I will state again for Hop Cocksucker that I don’t have a problem with Cameron getting her tits fixed and her mouth looked at by a dentist. I don’t have a problem with wage replacement during her recovery from tit repair surgery, either. My problem is the lifetime wage replacement she was given as if the AIDS transmission took place on Kink’s set. We all know she got AIDS from her personal sex life or her IV drug use. “Could have happened” is permissible for OSHA and negligence claims but not for workman’s comp claims (and I have dealt with workman’s comp claims for an employer before so don’t tell me I am wrong). How the fuck do you get AIDS from an HIV negative person (Xander Corvus — who still performs to this day) like is evidently alleged in this workman’s comp case? As for the other people on set that day, no transmissible contact was made by any of them. You cannot get AIDS from someone shoving their finger up your ass!

The rulings from any part of any related process are admissible but not binding as facts until they are issued by administrative law judge in a Ruling After Reconsideration.

If a worker is injured on the job and files a workers comp claim this will be noted and in some cases gets the ball rolling on OSHA. Shared information is a way to speed up remedies for ill or injured workers, avoids duplication efforts and saves taxpayer money.

ig construction worker saws hand off

This is serious and reportable injury. A reputable company with IIPP (injury illness prevention plan) will have a list of what needs to be done and who needs to be notified to determine if the cause. A severe injury like that would have a risk management officer on the phone before the worker lands in an operating room.

OSHA is the first call and is made by the employer.
The worker or a lawyer on their behalf files a Worker Comp claim.

OSHA investigates the workplace for any safety violations. Workers comp looks at medical records to rule out drug use and investigates the workers story.

ig: worker tears rotator cuff

Worker goes to doc ..it hurts …diagnostics and tests run and it is likely a workplace injury. worker or lawyer files worker comp claim.

lets say that is 10th work comp claim for same injury against same employer; workers comp questions the employer as deficient in protecting workers against foreseeable injury….they share info with OSHA.

now back to cases like KINK. OSHA investigates then issues citations for documented workplace safety violations. The citation comes with fines…you can call it an allegation at this point. What happens next depends on which options the workplace selects …usually one of the following but there are other options too.

*Employer can fix the violations in a certain amount of time to make penalty fines go away in part or even entirely for most issues.

*Employer can contest the violations as bogus (like challenging a speeding ticket but more like getting rid of drunk driving arrest with a breathalyzer)

* Employer can accept the violation (ticket) and ask for a reduced penalty.

When violations are contested, it goes through an administrative law process. First a hearing with three DOSH (div occupational safety health) board members . Some employers try to do this part w/o a lawyer, usually this result is regret because now they have to fix the issues, pay increased penalties and a lawyer to keep their ass out of hot water moving forward.

Employer can appeal the board decision. This goes before an administrative law judge who determines FACTS just like a judge in any US court. Both sides are represented by lawyers and they are arguing every possible legal technicality applicable to the case . The outcome is called a Ruling After Reconsideration. or similar wording with same effect.

The effect of the Ruling After Reconsideration is that it is used in civil courts as FACT. An employer trying to overturn it is dealing with a process similar to overturning a criminal conviction. The appeals court only looks at what the court below them did to look for errors…they don’t rehash the citation.

In a civil suit the Ruling After Reconsideration is used as proven FACT so the employer goes against a what looks like a stacked deck.

That is how an OSHA ruling becomes binding and the process of how a citation can deal a lethal blow to a strong company that worked very hard to dot their i’s and cross their t’s.

I agree that the OSHA ruling can bind the courts or at least strongly weight the scales in favor of one party in any civil lawsuit based on their ruling (which the Cameron Bay case is). In any other situation it would not bind a workman’s comp insurer — whether it be a state quasi-agency as in California or a private insurer as used in Michigan. This was a screwjob against Kink and against the adult film industry, plain and simple. In the end it will cost the State of California more than any other parties — including the loss of 500 or so mostly high paying jobs and the resulting state tax revenue. This will be Las Vegas, Nevada’s; Florida’s (mainly in Miami although there is production in Tampa as well) and possibly Washington’s (the state, not DC) and Oregon’s where some production has already moved.

OHSA rulings after reconsideration absolutely do bind other agencies and civil courts. Those rulings create FACTS which can be appealed through the civil court system like the 1998 case was …they lost.

Pushing this ‘she didn’t get it at kink’ narrative is the real threat stakeholders (content producers) face. The law doesn’t give a fuck if she got it on the set or not …only that she can prove she was exposed to potentially infectious material.

For anyone with their head in the sand or waiting to see how this played out please treat this ruling seriously. To use an analogy this amounts to a positive test and it anyone at risk needs to test aka have their business practices reviewed by a qualified experienced labor lawyer.

As for the lawsuit, Kink is fucked. They need to try to settle the case for a couple million dollars and move on. When State Fund approved lifetime wage replacement for Cameron based on the AIDS infection (even though we all know it didn’t happen on a Kink set) and refused to fight that part of the claim (probably to further California’s and Weinstein’s campaign to run porn out of the state) they threw Kink under the proverbial bus. By all rights State Fund should have fought the lifetime wage replacement, since the AIDS infection wasn’t on Kink’s watch they had a good case and probably would have won a court fight on that one. The tit repair and wage replacement during recovery was an iron clad responsibility of State Fund but anything to do with the AIDS infection was not.

