It Figures

170,000
The year-round population of coastal Delaware’s Sussex County which is growing and has state officials concerned about evacuation plans for hurricanes and other natural disasters. There are few ways off the Delmarva Peninsula and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, crossed by hundreds of thousands of vehicles on summer weekends, likely would be closed during a storm. The population swells to 263,000 in summer months.

08/14/2008
The new deadline for World Trade Center responders to file the paperwork needed to claim workers’ compensation benefits if they become ill in the future. The registration deadline would have been Aug. 14 of this year had the state Legislature had not acted to extend it. The law allows people who worked or volunteered at the World Trade Center to register with the Workers’ Compensation Board and reserve the right to claim benefits if they become ill at a later date. More than 19,000 people have filed a WTC-12 form, registering as responders and volunteers.

4-2
The vote by Maine’s highest court in upholding a state law that mandates blood alcohol and drug testing on drivers when a motor vehicle accident results in a fatality. The decision stemmed from a manslaughter case in which a lower court ruled that the results from a blood-alcohol test on a driver were unconstitutional and should be suppressed. Chief Justice Leigh Saufley wrote that the statute itself is constitutional and that the test results are admissible in court if the state demonstrates that the defendant consented to the test or there was probable cause to believe the driver was operating under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

11%
The rate reduction sought by the Pennsylvania Medical Society Liability Insurance Co. If approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance, the revised rates will be effective Jan. 1, 2008. The decision to file for the reduction was attributed to improved loss experience.

$14 million
The amount awarded to a Navy doctor from Virginia in a civil lawsuit against a pedophile priest. The doctor has now filed a second lawsuit against Roman Catholic officials, a suit which takes advantage of a new Delaware law that abolishes the state’s two-year statute of limitations on personal injury lawsuits for victims of child sex abuse. It also allows a two-year “lookback” period during which lawsuits previously barred by the statute of limitations can be brought anew.