Changes in the Law

Earlier this year, the case of Clark County vs. McManus went before the Washington State Supreme Court, ultimately raising the question of whether the “special consideration” jury instruction be treated as discretionary or mandatory. The “special consideration” instruction requires that testimony from injured workers’attending physicians be given careful thought or special consideration by the fact finder be that the Department, a judge, or a jury. The case surrounds Patrick McManus, a Clark County street sweeper who, after working between 1999 and 2011, had to quit due to a degenerative spinal disease affecting his lower back. The Department of Labor and […]

Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the Opt Out provision of Oklahoma’s State workers’ compensation law, ruling in favor of injured workers. The 2013 legislation gave qualified employers the option to create treatment plans outside of the regular workers’ compensation system. The case involved Johnie Yvonne Vasquez, a department store employee who filed a claim for an injury to her neck and shoulder she sustained at work in 2014. Her employer, which had opted out of the state system and written their own plan, denied her claim. Vasquez sued and the Oklahoma Worker’s Compensation Commission agreed in a decision in February that the Statecannot allow […]

Since 1996, twenty-three states and Washington D.C. have passed laws allowing for the medical use of marijuana for specific medical conditions, one of them being chronic pain. However, during this period of time marijuana has remained a Schedule I substance at the federal level, which is defined as the following: “Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence.”  In the twenty three states where medical marijuana […]