At Least 49 Civilian Contractor Deaths Filed on in First Quarter 2012

WE ARE THE BEST KEPT SECRET OF THE WARS

According to the Department of Labor’s Defense Base Act Claim Summary Reports there were at least 49 Civilian Contractor Deaths filed on in the first quarter of 2012.

Keep in mind that these numbers are not an accurate accounting of Contractor Casualties as many injuries and deaths are not reported as Defense Base Act Claims.  Also, many of these injuries will become deaths due to the Defense Base Act Insurance Companies denial of medical benefits.

Many foreign national and local national contractors and their families are never told that they are covered under the Defense Base Act and so not included in the count.

At least 2, 580 Defense Base Act Claims were filed during this quarter

At least  49 were death claims  

(3  reported for Iraq compare to 1 coalition death,  36 for Afghanistan compared to 97 coalition, Kuwait 2, UAE 1, Columbia 1, Nation Pending 2)

At least 1008 were for injuries requiring longer than 4 days off work

At least 196 were for injuries requiring less than 4 day off work

At least 1433 were for injuries requiring no time off of work

A total of 84, 820 Defense Base Act Claims have been filed since September 1, 2001

Contact dbacasualty@yahoo.com for questions regarding these numbers

Nuclear Workers Data Breach Revealed

Huntington News  March 29, 2012

Craig, CO – The Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups (ANWAG) has learned and is “extremely disturbed” that the Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) failed to inform claimants that one of their medical contractors, Impairment Resources LLC, had computer files stolen on December 31, 2011.

These files contained claimant names, addresses, social security numbers, and medical records. ANWAG was alerted to this issue by a claimant’s authorized representative, Gary Vander Boegh, who forwarded this article on the break-in: http://www.databreaches.net/?p=23593.

I confirmed with OWCP Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation that they were notified of this breach in early February. Yet almost two months later they are still trying to identify which claimants have had their records breached,” stated Terrie Barrie of ANWAG. “I’m appalled that OWCP did not immediately issue a general warning that some of their claimants may have had their protected information stolen.”
“The lack of timely notification to the affected people seems egregious,” added Faye Vlieger of CWP. “I am highly indignant with OWCP withholding the facts. It shows a certain highhandedness of OWCP to assume there will be no damage done by the break in.”

Please see the original and read more here

Defense Base Act Average Weekly Wage through 9-30-2012

National Average Weekly Wage

National Average Weekly Wages (NAWW), Minimum and Maximum
Compensation Rates, and Annual October Increases (Section 10(f))

These apply to Defense Base Act Claimants at the time of award. 

PERIOD	NAWW	MAX	MIN	PERCENT INCREASE
10/01/2011 – 09/30/2012	$647.60	$1,295.20	$323.80	3.05%
10/01/2010 – 09/30/2011	$628.42	$1,256.84	$314.21	2.63%
10/01/2009 – 09/30/2010	$612.33	$1,224.66	$306.17	2.00%
10/01/2008 – 09/30/2009	$600.31	$1,200.62	$300.16	3.47%
10/01/2007 – 09/30/2008	$580.18	$1,160.36	$290.09	4.12%
10/01/2006 – 09/30/2007	$557.22	$1114.44	$278.61	3.80%
10/01/2005 – 09/30/2006	$536.82	$1073.64	$268.41	2.53%
10/01/2004 – 09/30/2005	$523.58	$1,047.16	$261.79	1.59%
10/01/2003 – 09/30/2004	$515.39	$1,030.78	$257.70	3.44%
10/01/2002 – 09/30/2003	$498.27	$996.54	$249.14	3.15%
10/01/2001 – 09/30/2002	$483.04	$966.08	$241.52	3.45%

Appointment of Miranda Chiu DIRECTOR, DLHWC

This news release at the DoL’s website is NOT dated but this was a recent appointment though she has been in the position for nearly a year now.

Miranda Chiu  is much appreciated by the Defense Attorneys

Dropping the DBA Ball

She did not even implement her own policies, regulations, and procedures

Looks like DBA Claimants are in for a lot more of the same bias in favor of the insurance companies if the last nine years serve as an indicator

The Office of Workers’ Comp Programs announces the appointment of Ms. Miranda Chiu as the Director of the Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation. Ms. Chiu has served as Acting Director of the Longshore Division for the last eight months, and as the Division’s Chief of the Branch of Policies, Regulations and Procedures for eight years before that.

