Killing of Sea Lions Allowed to Continue
National News
The 9th Circuit has refused to stop the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho from trapping and killing California sea lions that prey on endangered salmon at the Columbia River's Bonneville Dam.
In a three-page order, a panel of the San Francisco-based federal appeals court declined to issue a stay sought by the Humane Society of the United States. The society opposed the National Marine Fisheries Service's decision to authorize three states to "lethally remove" up to 85 sea lions per year.
The court found that the Humane Society's arguments are unlikely to prevail.
The states argued that the plan was necessary, because sea lions eat up to about 4.2 percent of the salmon run.
The Humane Society countered that fishermen and dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers kill more fish than sea lions do, and that cutting back on fishing would offset the amount of salmon and steelhead fish killed by sea lions.
The 9th Circuit's decision was limited to whether the lower court's decision to grant summary judgment to the states was arbitrary and capricious.
"Given the narrow and deferential standard of review, and the district court's well-reasoned decision ... we conclude that appellants have not met their burden of demonstrating a likelihood of success on the merits," the appeals court wrote.
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Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.