Paducah Legal Issues Blog

It’s that time of year again; roads are closing and undergoing construction. To most drivers, the start of roadwork season means longer commutes, confusing detours and navigating around traffic cones. However, these changes can also raise the risk of suffering a crash.

Although many Kentucky residents may believe that construction workers face the greater danger, data shows that drivers and their passengers accounted for 11 out of 12 total roadwork fatalities in 2017. As a motorist, you can’t control road construction, but there are ways that you can stay safe in these particularly dangerous situations.

Kentucky residents who work in noisy environments might experience difficulty concentrating and completing tasks. However, a new study has found that a loud workplace could also be harmful to one's health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study shows that working in a noisy environment could be linked to high blood pressure and high cholesterol

Medical professionals have known that noise can affect someone's health in various ways for some time. In addition to hearing loss, exposure to noise can decrease cognitive function, cause sleep problems and trigger migraines or increasingly painful headaches. A study in 2015 found a connection between workplace noise and heart disease, particularly in people who had already suffered high-frequency hearing loss from exposure to noise.

Kentucky patients rely on their doctors to provide skilled medical care. But being human, doctors sometimes make mistakes. When it comes to medical malpractice claims, a report reveals that diagnostic errors are the number one cause. And the incidence of diagnostic errors remains high, though other types of medical malpractice claims have decreased, according to an author of the study.

The study examined more than 10,000 medical malpractices claims that were filed between 2013 and 2017. Diagnostic errors accounted for 33 percent of the claims. Surgical or procedural mistakes represented 24 percent of the claims, and medical management claims were the third most common type at 14 percent.

Kentucky workers wishing for safer workplaces may be interested in learning about the testimony a former OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) head recently gave before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, which concerned the manner in which the nation's premier workplace safety watchdog ensures regulatory compliance. David Michaels was the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health from 2009 until 2017.

Michaels, who is now a university professor, was asked to testify before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections regarding the effectiveness of OSHA's Volunteer Protection Programs (VPP), which allow some employers with exceptional safety and compliance histories to self-monitor their workplace safety protocols and regulatory compliance. According to Michaels, the VPP enrollment procedure calls for an outsized manpower commitment as eligible employers must be vetted with wall-to-wall inspections prior to being allowed to self-monitor. Since the self-monitoring program, which was initially implemented in 2002, is only available to employers with already exceptional safety records, Michaels believes the manpower dedicated to pre-enrollment inspections could be better used on monitoring facilities with more checkered safety records. Michaels further testified that budget restrictions required his team to focus on the re-certification of existing VPP facilities rather than expansion of the program, which limited its implementation.