Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) underscored the intensity of a recent congressional debate centered on construction accident issues when he pointedly asked a colleague who fervently opposes a new OSHA proposal that would put beefed-up restrictions on residential roofers this question: “Have you ever fallen off a roof?” For years, the benchmark safety standard for…
A sure-fire way to start an impassioned debate is to broach the subject of increasing state revenues by raising taxes on alcohol sales and/or expanding the hours during which establishments with liquor licenses can sell alcoholic beverages. On the one hand, advocates will say that sizable amounts of money will flow into state coffers…
In 2005, three friends from Ohio State University took their entrepreneurial plan and started an alcohol beverage company called Phusion Projects. One of their products, an energy alcoholic drink called Four Loko, has gained considerable notoriety since then. Intense scrutiny from the FDA and officials in many states was aimed at Phusion Projects late…
The interstate highways and state roads splayed across Ohio serve as major arteries for commercial truckers transporting goods both within and beyond the state. Numerous studies and statistics indicate that the volume of Ohio truck traffic is greater than that of many other states. And, thus, so is the constant potential for, and too-often…
A current debate in Solon is centering on something not often considered by city residents, namely, this: whether the city should soon implement a sharpshooter culling program and pilot crossbow hunting program to reduce the presence of deer locally. Advocates of the idea point to statistics from the Ohio Department of Transportation (“ODOT”) indicating…
Ohio House Bill 99 bans texting while driving and will become law if it passes the Ohio Senate and is signed by Gov. John Kasich. Thirty-four other states have already enacted such legislation , based on strong and sobering empirical evidence that many thousands of fatal car accidents are caused in the United States…
Ohio State Highway Patrol (“OSHP”) statistics indicate that close to half of all fatal car accidents that have occurred so far this year within a five-county region of the state — Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Butler and Warren — took place in rural areas. There have been 60 fatal crashes within the region, with 28…
Recent complaints at retail giant Amazon’s warehouse in Allentown, Pennsylvania, have spurred officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) to investigate allegations regarding extreme working conditions, with no workers’ compensation for injuries or heat-related illnesses. Most part-time employees will not complain, for fear of being fired. Amazon hires through a staffing service,…
It is not often that the details underlying a car accident in Ohio are evaluated and ruled upon at every level of the state’s court system. Most car crashes, though, don’t involve issues of a municipality’s sovereign immunity, the distinction between a police officer’s arrest authority versus professional duty to respond to a call…
Workers’ compensation in Ohio is a singular matter, as it is in all other states. That is, the state-run programs that exist across the country are anything but cookie-cutter employee compensation systems. There are variances — often meaningful, often material — that exist among the states involving benefit payments, costs to employers, medical care…