For the past week I’ve been trying to track down more details on the exact ruling of Brooke Ashley’s Workers Comp Hearing. According to this AVN article the case was supposed to be decided on December 4th. Recently a poster going by the name "lookyhere" created a thread on the ADT forum about this case. This poster claims that the Workers Compensation Appeals Board ruled in Brooke Ashley’s favor.
I’ve only seen it mentioned once on this board by PORNLAW, but why is nobody talking about the recent california court decision that says porn performers ARE "EMPLOYEES" and are covered by workers compensation.
Any performer who has ANY injury(anal or vaginal tear, bodily fluid in the eye etc.) can now sue for workers comp coverage, and according to pornlaw, they wont have much trouble.
This also means that every company now MUST carry workers comp insurance for performers and report any work related injury or blood borne pathogen exposure to CAL-OHSHA. Failure to report an injury, illness, or exposure in a work site alone can genereate a fine of up to $30,000.00, and if I’m not mistaken, you can recieve a "WHISTLEBLOWER" percentage for turning in companies that fail to report.
The end of buissness as usual in porn valley is near. If the ADULT industry wants to be treated like a legitimate industry it is going to have to start acting like one.
You can file CAL_OSHA complaints anonomously, and the beautiful thing is you can usually see the blood borne pathogen violations right there on videotape. That means ANBODY, ANYWHERE, can file a complaint, you dont have to be the injured party. I can just see the right wingers now(AMERICAN FAMILY COUSEL etc.) filing hundreds of complaints.
Michael Fattorosi, an adult industry lawyer (who goes by PORNLAW on the forum), eventually chimed into the thread and seemed to backup "lookyhere’s" claim about the Brook Ashley case.
Yes I have been talking about this issue for the past 2-3 yrs and have been lecturing on it ever since.
The Brooke Ashley case was decided in December and its up on partial appeal. However, I assure you that performers, directors, cameramen, lighting crew — basically everyone that is on set is an employee. Thats not really a question anymore.
I use to represent Warner Bros, Universal and Fox and on the mainstream side this issue is settled and there’s no questions that everyone on set needs to be covered by work comp. I even represented the Dodgers and all of the players on the field are covered.
This is a harsh reality the industry will soon face. I am moderating a panel at XBiz about it as well as the health and safety of performers in a more general sense. So if you are coming to XBiz please come by and listen. And whether you are in California or not, your state probably has the same laws requiring comp ins. So this might effect you as well in the future.
I was also able to bring in one of the largest commercial insurance brokers to give the industry a solution. Lockton Insurance through the Free Speech Coalition is underwriting the industry in regards to work comp as well as a vast array of other insurance products.
From what Lockton is telling me a typical boy/girl scene will cost around $22.00 for work comp insurance. So really this is only going to add perhaps $250.00 in costs for each DVD. The benefit of having comp is to tell the state and Cal-OSHA to fuck off and leave the industry alone and NOT to over regulate.
No one wants to pay the health costs for injured performers, especially tax payers, but if the industry does provide for the health and safety of its workers through insurance I do believe it will keep those forces off the industry’s back.
I have had no luck in finding out what the exact ruling is. I enlisted the help of an old source that has helped me with legal cases in the past.
Paperchase writes:
I just called the workers comp board, and gave them Brooke Ashley’s real name, they said they had no case by that name. I suspect its hiding under a Jane Doe name and only a social security number will get you a case number.
However if you have the name of her lawyer you can contact them directly and ask them for the status of the case.
This is rather puzzling.
Several points of interest to me:
- Who is the poster on ADT going by the handle "lookyhere"?
- Who is appealing the ruling?
- Why has AVN nor XBIZ written about this ruling considering it’s importance to the industry?
- How can we find out the exact ruling in the case?
I emailed Michael Fattorosi several questions about the ruling, but he has not responded.