Heartiest congratulations to the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) as it celebrates 100 years of service to the workers’ compensation system. "Our" system has seen substantial changes over the years and NCCI has deftly adapted along with it. Recently, as I contemplated NCCI’s strength and resiliency, I thought it would be interesting to highlight and discuss some of the truly significant workers' compensation appellate decisions that have been handed down since 1923. The winnowing was not easy.
By way of context, in my 37 years of working on "the Treatise" [Larson’s Workers' Compensation Law, 17 vols., Matthew-Bender/LexisNexis (Larson)], I have read—sometimes only skimmed—more than 60,000 appellate decisions from across the nation. Reporting here on just a handful inevitably results in omitting some important decisions. And your list would assuredly be different from mine. Nevertheless, with some bit of presumptuousness, and with a parenthetical note included in the following paragraph, I offer below my assessment of 10 significantly important decisions over the life of NCCI.
May I initially allow that one of the most significant decisions in our field, this one by the US Supreme Court in New York C. R. Co. v. White (1917), is excluded from my list because it predates NCCI’s founding by six years. You likely know the important backdrop of the White decision. In 1910, the first New York Act was passed, with compulsory coverage for certain "hazardous...
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