Federal appeals court to rehear Texas voter ID case
Legal Events
A federal appeals court will hold a new hearing on whether a Texas voter ID law has discriminatory effects on minorities ? a potential blow to the Obama administration's efforts to fight new ballot-box restrictions passed by conservative legislatures around the country.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in August that the 2011 Texas law requiring 14.6 million registered voters to show picture identification at the polls violates parts of the federal Voting Rights Act. But an order issued late Wednesday says a majority of the full court, which currently has 15 members, voted to hear the case again.
The order was issued without additional opinion, and a new hearing date hasn't been set.
Texas was allowed to enforce the voter ID law during elections in 2014 and during last week's primary. Supporters say it prevents fraud, but opponents argue its true intent is to make voting tougher for older, poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats and are less likely to have the mandated forms of identification.
In a statement, state Attorney General Ken Paxton called the order "a strong step forward in our efforts to defend the state's Voter ID laws."
"We look forward to presenting our case before the full Fifth Circuit," said Paxton, a Republican who has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges stemming from actions he took before becoming attorney general in January 2015.
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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.