CSHB 121(L&C)am-WORKERS' COMPENSATION RECORDS    2:58:45 PM CHAIR ELLIS announced CSHB 121(L&C)am to be up for consideration. CLIFF STONE, staff to Representative Peggy Wilson, sponsor of CSHB 121(L&C)am, said this bill is important because it protects private information that anyone can now call up the Division and Workers' Compensation and get - names, addresses, social security numbers, Email numbers and phone numbers. 3:01:27 PM CHAIR ELLIS asked Mr. Lisankie to relate how the state lost a court case and why that inspired this legislation. PAUL LISANKIE, Director, Division of Workers' Compensation, Department of Labor and Workforce Development (DOLWD), replied that about two years ago due to concerns about information being requested from the division, legislation was passed indicating one could get workers' compensation information for purposes of determining liabilities and rights under the act, but not for commercial purposes unrelated to the Workers' Compensation Act. Some requests for information were denied and the division was sued under Public Records Act by a law firm from Detroit, Michigan. It was heard by the Superior Court in Juneau and the division lost. Existing language became restricted in scope by the court order, which was not appealed. 3:03:55 PM CHAIR ELLIS asked if someone could speak to the $292,000 fiscal note. 3:04:31 PM MR. LISANKIE replied that he could and explained that originally all the personally identifying information in his records was going to be banned from disclosure. He decided that he would not require additional staff, but now with the amendment they would have to go through and manually black out certain information like social security numbers on a case by case basis. That would require extra staff. CHAIR ELLIS asked if he was talking about hard copy as opposed to electronic information. 3:05:30 PM MR. LISANKIE replied there are both paper and electronic records. He gets many requests for hard copies. CHAIR ELLIS wanted to know what was real and what was speculative in information requests. There is the issue of a law firm requesting records to presumably contact people in the industry over a workers' compensation claim and employers in Alaska asking for this information to possibly use against or blackball a perspective employee based on past findings of workers' compensation claims. 3:07:12 PM MR. LISANKIE replied that he often gets requests (frequently from out-of-state) from employee screening companies wanting to know if a Mr. Jones, for instance, has reported any injuries in the state of Alaska. They bundle this information to either sell or to help a company with its hiring process. He said in Alaska it is illegal to discriminate against someone for filing or receiving workers' compensation. The remedy, though, is a damage suit in civil court. He added that the requests also include information about employers and when their insurance policies ran out. So he thought that information was for insurance companies. CHAIR ELLIS thanked Mr. Lisankie and said HB 121 would be held over.