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Newspaper Plants Saved from
Fraudulent Workers' Compensation Claims
INTRODUCTION
It wasn't quite Murder on the Orient Express. One afternoon
we received a call to investigate apparent hearing losses
that had suddenly developed at two newspaper plants. It
seems that there was a sudden rash of severe hearing loss
in the newspaper delivery drivers.
This created concern among the lawyers processing the compensation
claims for the employer. Were the noise levels to which
the drivers exposed so high as to cause permanent, compensable
loss of hearing? The NCAC member firm
was asked to investigate and to determine employee exposures.
The details of the legal complaint, which reads like a
detective novel, can be found at United States District
Court for the Southern District of New York [93 Civ. 7222
(LAP)]
The primary purpose of an Effective Hearing Conservation
Program is to protect employee's hearing. Of course, the
first phase of an effective hearing conservation program
is to document the workplace acoustical environment. But,
their workers didn't spend time in the places where high
noise exposure was expected. They would arrive at work,
transact some business in an office, wait near conveyors
where newspapers were bundled and loaded on their trucks,
and then drive throughout the metropolitan area delivering
bundles of papers. An exposure survey for these employees
had never been carried out since it was thought that their
exposures were under 85 dB TWA.
There are other purposes for a hearing conservation program.
Ostergaard Acoustical Associates has maintained that the
data developed in a properly conducted hearing conservation
program has at least two benefits to the employer: first,
it is crucial to the protection of employee hearing and
the early identification of potentially problematic noise
exposures. Second, audiometry conducted by knowledgeable
technicians under the supervision of a professional experienced
in the evaluation of the industrial patient may serve
to support the defense of claims for Occupationally Caused
noise-induced hearing loss.
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