For the last five years I’ve been accurately predicting what and how OSHA processes against porn will play out and warning people that other state OSHA were watching Cal/OSHA closely to address porn in their states.

Nevada is in the same Federal Region as CAl/OSHA and already has existing court tested barrier requirements. That is why the brothels said whoa hold up to porn openly advocating moving shooting bareback content to Nevada.

By requiring clients to use condoms brothels meet minimum standards using barriers to prevent EXPOSURE to potentially infectious material. It doesn’t matter if anyone else on that Kink set tested positive or not because Cameron Bay can prove she was ‘exposed to POTENTIALLY infectious material’

The law and regulations in place since 1990 require prevention and minimizing exposure to lowest permissible levels. Anyone paying attention to this play out from the stakeholder liability point of view understands exactly why FSC is pushing PREP and talking about expanding PASS without changing existing testing panels.

Through ten years of contentious back and forth with OSHA the industry was fighting barriers AND presenting Lowest Permissible Level arguments. When the draft proposal came out in 2013 there was no consensus of what number was a ‘safe’ VL (viral load). All the experts agreed 1000vl was a risk for transmission, some experts argued 200 was safe, others said 400, and they all had studies from different demographics.

Since 2012 the experts started moving to less than 100vl copies is low risk. 2013 the industry chose tests to weed out NEW (acute) infections that would or could spread.

Through 2013 the FSC approved test panel was a big hot topic. Some will recall John Stagliano bragging he could pass the industry test…Kudos to him for achieving & maintaining ‘undetectable’ viral load. Test providers offered ‘complimentary hep c’ tests, performers got pushback for questioning Hep C. Diane Duke got blasted for unilaterally deciding to change testing from monthly to a bi-weekly protocol.

Behind the scenes the complimentary Hep c tests provided FSC with anonymized data. PREP minimizes exposure risk, requiring hiv+ performers to test using the same test currently used presents a policy of industrywide self regulation to achieve lowest permissible exposure risk. Upping testing to bi-weekly minimized the exposure risks while addressing the syphilis nightmare from 2012 biting the industry in the ass big time. Bringing EPL in was important to getting the gay community willing to test.

now back to your rant because you raise some good food for thought. The busted implant medical expenses were promptly paid by Kink they are included in the civil suit to prove the scene went beyond the written consent…it has nothing to do with why the insurers wouldn’t defend or settle the civil suits. The workers comp & private liability insurers wouldn’t defend any part of the civil suit because there was ‘preventable’ EXPOSURE…she tested positive …they knew they couldn’t win.

This case will not go to SCOTUS because there is already too many cases with existing workplace liability rulings in place. Kink lost at OSHA they appealed and lost. Once Kink lost the OSHA appeal it created ‘facts’ for the civil suit the insurers couldn’t defend and wouldn’t settle on. Kink would lose any appeal to higher courts on the same facts the insurers used to win their cases with.

When it comes to workplace exposure cases it doesn’t matter if it is HIV, carcinogens, chemicals, or anything else…IF IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED AT WORK …IT HAPPENED AT WORK unless the employer proves it could not have. Saying Cameron didn’t get HIV from that scene even shouting it from rooftops makes no difference once OSHA determined there was in fact exposure to POTENTIALLY infectious material on that set.

Kink initially moved their production to Nevada. It wasn’t a solution that would cover their asses going forward. Kink covered their ass going forward by shifting the liability burden to the now independent director/producers selling Kink their content.

Regarding workman’s comp, the subject of this article, State Fund is on the hook for the popped tit implant, no question. They would also be on the hook for wage replacement while her tit is healing. However, as I understand it they didn’t fight the lifetime wage replacement for the AIDS infection (since she can never work as a porn performer in straight or lesbian porn ever again and she doesn’t have a dick to perform in gay porn so that isn’t even remotely an option) even though she obviously didn’t get AIDS on a Kink set — which since State Fund is a state agency due to their structure and direct connection to the State of California (no matter what they claim) puts them on the hook for Cameron’s civil court negligence claim regarding AIDS coming from their set (even though we all know she didn’t get AIDS from the Kink set as her sexual partner that day tested negative and is still performing today). As I understand it that is what Kink was trying to get State Fund to defend. Their liability insurer also refused to defend and received a court decision in their favor a couple of years ago. Now Kink will be forced to settle or pay to fight this case, potentially all the way to the SCOTUS. If I were Peter and Alison I would attempt to settle for a couple million dollars and be done with it. I think Cameron would take the cash (most would and if she has a decent attorney not doing the AHF’s bidding to bankrupt Kink the attorney would advise a settlement now rather than driving the company into bankruptcy court and not getting a dime). Kink has already moved 95% of their production out of California’s reach, they can move everything else to Nevada quite easily if State Fund jacks up their workman’s comp premium anyway and we all know that State Fund is going to jack up all porn company performer premiums anyway.

It should be noted that at the end of 2017 Kink severed all directors and production from Kink employment. They all now have independent companies selling their content to Kink and responsible for their own workman’s comp, liability and other expenses. This also severs all talent from being able to cause Kink corporate liability, meaning that if another Cameron Bay incident takes place Kink can’t be sued for it and is not liable. Also, except for The Upper Floor all production is outside of California where the states involved will be much less aggressive in their enforcement of condom regulations, OSHA fines for any injuries and the workman’s comp insurers will be more likely to fight lifetime wage replacement claims like Cameron’s in California (which by all rights since she didn’t get AIDS on a Kink set she should not have been able to receive).