A Lawyer Laments about EAMS
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 | 0
By Anthony Abbot
I am 71 years old and I have been plain-spoken my whole life, and now at this age, after having practiced law for almost 40 years, I figure there is very little that anyone can do to me and my office in the field of workers' compensation that is more devastating than what has occurred so far.
Background: I have done defense work. I was house counsel for Continental Insurance Companies in Los Angeles (1970 to 1973), workers' compensation, Superior Court, Municipal Court, American Arbitration Association and other matters, Since Continental closed its legal department, I have been in private practice as a sole practitioner (though at one time I had 12 lawyers working for me). I founded the Workers' Compensation Law Section of the Bar Association of Northern San Diego County, I was its chair for five years. As chairman, I established (with the great help of two judges at the San Diego board) the Oceanside satellite hearing room for the San Diego Board.
I was appointed by the State Bar to its workers' compensation section executive committee. Additionally, I have had extensive judicial experience, both civil and criminal, serving many times as a Judge Pro-Tem in Long Beach Superior Court , as a Workers' Compensation Judge-Pro-Tem and in other legal venues.
The devastating things that have happened to my office since 2005 and the administration of this governor have been a tremendous diminution in income which occurred, of course, because my clients, who previously might have had a chance to improve their lives and possibly make a go of it after an injury at work have now been reduced, in many, many cases to shadows of what I used to see come into my office — delay, after delay, after phony delay. Give me a break! Unconstitutional MPN'S (the fox guarding the hen house) and so many other encumbrances. And the PD awards are pitiful.
My clients have suffered tremendously and as a consequence my office has incurred a tremendous loss in income with the result to me personally of having to lay off my senior paralegal, who also happens to be my son, and also lay off my daughter-in-law, both of whom have worked for me for more than 10 years each.
But as bad as the foregoing is, and to me it is horrible, this EAMS matter is the worst boondoggle I have seen in any actions in which I have been involved in the almost 40 years I have been in practice, I would describe EAMS in the following terms:
Execrable, adding insult to injury (the law under this governor is horrible, but there may be hope when he leaves) reprehensible,despicable, incomprehensible, unjust, cruel,diametrically opposed to all principles of western traditions of justice and jurisprudence, Dickensian - "Bleak House," would do justice to the Dreyfuss Affair, stupid, masquerading as an emperor/empress (everybody is afraid to say it has no clothes) there's nothing there, guys, boondoggle (I said that already), and unconstitutional.
The purpose and ends of the workers' compensation scheme is set out in the California Constitution. It it is really simple:
...and full provision for vesting power, authority and jurisdiction in an administrative body with all the requisite governmental functions to determine any dispute or matter arising under such legislation, to the end that the administration of such legislation shall accomplish substantial justice in all cases expeditiously, inexpensively, and without incumbrance of any character; all of which matters are expressly declared to be the social public policy of this State, binding upon all departments of the state government.
What is being done to my workers' compensation clients is unconscionable, and it should shock not just the "Conscience of the Court" but the entire workers' compensation community.
In my long life, including three years U.S. Army, where we had an expression "SNAFU," I did not see such a system of injustice. Disallowing the filing of a paper because a comma is inserted. Hey, there is a code section CCP 473, that allows papers to be filed with all kinds of errors and then later to be corrected, That is what we have judges for. There is no refusal to file at all. If H.A.L. (The computer from "2001: A Space Odyssey" or a non-judicial clerk) says "No," then the judges have no say. Since WHEN? What is this all about? "Alice in Wonderland"?
As a graduate of UC-Berkeley I am very familiar with extremely brilliant people who have no conception of what it is like to work in "the pits," with flesh and blood people. These are brilliant people (extremely high SAT Scores) but with no common sense, all they know is Ivory Castle nonsense, no real world experience, as Mark Twain said there are "lies, damned lies and statistics." People like these put this EAMS project together.
I will not, without further evidence, ascribe more sinister motives, though I have my suspicions. Why go out of the United States when we have all the resources and genius of Silicon Valley?
The only way to remedy this EAMS matter is to (using the metaphor of a conservative Republican legislator - which is the opposite of what I am) is to make EAMS so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Good riddance! I may not live long enough to see this, but at least I have had my say.
The thing I am very, very, very much impressed with is that only one person I've talked to — and I have spoken to hundreds — feels any differently.
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Anthony Abbot is a veteran workers' compensation attorney with offices in Escondido.
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