Chula Vista California Workers' Compensation Law Blog

Workers in retail stores nationwide, including California, face many more safety hazards than most people would expect. Many workers' compensation claims filed each year involve injuries suffered by employees of retail stores. The risks they face were recently underscored by an $898,682 fine proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration concerning four different Dollar Tree Stores in another state.

Reportedly, inspectors determined that employers in these stores knowingly exposed workers to safety hazards, despite previous citations for the same violations. OSHA says the investigations followed reports about inappropriately stacked boxes toppling over and falling onto an employee. The worker suffered injuries in that incident, and investigators say a similar incident occurred during an inspection at another Dollar Tree branch, with a worker barely escaping injury at that time.

Falls are some of the most significant hazards to which workers in all industries are exposed. Unfortunately, many employers fail to prioritize employee safety, which was underscored at a safety congress that was recently held in San Diego. As in the previous eight years, the most frequently cited safety violations in the fiscal year 2019 were related to fall protection. It would be interesting to know whether the lack of fall protection also features near the top of workers' compensation claims in California.

The matter gives rise to significant concern because the number of citations for fall protection was 85% higher than the violation that is number two on the list: hazard communication. In fact, the number of hazard communication citations was 6,000 fewer than fall protection citations. The remaining eight places on the list showed little variation from FY 2018, with only respiratory protection swapping places with lockout/tagout violations, which climbed from number five to number four.

Opioid addiction has been a hot topic for some time now. The over-prescribing of these powerfully addictive medications has come under fire from a variety of sources.

One area where you may personally have experienced issues with these drugs is through a work-related injury. Evidence suggests that the prescribing of pain relief medications in the workers' compensation arena has contributed to the opioid crisis.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, approximately 4.5 million reports of dog bites are filed nationwide each year, and an insurance provider reports that most dog bites occur in California. Not all dog bites are cause severe personal injury, but authorities say about one in five bites requires medical care. Victims can seek recovery of damages.

The insurance provider says about half of all dog-bite victims are children, followed by the elderly who are also more vulnerable to attacks by dogs. Although many of the victims are not strangers to the dogs that attack them, mail carriers are at an elevated risk, and they are high on the list of dog-bite victims. Certain breeds of dogs, such as pit bulls, are said to be more likely to attack somebody, but then so are Chihuahuas, but because they are so much smaller, their bites seldom cause severe wounds.