Fort Wayne Injury, Employment and Disability Lawyer

Who are Vocational Experts? Generally, a Vocational Expert ("VE") is an expert witness who knows about job availability in the current labor market as well as the skills that are needed to perform specific jobs. In the Social Security Administration ("SSA") disability setting, VEs are vocational professionals who provide impartial expert opinion evidence about a claimant’s vocational abilities that an ALJ considers when making a decision about disability. As many Social Security Disability attorneys know, the bulk of VEs provide testimony in SSA disability hearings.  In this context, the United States Supreme Court noted that VEs are: “[P]professionals under contract with the Social Security Administration to provide impartial testimony in agency proceedings. They must have expertise and current knowledge of working conditions and physical demands of various jobs; knowledge of the existence and numbers of those jobs in the national economy; and involvement in or kn...

  When an employee sustains an injury on the job, there are certain benefits that the injured worker would be entitled to under the Indiana Worker's Compensation Act. This article addresses the four different types of benefits available to an injured worker in Indiana. First, medical treatment will be provided to the injured worker at no cost to the injured worker. This means all medical expenses are paid by the employer and/or its worker's compensation insurance company.  A few points about this benefit: The injured worker is usually provided a prescription card so they can get any prescriptions from a pharmacy of their choosing.  It should be noted that the employer/worker's compensation insurance company has the right to direct the injured worker's medical treatment so this means the injured worker does not get to pick the doctors. Typically, employers/worker's compensation insurance companies have preferred doctors they like to use.  The employer/worker's co...

In 1978, the Indiana legislature enacted the Indiana Product's Liability Act ("IPLA").  As some legal scholars have noted, the IPLA is  “marked by ambiguities, opaque definitions, incompleteness, inconsistencies, inequities, provisions subject to likely constitutional challenge, a general violation of the state constitution’s one subject rule, and general evidence of very hasty draftmanship.”.  John F. Vargo, Product Liability, 12 Ind. L. Rev. 227, 255 (1979). This article addresses one section of the IPLA, namely, the IPLA's  statute of repose ("SOR") now codified at I.C. § 34-20-3-1(b) which provides, in relevant part, that: [A] product liability action must be commenced: (1) within two (2) years after the cause of action accrues;  or (2) within ten (10) years after the delivery of the product to the initial user or consumer. However, if the cause of action accrues at least eight (8) years but less than ten (10) years after that...