| Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision |
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| The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) addresses Social Security retirement and disability benefits and generally affects individuals who earned a pension through their employment with a government agency and who also paid Social Security taxes through other employment endeavors. The WEP only affects federal employees whose pension derives from the Civil Service Retirement System. The WEP was instituted to remedy the inequity where individuals whose employment was not covered by Social Security nevertheless had their Social Security benefits computed as if they were lower-wage workers in addition to receiving a pension from their employment. A lower-wage worker receives a higher percentage of their pre-retirement earnings as their benefit amount than does a higher-wage worker. More... |
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| Anthrax |
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| Anthrax is an infectious disease caused by the inhalation of, ingestion of, or skin exposure to a spore-forming bacteria. Though it is most often spread through contact with animals or animal products, anthrax is most widely known for its use as an agent of biological warfare. More... |
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| Consultative Examinations, Generally |
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| Consultative examinations (CE) of a social security claimant are used by the Social Security Administration (SSA) when the claimant's medical evidence is insufficient to determine the claimant's disability, or lack thereof. Although the claimant's treating physician is the preferred source of medical evidence, there are instances where a medical examination from an independent source is necessary. These include situations where the treating physician is unwilling to perform the examination, there are inconsistencies in the claimant's file that cannot be resolved by consulting with the treating physician, the claimant himself prefers an examination by a source other than his treating physician with good reason, or prior experience in dealing with the treating physician indicates that he may be unable to effectively provide the necessary service. More... |
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| On-Call Employees |
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| Professions that may require employees to reside on the premises and be "on-call" include servants, security guards, private nurses, nannies, and the like. Continuously on-call employees who reside on their work premises are generally covered under the "course of employment" principle should they be injured. If the employee is not always on-call but, rather, has only specified hours in which he is on-call, he will only be allowed compensation if the injury was due to his living conditions as a by-product of the employer's requirement that he remain on the premises. More... |
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| Act of God and the Concept of "Arising Out of the Employment" |
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| An act of God includes natural occurrences over which man generally has no control such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and lightening. Though an employee is injured due to an act of God, he may still recover workers' compensation benefits if he can show that the nature of his employment placed him at a greater risk for injury due to such an act of God. For example, consider the repairman who is required to work on downed power lines during a storm. He performs his work while a thunderstorm rages by standing in a bucket raised high into the air from the back of his repair truck. This situation would appear to elevate the employee's chances of being struck by lightening over the average individual. As such, it is likely that the employee would be compensated for an injury by lightening. More... |
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