Much Ado about Everything...in Workers' Comp - Part 2

I’ve spent the majority of my legal career defending businesses in workers’ compensation claims. I’ve been on both sides of the bench…having served a six-year term on the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. That being said, I am calling upon my years of experience to give some careful observations in my blog posts. The goal, the improvement of the workers’ compensation system as a whole. For Part 2 of my blog, Much Ado about Everything…in Workers’ Comp, I’d like to address the myth of the noble claimant.

Let me paint you a picture: Claimant is sometimes portrayed as a laborer in a factory with three children and a wife at home in their small neat, white house. The worker has been employed for 10 years at his job. Each day, he puts on his denim uniform and goes to the factory. He takes his family to the county fair in his old Chevrolet and attends the local church where he plays softball. At Christmas, he has a wonderful family time where his youngest son, who was born with a foot deformity says “God Bless us everyone!” He is injured when a machine breaks and a metal part sticks into his hand. He needs the workers’ comp to pay his rent and get his youngest (Tim) an orthopedic shoe.

Now for a reality check: Here is a litigant constructed from the claimants I actually do see. The claimant has been working at the job for only a few months and has had five different jobs in the past three years. He has three children, one of whom has a foot deformity, but they are all by different women, and he is on the run from the Family Court. He has not filed a tax return. He drives his sister’s Chevrolet because his credit is bad, and he lost his license last year. He has a minor criminal record which includes shoplifting, cocaine possession, criminal domestic violence and open container. He uses the emergency room and never fails to ask for Oxycontin. He sued the church two years ago when his moped hit their softball van. He maintains that he has a back injury which was unwitnessed, and his lawyer has a letter from a doctor who says he needs pain management.

I have no solution for the fact that both the fictitious noble claimant and the other not-so-noble claimant receive equal benefits under the law. I suggest that lump sum payments be curtailed, for obvious reasons. A slow, periodic payment of benefits will provide the safety net that is needed, but deny those whose motivation is a windfall influx of cash. I will leave this to the political process for change, but you, the reader must become involved to effect further reforms in the compensation system.

Thank you for letting me “blog.” I hope this is entertaining reading. Wishing you all the best,

Rip Van Riper

Much Ado about Everything…in Workers’ Comp – Part 2

Columbia

Myrtle Beach

First Primerus Firm in South Carolina