Let’s talk about the “exclusive remedy,” what it means, why Workers’ Comp matters, and the exceptions. The concept of exclusive remedy is based on the principle that in exchange for care and benefits, a worker injured on the job may surrender some options for additional remedies. If you’re covered by Workers’ Comp, the ability to challenge the employer in court for injuries and pain and suffering may be limited. Workers’ Comp is the remedy. We are covered by Workers’ Compensation because that ca...
Jun 02, 2025•36 min
These are unprecedented times for the rights of immigrant workers in the United States. The current political climate has thrown a wrench into the Workers’ Compensation system when it comes to workers without documentation. Understanding the system can help. Guest Enrique Flores is the founder of the Flores Law Group in Indianapolis, Indiana, and a leader in immigrant workers’ rights. The son of immigrant parents, he says immigrant workers have always sought to live and work unnoticed, “invisibl...
Apr 29, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 156
Hosts Alan and Judson Pierce reflect on nearly two decades of the Workers Comp Matters podcast with an examination of unusual or bizarre claims and cases. A reminder, while some of these cases may have puzzling or humorous elements on their face, it’s never funny when a person is hurt. We may wonder what people were thinking when these incidents happened, but we can learn from each case. For starters, always expect the unexpected. An employee who thought her boss provided gluten-free pizza was a...
Mar 31, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 155
Guest Dr. Peter Yeh is an orthopedic surgeon with more than 15 years in medicine treating shoulder, upper arm, and knee issues. The stuff that happens at the job. When it comes to injured workers, they’re not that much different than an injured athlete. In both cases, the things they do can be a big part of their identity. And getting back to work is imperative. It’s not just physical, it’s mental. We all have different layers of what makes us who we are, and work is a big part of that. Hear how...
Feb 25, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 154
Being a good lawyer is a lot about great storytelling. Unfortunately, that’s often not taught in law school. Facts build the case, but effective storytelling wins the case. Guest Robert Mattson is an experienced corporate communications leader and coach. But his skills go beyond that. He acts in and writes plays. He is also the founder and principal at Intrigue Communications and Coaching. He helps people not simply communicate but also tell a story. When you’re in front of a jury or arbitrator,...
Jan 21, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 153
AI may be changing the Workers’ Compensation insurance industry, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of a personal touch. Guest Michael Kelley leads the HUB International claims adjustment team in New England and explains how bringing cases to a satisfying conclusion for all involved can be as much of an art as a science. There’s room for both automation and technology and face-to-face discussion, understanding the nuances of every situation, and negotiating. Kelly shares his process and ho...
Dec 24, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 152
Guest Michael C. Duff, professor at the St. Louis University School of Law, explores the evolving field of mental health injuries in the Workers’ Comp world. Stress and workplace trauma is real, and recognition of these injuries is developing, but there are still complicating factors. Did workplace stress cause a heart attack, or was there underlying heart damage? What constitutes post-traumatic stress, and at what point did that stress occur on the job? There’s a lot to unpack. Daily on-the-job...
Dec 02, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 151
Guest Bogdan Savych, a senior policy analyst at the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI), discusses his new paper, written with David Neumark, entitled “ Impact of Attorney Representation on Workers’ Compensation Payments .” WCRI studied the impact of attorney representation when it comes to indemnity payments (income replacement benefits) for injured workers in what, on its face, is supposed to be a straightforward Workers’ Compensation system. What impact, statistically, does having...
Oct 29, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 150
Our military and public service veterans deserve our best. Guest Alex Dell is a longtime Workers’ Compensation and Veterans Affairs compensation attorney, often representing injured public servants or military veterans. He’s also a former Division One hockey referee. In both roles, Dell explains how taking a broad view is crucial. The key, he says, is to avoid “tunnel vision.” Learn to see issues from multiple angles. Take in the whole picture. In hockey, keep an eye out for penalties behind the...
Sep 17, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 149
In this special episode, co-host Alan Pierce shares his thoughts on an auspicious occasion, celebrating his 50th year practicing Workers’ Compensation law. Alan’s son and law partner, Judson Pierce, interviews his father. Fifty years of anything is a long time. Alan passed the bar in 1974 and began practicing Workers’ Comp law. He’s seen a lot. Incremental changes seem to pass slowly, but over half a century, Alan has had a front row seat to what’s become a revolution, from his start as a claims...
