Reading Room

The 1988-1989 court term has resulted in significant developments in the New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation. The court has continued to define the scope of employment and the parameters under which remedies are available for the injured employee under the Workers' Compensation Act. It confirmed the right of employees to obtain relief from employers where fraudulent concealment is an issue. 

NJ Supreme Court Case Review 1988. Substantial and significant case law development and procedural changes have occurred before the Division of Workers' Compensation during the 1987-1988 court term. Decisions have focused on interpreting the 1979 Amendments to the Workers' Compensation Act in light of the increasing complexities of the industrial arena.

In an era of heightened technological sophistication, the Division of Workers' Compensation is increasingly faced with the necessity to apportion responsibility among successive employers or insurance carriers when dealing with occupational disease claims. 

A Haledon man is suing his World War II employer for damages in connection with the death of his wife, claiming that she died from asbestos particles from his job. In what Jon Gelman, a Wayne lawyer, said was the first action of its kind, James D. Parker filed suit yesterday in Superior Court in Paterson, seeking damages from the Union Asbestos and Rubber Co. for the estate of his wife, Angelina, who died of cancer last year at age 61.  

The concept of a compensable industrial disease has developed only recently and its acceptance has lagged far behind that of industrial accidents. The original Workers' Compensation Acts, as promulgated from the year 1911 forward by many of the states, did not provide for the recognition of occupational illness and disease as compensable events. As demands have been placed upon the medical system to treat and to prevent occupational illness, the legal system, under social, economic, and political pressure, has sought to provide a remedy for the thousands of injured workers who have suffered and who are continuing to suffer from occupational illness and disease. 

Unto the second generation, deadly asbestos fibers are now destroying the lungs of children of Paterson area asbestos workers of the 1940s, most of whom already have succumbed or are incapacitated from lung cancers and related diseases.