Workers’ comp seminar scheduled by MAJ
The Michigan Association for Justice (MAJ) will present its Annual Workers’ Compensation/Social Security seminar on Friday, Jan. 13, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Westin in Southfield.
Topics to be covered include national workers’ compensation issues and trends, vocational rehabilitation hearings, orthopedic injuries, veteran disability claims and medical deposition tips and strategies.
Tuition includes seminar, digital materials, food & beverages.
Hard copy material available for an additional cost and with prior request.
MAJ regular members pay $190; MAJ Paralegal/Law Clerk members pay $150; MAJ?members practicing 3 years of less pay $150; MAJ sustaining members pay $65; and non-MAJ members pay $350.
There will be an additional $20 charge for registering at the door. Optional hard copy handbook costs $50.
To register or for additional information, visit www.michiganjustice.org or call 517.321.3073.
Court rules anonymous comments protected by First Amendment
DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan appeals court says a website doesn’t have to reveal the names of people who posted anonymous comments about a university scientist.
The court said Wednesday that the PubPeer Foundation, which operates pubpeer.com, is protected by the First Amendment. The case involves Fazlul Sarkar who filed a defamation lawsuit in Wayne County, claiming the anonymous criticism cost him a high-paying job offer at the University of Mississippi in 2014.
Sarkar returned to a job at Wayne State University but without tenure.
Pubpeer.com is a public website that allows people to discuss scientific research. The appeals court says the website statements cited in Sarkar’s lawsuit aren’t capable of defamatory meaning. The court says the comments simply are discussions that are “critical of Dr. Sarkar’s research.”
State’s electronic prison record system cost doubles to $386M
FOLSOM, Calif. (AP) — A massive project to modernize medical record-keeping for California prison inmates has more than doubled in cost from original estimates to nearly $400 million in just three years.
It’s the latest in a long string of computer projects that have befuddled state government.
The federal court-appointed receiver who controls California’s inmate health care system approved the project in 2013 to replace the state’s antiquated paper-based records with an electronic system that can track the medical and mental health care of nearly 130,000 inmates.
But a year of delays means it now won’t be installed at all 35 prisons until the end of 2017. and inmate advocates are so concerned that they may seek to push it back even longer at some troubled prisons.
The cost ballooned from the original $182 million projection to $386.5 million now in part because the first estimate left out basics like the cost of maintaining the system and replacing worn-out equipment, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
The receiver, J. Clark Kelso, said his office also failed to anticipate needing $13 million worth of mobile devices — 16,800 laptops, dictation machines and other gear. Nor did it include the extra software required for things as fundamental as incorporating inmates’ requests to see doctors.
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