On March 24, 1911, the New York Court of Appeals declared the state’s compulsory Workers Compensation law to be unconstitutional. The very next day, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers. After an arduous fight through the courts, twenty-three of the victims’ families were awarded $75.00 each. In response to this, in 1914 the New York State Legislature created the Workers Compensation Board, which in one form or another has now regulated many aspects of the practice of law in New York state for over 100 years.
In 1996, in an attempt to balance the scales and reduce out-of-control insurance premiums, the New York Employment, Safety and Security Act was passed, introducing significant reforms to the workers’ compensation system. One such measure that has been the subject of litigation ever since it was enacted was Workers Compensation Law §11′s “grave injury” threshold for third-party lawsuits against employers. The new statute made it clear that a plaintiff’s employer could only be found liable for contribution or indemnity to any third person for the injuries of their employee when those injuries fell within a set of explicitly described “grave injuries,” including among others “an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in permanent total disability.” That provision has led to years of litigation to attempt to define what actually constituted a “permanent total disability” in the context of a traumatic brain injury or TBI.
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