. The court has continued to define the scope of employment and the parameters under which remedies are available for the injured employee under the Workers' Compensation Act. It confirmed the right of employees to obtain relief from employers where fraudulent concealment is an issue. 

NJ Supreme Court Case Review 1988. Substantial and significant case law development and procedural changes have occurred before the Division of Workers' Compensation during the 1987-1988 court term. Decisions have focused on interpreting the 1979 Amendments to the Workers' Compensation Act in light of the increasing complexities of the industrial arena.

In an era of heightened technological sophistication, the Division of Workers' Compensation is increasingly faced with the necessity to apportion responsibility among successive employers or insurance carriers when dealing with occupational disease claims. 

A worker is suing his World War II employer for damages in connection with the death of his wife, claiming that she died from mesothelioma cause by asbestos particles from his job. 

The concept of a compensable industrial disease has developed only recently and its acceptance has lagged far behind that of industrial accidents. The original Workers' Compensation Acts, as promulgated from the year 1911 forward by many of the states, did not provide for the recognition of occupational illness and disease as compensable events. As demands have been placed upon the medical system to treat and to prevent occupational illness, the legal system, under social, economic, and political pressure, has sought to provide a remedy for the thousands of injured workers who have suffered and who are continuing to suffer from occupational illness and disease. 

The never-ending battle between labor and industry over domination and control of the agency which controls occupational safety and health continues.

Unto the second generation, deadly asbestos fibers are now destroying the lungs of children of Paterson area asbestos workers of the 1940s, most of whom already have succumbed or are incapacitated from lung cancers and related diseases.