The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration this week fined an Alabama utility contractor $257,700, six months after three workers died from sewage gas while installing sewer lines.

Construction Labor Services, based in Eight Mile, near Mobile, Alabama, failed to provide training and emergency response plans for workers in confined spaces, OSHA said in a bulletin. The three men were inside a manhole, doing work for a local water and sewer utility company, when they were overcome with the gas and collapsed, according to the agency and local news reports...

As of early 2025, Alabama workers’ compensation law provided up to $6,500 in burial allowance, and two-thirds of a deceased worker’s weekly wages to dependents, for up to 500 weeks, according to the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute. That’s more than Mississippi law allows but less than Georgia’s benefits.

You can read (or listen to!) the full article from Insurance Journal here.  The WCRI work that they cite is Workers’ Compensation Laws as of January 1, 2025.  Visit its page on our website for more information!