Compensation for injuries sustained while working out of state are at issue
Richard Berthelsen, general counsel for the National Football League Players Association, answers a question while former Saints player Ernie Conwell listens in the House Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations.A bill that started out trying to lower the New Orleans Saints' payouts of workers compensation benefits to injured players was expanded in a House committee Thursday to apply to all employers and employees in the state.
The House Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations voted 6-3 for House Bill 1097 by Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Jefferson, that would have prohibited Saints players from filing workers compensation claims in more liberal states such as California while having the Saints pick up the higher cost of benefits in Louisiana.
Saints lobbyists said about 40 players and former players have done that, driving up the National Football League team's costs and insurance bills.
View full sizeLobbyist Randy Haynie, left, confers with Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Jefferson, as former New Orleans Saints tight end Ernie Conwell testifies before the House labor committee.Because of possible "legal infirmities" of carving out a niche in the law only for professional athletes, Henry got the panel to amend it to apply to all Louisiana companies whose workers are injured while working out of state.
Under the revised bill, any employee of a Louisiana company who is injured on the job out of state would be subject to the state's workers compensation laws, not the laws of the state where the worker was hurt
The bill now goes to the House floor, but Henry said he will hold it up until the Governor's Advisory Council on Worker's Compensation reviews it.
Chris Broadwater, director of the Office of Workers Compensation in the Louisiana Workforce Commission, said the panel may take about two weeks to review Henry's bill and make recommendations.
Officials of the National Football League Players Association -- including regional players union director and former Saints tight end Ernie Conwell -- asked the committee to kill the bill and let the league and the players hash out the issue in a new collective bargaining agreement. The existing one ends next year.
"The National Football League is being bombarded with cumulative trauma claims going back 35 or 40 years" Saints insurance adviser Gary Delahoussaye said. "These claims average $150,000 to $250,000. We are not talking about chump change here."
NFL representative Dennis Curran told the committee that the laws are so liberal in California that a player who "played one down there" or whose agent lives in that state can file a claim there for cumulative trauma.
Delahoussaye said that between 2004 and 2009, the number of Saints players who filed injury claims in California has gone from five to 40. Some of the claims, he said, date back more than 20 years to when the team was under the ownership of John Mecom. Mecom sold the team to present owner Tom Benson in 1985.
"Is this something that the players and owners can work out in a collective bargaining agreement?" asked Rep. Erich Ponti, R-Baton Rouge, the panel's chairman. Curran said that bargaining agreements "come and go, so a state law is needed."
Richard Berthelsen, the player union's general counsel, said that since 1993 there has been "unprecedented labor peace in the NFL because we have had our law of the shop" spelled out in the bargaining agreement with built-in features for arbitration and appeals.
"The New Orleans Saints are not suffering financially," he said. "They are doing quite well, thank you."
Conwell, who played tight end and fullback for the Saints from 2003 to 2006, as well as for the St. Louis Rams, said he has had almost 20 surgeries for leg, knee and disc injuries. He said that every team in the NFL "is probably going to save $10 million in benefits" this year based on the way the collective bargaining agreement is now structured.
Conwell said the Saints and other NFL clubs "are looking to hamstring players" with state laws limiting workers compensation benefits.
Rep. Herbert Dixon, D-Alexandria, the committee's vice chairman, urged Henry to delay action on his bill since the amended version deals "with all employees in Louisiana" who work out of state, not just athletes. Ponti agreed: "It leaves a lot of questions unanswered."
Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5810.
