Legal Updates & News
Regulators Won’t Enforce Prohibition-Era Beer Law, but Uncertainty Remains
In recent weeks, a 77-year-old law prohibiting Maine businesses from displaying the alcohol content of beers earned Maine national attention. The law, enacted in the wake of Prohibition, prohibits signs or labels referring “in any manner to the alcoholic strength of the malt liquor” or using “such words as ‘extra strength,’ or ‘pre-war strength.’” The Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages & Lottery Operations recently began interpreting this law to prevent the display of alcohol-by-volume (ABV) numbers on signs or menus, and issued warnings to restaurants and bars throughout the state. Thankfully, on Tuesday the Bureau announced a new enforcement policy. But is the problem really solved?
The Bureau has announced it will not enforce the law against bar or restaurant operators who display the ABV of beer on signs or menus in an unembellished manner, as it appears on the label. Anything else that reflects on the beer’s strength (for instance, “It’ll get ya drunk!”) will still be subject to the law.
The policy change is welcome to many, as commentators have argued that ABV labeling is a matter of public safety and consumer rights. For instance, a beer drinker used Bud Light’s 4.2% ABV might be in for a shock if they had just one Sam Adams Triple Bock, weighing in at a whopping 18%. The law may also be unconstitutional: The legislative push to deny consumers ABV information is a remnant of state and federal laws arising in the wake of Prohibition, such as the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAAA). The FAAA was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995 as an unconstitutional restraint on commercial speech. However, its legacy of patchwork state legislation lives on.
While the Bureau has backpedaled on its decision to enforce the law to prevent display of ABVs, the law remains on the books and open to future interpretation. As long as this potentially unconstitutional law remains unchanged, regulators may prevent businesses from displaying the alcohol content of the beverages their customers consume. Fortunately, one legislator, Representative Luis Luchini (D-Ellsworth), has already submitted a bill to resolve the law’s ambiguity and ensure ABV information remains available to consumers.
Pre-Settlement Questionnaires and Medical Exams
Have you ever settled a case for a substantial sum only to see the claimant’s obituary in the newspaper a few weeks later? What steps can you take to come up to speed on the claimant’s health status before you settle?
When settling a case involving injuries to a specific body part, it is often easy to focus on that body part exclusively without looking too deeply into the claimant’s overall health status. This could be a serious mistake. The parties’ expectations about the claimant’s life expectancy often dictate the value of a settlement. It is therefore wise to get detailed information to help estimate what that life expectancy may be.
One method an insurer might use is to refuse to settle unless the claimant fills out a pre-settlement questionnaire which would include questions about any conditions the employee is suffering from. They could take this a step further and demand the production of all primary care medical records to verify the claimant’s health status. Insurers could even require a full pre-settlement IME with lab work. Whichever method they chose, insurers should be aware that more information is better when it comes to settlement.
Saltz v. M.W. Sewall & Co.
Summary: The Appellate Division panel found Hearing Officer Collier did not err by rejecting the opinion of an independent medical examiner (IME) regarding the duration of the employee’s incapacity. Deferring to the hearing officer’s findings as to credibility and medical/factual issues, the panel concluded the evidence the hearing officer relied on could reasonably have persuaded him it was highly probable the IME was incorrect in his assessment of the duration of the employee’s incapacity.
Burby v. Fraser Papers, Inc.
Summary: The Appellate Division panel found Hearing Officer Pelletier did not err by concluding the employee had good and reasonable cause to refuse a bona fide offer of reasonable employment, even though the reason given was that he felt the work would negatively affect his non-work-related psychological condition. The panel found that under 39-A M.R.S.A. § 214(1)(A), the “good and reasonable cause” to refuse a bona fide offer of employment can be non-work-related.
Lindeman-Cibelli v. Maine Medical Center
Summary: The Appellate Division panel found Hearing Officer Collier did not err in (1) adopting the opinion of one independent medical examiner over another, or (2) in determining the employer/insurer did not meet its burden of proof on the issue of changed medical circumstances and declining to reopen the compensation payment scheme.
The panel found the hearing officer could reasonably have been persuaded by the evidence it was highly probable one IME opinion was wrong. It also noted a finding that a party failed to meet its burden of proof is a conclusion of law subject to appeal; however, such a conclusion may only be overturned where the facts found by the hearing officer legally compel a contrary conclusion. The panel found the testimony in this case did not compel such a conclusion and affirmed the decision.
Johnson v. The Home Depot USA, Inc., et al.
Summary: In what the Law Court calls an “unusual case,” the Court affirmed the suspension of workers’ compensation benefits where the employee had been missing since March 2012. The hearing officer first ordered the employee’s benefits be paid into an escrow account pending an October 2012 hearing, and following the hearing, to suspend her benefits altogether pending her reappearance. Her attorney appealed on her behalf to the Appellate Division, which affirmed the hearing officer’s decision. The Law Court then granted the employee attorney’s petition for review.
Before the Law Court, the employee’s attorney argued the hearing officer lacked authority to grant the employer/insurer’s petition for review because it was not served “to the other parties named in the petition” (i.e., the employee herself) in accordance with 39-A M.R.S. § 307(2), and he had no authority to accept service on her behalf. However, the Law Court found that “in this highly unusual situation,” the hearing officer reasonably exercised her broad authority to interpret ambiguous language in the Act to find § 307(2) was satisfied by service on the long-missing employee’s attorney.