Ms. Chiu has extensive experience in Longshore claims. She worked in various capacities in the Longshore arena for thirty years, beginning as a Claims Examiner in the San Francisco Longshore district office, then as a maritime claims supervisor in private industry and a legal assistant at a major Longshore law firm, before taking on her duties as Branch Chief in 2002.

Ms. Chiu holds a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature, and has published a lead article in ‘The Longshore Textbook’, 2nd and 3rd Editions. She is a frequent speaker at industry seminars and educational events and has won numerous awards for her work at the Department of Labor

Department of Labor holding Defense Base Act Claims Hostage

The Department of Labor has been denying Defense Base Act Claimants the informal hearings that are required under the Act in order for your attorney to get paid among other things.

The Department of Labor itself made it very clear that an informal hearing must be held and a Claims Examiner must recommend that a claimants attorney be paid.

The Informal Conference is an integral step in the drawn out process claimants must endure.  The DoL Claims Examiner’s recommendations are only acted upon if they go against the injured contractor but still the Informal must be held.

But for many months now the Department of Labor has been denying claimants Informal Conferences. We have no way of knowing how many claims are being held hostage on the desks of the District Directors and Claims Examiners.

Claimants in this Administrative Law System are already being denied many of their constitutional rights.  Claimants are suffering ever more serious and permanent injury due to a lack of medical care while the DoL sits on their claims.

How many claimants with untreated PTSD and TBI will commit suicide during this Department of Labor embargo?

Is this not physical abuse and how much more of it before this is considered denial of “Due Process” ?

Due process is best defined in one word–fairness. Throughout the U.S.’s history, its constitutions, statutes and case law have provided standards for fair treatment of citizens by federal, state and local governments. These standards are known as due process. When a person is treated unfairly by the government, including the courts, he is said to have been deprived of or denied due process.

Defense Base Act Claimants have fewer rights under the law than convicted criminals.

Defense Base Act Coverage for US Government Contractors Working in Japan

OWCP News Release March 24, 2011

In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11, 2011, various agencies of the United States may utilize the services of private contractors to provide humanitarian and other assistance as part of the global relief effort there. Workers for such private contractors are covered under the Defense Base Act (DBA) (except for certain specified instances where the Department of Labor has granted a waiver). Agency contracting personnel and private contractors should ensure that the proper DBA insurance is in place before workers are deployed overseas.

The Secretary of Labor may waive the application of the Defense Base Act for any contract, work location, or class of employees upon the written request of the head of any department or other agency of the United States. However, even when a waiver is granted, DOL conditions the waiver such that it does not exempt from DBA coverage citizens of the U.S., legal residents of the U.S., or employees hired in the U.S .

The Department of Labor has granted the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS) a DBA waiver for contracts for work performed in Japan.

The Department of Labor has not granted a DBA waiver to any other US government agency for work performed in Japan. All non DOD and DOS contractor employers with employees deployed in Japan must purchase DBA insurance coverage for those employees.

6. Is Radiation Exposure covered under DBA ?

Yes, the DBA covers all injuries, occupational diseases, or infections that arise out of or result from employment exposures. An injury or illness causally related to radiation exposure is covered under the DBA, even if the medical condition is not diagnosed for many years after the employment. In order to qualify for benefits, the employee is required to establish employment under a US government contract, that he was harmed by the employment, and that the employment conditions were such that they could have caused the harm.

Yes, there is a Longshore Conference March 24-25, 2011

Annual Longshore Conference Spring 2011

Loyola Again of course and promoting Roger Levy’s Latest Edition of the DBA/WHCA  Book

NEW LOCATION!

InterContinental Hotel New Orleans, Louisiana

March 24 – 25, 2011

Will update with registration links

Schedule

The DBA Casualty: Injured Employee or Financial Transaction

“The touch of a human hand and tone of voice can do so much in the process we call healing”

So often, we see workplace injuries that are treated as financial transactions when, in reality, they are fundamentally human events: someone is injured, often through no fault of their own. The complexity of the system a worker may find themselves suddenly thrust into, the unfamiliar insurance jargon, the impersonality – all occurring at a point where the worker may be feeling fear and anxiety about their future physical and financial well being.  WCI

As this applies to the Defense Base Act

One minute your a valued employee contributing to the finances of the company and the next you are a financial, if not ethical, liability to them.