Aug 30, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 148
How will AI help us help workers injured on the job? What voids will AI help us fill as we work to help people get back to work and life? Treatment authorizations, document delivery, and automation of mundane tasks such as signature acceptance help an injured person get back on the job faster and speed operations for the adjuster. Let’s work together. As guests from digital communications platform Gain Life Tycho Speekenbrink and John Peters explain, claims are complicated. But automation can he...
Jul 22, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 147
Guest Claire C. Muselman’s recent publication in WorkersCompensation.com encourages adjusters to take a new look at Workers’ Compensation’s goals. Maybe we should be less skeptical of workers and show empathy. In other words: Be Nice. We all have biases. Sometimes they get in the way and keep us from caring. From social media to traditional learning to storytelling and anecdotes, how do those biases influence our assumptions when it comes to making workers whole and getting them back on the job ...
Jun 28, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 146
Let’s talk about alternative medicine and coverage under Workers’ Comp’s hodgepodge of rules. Guest Maya Rashid is a recent graduate of Penn State Law and the winner of the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers’ student writing competition with her article “Revitalizing Recovery: Exploring Workers’ Compensation Coverage of Alternative Medicine.” Fighting for clients seeking treatment through alternative medicine under Workers’ Comp? Even traditional medicine can get tangled in case law and tr...
May 30, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 145
When workers are recovering from a workplace injury, there are psychosocial factors, mental factors, which can impede the recovery from physical injuries. Things such as a worker’s recovery expectations, fear of pushing too hard or performing activities that may restrict the benefits of physical therapy and hamper recovery, or even new negative feeling about their job and perceived injustices over how a supervisor or employer reacted to the injury. Can these “mental” factors prolong recovery and...
Apr 30, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 144
This episode opens a new topic for the Workers Comp Matters podcast: repetitive stress injuries, sometimes referred to cumulative trauma, acquired on the job. What happens to someone when someone develops a workplace injury, physical or mental, that can’t be traced back to a single, isolated event? Or what if the injury is the result of cumulative trauma developed under multiple employers? Bodily wear and tear, the result of daily repetitive labor, is real. Think of the brick mason on his knees ...
Mar 26, 2024•34 min•Season 1Ep. 143
The “times they are a changing” in the world of Workers’ Compensation, a system developed when the relationship between workers and employers were more clearly defined. Guest Emily Spieler is an accomplished author, former professor, practicing attorney, and government official with a career that spans the space of workers’ rights, safety, and compensation. The 100+ year old system of Workers’ Comp has evolved and continues to change and adapt. But the bottom line is we still have a duty to care...
Feb 28, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 142
A person getting hurt at the workplace is never funny. But it can be instructional to examine some of the strangest ways people manage to become injured at work. Hear about some “interesting” cases. A schoolteacher whose leg “fell asleep” while he sat in a classroom falls trying to stand up. He broke his femur. Is he entitled to compensation from his employer? An Amtrak baggage handler was visiting the restroom when someone tossed a firecracker into the room. Startled, he fell and was injured; i...
Jan 16, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 141
HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is 27 years old. For better or worse, it was designed to protect patients. But in reality, it has also hampered attorneys in their quest for medical records critical to ensuring fair compensation for injured workers. Guest Jared Vishney is the founder and CEO of the medical record retrieval technology company Arctrieval. He says most firms wait more than three months for medical records, some as much as four months or more. HIPAA re...
Dec 19, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 140
Did we ever learn a lot during the once-in-a-generation health event that was COVID! Guest Dr. Bogdan Savych of the Workers Comp Research Institute (WCRI) is a policy analyst who is studying the lasting effects of the illness, as well as lingering cases of Long Covid. What is “Long COVID?” How big is the problem? Is it even real? Is a pandemic an occupational disease? Savych is investigating who should pay and who decides how much a claim is worth. Imagine months, maybe years, of shortness of br...
Nov 21, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 139
Our understanding of work and workplaces may have been forever changed by the COVID pandemic. Many workers today are working from their own homes or conducting meetings by phone during their occasional trip to an office. When you’re working from home and slip and injure yourself in your own bathroom during the workday, who is responsible? If you are hit by a careless driver while conducting a business meeting by phone in your car, who pays? Guest Cathy Surbeck of Surbeck Law is the incoming pres...
