New York Times Exposes Meatball Justice

Saturday, April 4, 2009 | 0

By Julius Young

"Meatball justice." A "MASH unit." A "sub-basement of the legal world."

"Forget about personal. They don't think of you as a person. They think of you as a file with a dollar sign on it. They don't care if you can't put food on the table or put braces on your daughter. You're thinking of this logically. I stopped thinking that way a long time ago. This is comp."

Sounds like a day at the Los Angeles WCAB or one of many other California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board district offices?

Could be. But these quotes are from  a recent New York Times three-part series on the state of New York's workers' comp system (links to the articles are at the bottom of this blog post)

Written by N.R. Kleinfield and Steven Greenhouse, the series highlights a workers' comp system in great disarray.

Delays are said to be rampant. Fines against insurers for infractions are small, and many insurers ignore fines for years. Doctors shy away from treating comp cases. "Trials" where the worker barely gets a chance to speak. Hack doctors who tailor their opinions to please the hand that feeds them. Workers whose lives are upended by the economic and social fallout from their injuries. Claims of fraud which are hard to quantify.

Recognize any of these as themes in the California workers' comp system?

But as bad as aspects of the system are here in California, the series paints a picture of an even more decrepit New York system. At least here in California we have what is - for the most part - a very able and conscientious applicant attorney bar that seeks to advance the interests of disabled workers.

Read the series and compare the systems for yourself.

For years New York has had a system that was among the most expensive for business and yet stingiest for workers. Some changes were enacted under Elliot Spitzer before his call-girl debacle. But New York has a long way to go.

Thanks to the Times for doing such an in-depth investigation. Unfortunately, with newsroom staffs shrinking and the survival of many newspapers in doubt, this is the kind of piece that we may be seeing less and less of.

As a blogger, I strive to be fair and accurate (readers are invited to kick my butt if I get it wrong), but the blogosphere will never be able to do the kind of sustained muckraking that is evident in these articles:

"For Injured Workers, A Costly Legal Swamp"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/nyreg ... &scp=4

and

"Exams of Injured Workers Fuel Mutual Mistrust"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/nyreg ... amp;st=cse

and

"System to resolve Workplace Injury Leaves Ill Will On All Sides"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/nyreg ... p.html?hpw






Julius Young is an applicants' attorney with Boxer & Gerson LLP in Oakland. This column was reprinted with his permission from his blog, http://www.workerscompzone.com

The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WorkCompCentral.com, its editors or management.