Often, rather than help the injured contractor secure the DBA medical and compensation the employer will team up with the insurance company against them.

This is despite the Exclusive Remedy clause which relieves the employer of all liability for any reason no matter if they put you in excessive danger or not.  We still do not understand why the employer involvement when the DBA insurance is cost reimbursable to them, no fear of the rates going up.  In fact many of the Government agencies are contracting the pricing of their DBA premiums.

For most contractors injured in Iraq or Afghanistan it amounts to being thrust into a world where you have no control over your own medical care or your finances.  Few will have an advocate to help them through when they are at their most vulnerable.

Not the DoL LHWCA though it is their stated mission.

And many of them will never be awarded the medical and compensation that was intended to protect them.

Our prescription: Less thinking about the injured worker as a claimant and more thinking about them as a person. In our experience, that’s what leads to the best financial outcomes in the long run. WCI

Thanks again to Worker’s Comp Insider for presenting the flip side of the coin, so to speak.

Please read the post from which we have  quoted and view the video at their blog

Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation (DLHWC)

Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation (DLHWC)

About Longshore (The Defense Base Act is an extension of the LHWCA)

The mission of DLHWC is to minimize the impact of employment injuries and deaths on employees and their families by ensuring that workers’ compensation benefits provided under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act and it extensions (including the Defense Base Act) are paid promptly and properly, and providing information, technical and compliance assistance, support, and informal dispute resolution services to workers, employers, and insurers.

BRB Overturn’s X Files Case ALJ Paul C Johnson and Dr John Dorland Griffith

“Rather, the administrative law judge was to assess the weight to be accorded to the medical evidence of record, without substituting his judgment for that of the physicians”

Congratulations to Claimants Attorney

Ralph R. Lorberbaum

Zipperer, Lorberbaum & Beauvais

Savannah, Georgia

on a job well done.

 

TW v SEI

BRB Decision 09-0573

The Benefit Review Board has overturned the ALJ’s denial of benefits in a noteworthy decision that mirrored many of the arguments made in an earlier analysis on the DBA X-files. The decision also reflects a deeper understanding of war-related trauma absent in the Board’s earlier decisions. Better late than never, although this is of little consolation to those who had to pave the way.

From the document

1. In this regard, it is undisputed that all of the physicians of record diagnosed claimant with some sort of psychological disorder. Specifically, Drs. van Holla, Reppuhn, Oram and Marshall all diagnosed claimant with PTSD. In addition, Drs. Marshall, Oram, and Reppuhn diagnosed claimant with depression. These are clinical, Axis I, disorders that may respond to medication.

Dr. Griffith, employer’s expert, diagnosed claimant with “personality disorder, not otherwise stated,” which is an Axis II disorder, and malingering. Thus, while Dr. Griffith sctated claimant does not have PTSD or depression, his diagnosis of a personality disorder may support a finding that claimant established a harm for purposes of Section 20(a), 33 U.S.C. §920(a). See generally Wheatley v. Adler, 407 F.2d 307, 313 (D.C. Cir. 1968) (en banc) (a harm occurs when “something unexpectedly goes wrong within the human frame”).

[Goes without saying that Dr Griffith also "diagnosed" TW with malingering (Ed)]

2. The Board’s decision in S.K. [Kamal] v. ITT Industries, Inc., 43 BRBS 78 (2009), is instructive in this regard. In Kamal, the employer contended that, as no doctor had diagnosed the claimant with PTSD or other psychological condition in a manner consistent with the criteria set forth in the DSM-IV, the claimant did not suffer a psychological harm sufficient to invoke the Section 20(a) presumption. The Board rejected the employer’s contention, stating first that the Act does not require use of the DSM-IV in assessing whether a claimant has suffered a psychological harm. Id. at 79-80.

Rather, the administrative law judge was to assess the weight to be accorded to the medical evidence of record, without substituting his judgment for that of the physicians.

Special Thanks to X Files crew at American Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

 

See also Dr John Dorland Griffith Exposed