The Law Court also affirmed the panel’s decision to uphold the order that benefits be paid into an escrow account pending the October 2012 hearing, and suspended after the hearing pending the employee’s reappearance. The Court cited its previous recognition of “gray areas” in the Workers’ Compensation Act which “the Legislature knew would require ‘flexible and realistic solutions’”:
Here, by first segregating Johnson’s benefits for her future use, and then only suspending the payment of benefits with a proviso that they would be available retroactively if she later claimed them, the hearing officer protected both Home Depot’s legitimate interest in stopping payments that were not being received by its employee, and Johnson’s interest in collecting her full benefits if she is able to receive them in the future. That thoughtful and compassionate solution in light of these difficult circumstances is not error.
Daigle v. High View Manor
Summary:
The Appellate Division of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board, en banc, issued a decision in Rena Daigle v. High View Manor. This decision addressed the issue of whether the use of stairs in a workplace, without more, is sufficient to establish that employment contributed a substantial risk of injury that was not otherwise present in the average employee’s ordinary life. In this case, the employee, a nurse with osteoarthritic knees, was descending a staircase at work at the end of a long shift, when, according to the Board’s fact findings, her left leg “gave way,” and she fell, suffering an injury to her right knee.
Hearing Officer Collier, writing for a unanimous panel, stated that the findings in the underlying decree that (1) the elevator was not available to the employee, (2) the lock-out of the elevator was beyond the employee’s control, (3) the building was three stories high, (4) the stairs were different from residential stairs, (5) the employee had worked a late shift, and (6) the length of the shift made the employee tired and sore, were sufficient to support the hearing officer’s conclusion that the employment objectively presented a risk of injury greater than in the average person’s everyday life.
Hearing Officer Greene wrote a concurrence addressing the correct standard of review applicable to issues of legal causation on appeal to the Appellate Division. Citing the Law Court’s decisions in Bryant v. Masters Machine, 444 A.2d 329 (Me. 1982) and Celentano v. Department of Corrections, 887 A.2d 512 (Me. 2005), Hearing Officer Greene emphasized that the standard of review with regard to mixed questions of fact and law, such as legal causation, is that the decision may not be disturbed if it “neither arbitrary nor without rational foundation.”
Employers and insurers should not take this decision to mean that the Hearing Officers, as a body, consider all workplace staircases to present an inherent risk greater than that presented in a person’s everyday life. All cases are fact specific, and factors such as the length of the staircase, the nature of the tread, and other means of moving between floors available to the employee, may certainly play a role in future staircase cases. However, this decision does demonstrate that appellants have a very high bar to clear in when they seek to overturn a hearing officer’s finding on an issue of legal causation.
View complete text of Rena Daigle v. High View Manor
Important Changes to the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board Rules
September 2014
On August 18, 2014, the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board amended the rules governing the Maine workers compensation system. These amendments include some important substantive changes, including altered deadlines and new mandatory procedures for employers and insurers to follow.
A helpful guide summarizing these rule changes can be found on the Tucker Law Group website, here. The text of the new Rules can be found on the WCB Rules page of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board website. For questions about the amended Rules and their potential impact on employers and insurers, contact the attorneys at Tucker Law Group.
Belanger v. City of Lewiston
Summary:
A competent evidence decision on work capacity. The Appellate Division found that the following constituted competent evidence for a finding that the employee had met her burden of production to show that work was unavailable to her as a result of her injury: (1) work search documents showing 40 employer contacts over three months; (2) the employee’s testimony regarding efforts to find work; (3) evidence that the employee worked with DOL Voc Rehab following her unsuccessful effort to find work; (4) the employee’s current plans to open a home business; (5) the employee’s testimony about her limited education and work background; and (6) the employee’s medical restrictions. On the other hand, the Appellate Division found that the employer’s submission of a labor market survey did not compel the Hearing Officer to find that the employer had met its “never shifting” burden of proof to show, on a more probable than not basis, that work within the employee’s physical capacity was available in the community.
View complete text of Belanger v. City of Lewiston
Briggs v. H&K Stevens, Inc.
Summary:
Hearing Officer Greene decided that a worker at Subway had failed to meet her burden of proving a gradual work-related foot injury where the medical evidence did not establish that conditions of the employment increased the risk of injury. The Appellate Division found that “expert medical evidence is not always necessary to establish that conditions of employment increase the risk of injury” and, taking judicial notice of the fact that an average person in daily life does not stand or walk on hard surfaces for 90% of a daily 8-12 hour shift, vacated the Hearing Officer’s finding.
The Hearing Officer also found that the employee had failed to meet the burden of proof for §201(4) where the medical evidence established that the work activities more likely than not contributed to the chronic condition, but did not address the significance of the contribution, whether surgery was necessitated by work activities, or the apportionment of the relative contributions of daily life activities vs. work. The Appellate Division found that “this level of analysis is not required by the law,” citing Celentano v. Dep’t of Corr. and vacated the Hearing Officer’s finding on significant aggravation as well. The case was remanded on an unlitigated notice issue.
View complete text of Briggs v. H&K Stevens, Inc.