Oct 17, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Guest Dave Pederson is the producer of a new film, “Americonned,” that examines how the past few generations of workers have suffered from income inequality and been crushed by big business and its government influence. Wages aren’t keeping up, yet productivity has rocketed, on the backs of the American middle class. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is seeing the bottom drop out. Why? And what do seismic shifts in wealth mean for the future of the middle class, unions, and the lawye...
Sep 19, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 137
What about the rights of an injured worker’s spouse and family members after a work-related injury or illness? Guest Michael Duff, law professor, former blue-collar worker, and expert on Workers’ Comp walks us through the California “Kuciemba Case,” a case where an employer may have violated COVID-19 pandemic regulations, infecting several workers. Victim Peter Kuciemba was infected and later his wife contracted the illness and ended up on a ventilator. Is he entitled to Workers’ Compensation? B...
Aug 15, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 136
Let’s talk about the F-word in Workers’ Compensation: Fraud. Guest Connor Thomson is a second-year law student at Villanova University who won the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers John F. Burton Jr. Law Student Writing Competition with his paper “Fight Fire With Fire: The Need For Carriers To Be Afforded More Duties And Privileges To Combat The Pandemic Of Workers’ Compensation Insurance Fraud.” He explores an interesting, challenging issue in Workers’ Comp: Are employees sometimes cheat...
Jul 18, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Helping workers and their families get back on their feet after a workplace injury or other workplace-displacing health event takes more than legal aid, insurance, and even doctors. Injured workers are people first, and people have emotional needs. Guest Danielle Troxel is managing director of Kind Souls Foundation, a non-profit, donation and volunteer driven organization dedicated to helping displaced workers with the emotional support and services navigation assistance they need to recover. Ma...
Jun 20, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 134
Marijuana was once fodder for stoner comedies and standup routines. But today, medical marijuana is a serious matter in Workers’ Compensation. Fair compensation, and proper medical treatment, is not always as clear as it should be. Laws evolve by the day, state by state. Guest Jenifer Dana Kaufman is a Pennsylvania Workers’ Comp attorney who has developed a wealth of experience where marijuana law collides with fair compensation and treatment. In this episode of Workers’ Comp Matters, hear how K...
May 16, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Guest Kathleen Fisher is an accomplished attorney in the field of Workers’ Compensation, but she’s also an active leader of the organization Kids’ Chance, dedicated to supporting the children of workers injured on the job. Kids’ Chance provides scholarships to the children of injured workers. When a worker is hurt, or even killed, on the job, ripples spread throughout the family. Kids’ Chance is active in all 50 states and has awarded more than 9,300 scholarships. Hear how just a Workers’ Comp c...
Apr 25, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 132
Guest Robert “Bob” Wilson is a leader at Work Comp College, created to offer a deeper dive into workplace protections for employees. He’s not a lawyer or an academic type, but he’s long held an interest in the programs designed to protect workers and employers. The field of helping workers recover from workplace injuries can get better, through training, tech, and, most importantly, through a renewed focus on recovery. Wilson asks how can we bring the human element back. For attorneys representi...
Mar 21, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 131
To settle or not to settle, often a question. Our guest, Jim Anderson, is a well-known Workers’ Comp attorney and a leader in the field in Mississippi. His input about “settlements” are respected, and he has led the field in helping both sides reach a solution. The best claim is a closed claim. Is it sometimes better to simply settle a case fairly, to reach an accord, than let it linger and get worse. When a significant injury is involved, going before a judge can be risky. Seeking a settlement ...
Feb 21, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 130
We depend on our first responders – firefighters, cops, emergency room workers – every day. They protect us from harm. But what happens when they need our help? Our guest Robert Wisniewski is a Certified Specialist in Workers’ Compensation law with the Arizona State Bar and a military veteran. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a real thing, PTSD. How does this fit into state Workers’ Comp protections? You can’t see these mental scars. And every state is different. Some states don’t offer benefit...
Jan 24, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 129
A reminder that every case is different. Injuries occur in unusual situations that challenge how we think about Workers’ Compensation and how every state and jurisdiction applies the law differently. The “Skiing Chaperone Case,” is about a teacher who accompanies a school ski club as a chaperone. Is she eligible for Workers’ Comp if injured while skiing? Is this a work injury, or did her volunteer status exclude her? After all, skiing is fun. The answer may surprise you. A worker on the job outd...
Dec 20, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 128
