David DePaolo, Workers’ Comp Defense Attorney, Businessman, Founder of WorkCompCentral, and Surfer Dies at Age 56
By Lonce LaMon - July 18, 2016
David J. DePaolo died yesterday, Sunday, July 17th 2016 while riding his motorcycle in Malibu Hills, California. That is all this writer knows of the circumstances surrounding David’s death, at this time.
John Riggs, manager of workers’ compensation for the Disneyland Resorts, wrote to me, “What a shock! I just saw him at the CCWC Conference on Friday.” I was shocked, too, to read John’s words. I was sad.
But I wasn’t surprised. It was most likely an accident while riding his motorcycle that killed David. He had been in motorcycle accidents before. I remember back in 1996 when Dave had a dirt biking accident and was taken into the hospital for a few days. He punctured a lung. When he came out of the hospital I saw him maybe a half-an-hour later walking into his office. He was so emaciated I remember thinking that he looked like he just stepped out of a concentration camp.
DePaolo was an eternal boy who was always getting banged up. It didn’t shock me when I heard he took up flying. He was always pushing the limits. I would not have been surprised if DePaolo had taken up base jumping.
I always called him DePaolo, even to his face. He was a thin, wiry man who was a tremendous athlete. He loved surfing and was especially into wind surfing. He rode dirt bikes. He ran marathons. But he was no dumb jock. David even got an MBA after he got his law degree.
He told me in 1999, when he started WorkCompCentral, that he was going to do WorkCompCentral for only five years and then retire to the beach and do nothing but wind surf. I believed him at the time. I saw him as the consummate jock. He and I were always talking about sports.
When he walked into my office in Hollywood for the first time back in about 1992, it was like he was on a spring board. He was barely 33-years-old and was already going bald. He immediately took off his dress pants and put on a pair of board shorts so we could photograph him in surfer poses. All I have left of those photographs today are bad photocopies. It was the birth of the Internet in those days and we were photographing him “surfing the Internet” for his article which I was publishing. David wrote for my publications The Claims Adjuster and The Comp Examiner from 1992 to 1996. He was such a fun, entertaining writer and was very quirky.
DePaolo would put these off-the-wall tag lines at the beginning of his articles that didn’t tie in at all with any content or theme in his article. He was simply “off-the-wall”. I would say to him, “What the hell is this quote from this Carly Simon song?” I couldn’t tie it in with any content from his writing. But that was DePaolo. He was the master of the non-sequitur. He would come up with these quotes from out of left field, and I think he did it to be funny. He was a quirky, funny guy who always made me laugh uproariously.
DePaolo started WorkCompCentral on January 1, 1999. He came to my office just days later. I gave him my then second check for $5,000 as I was his first private share holder. Well, the second. He was the first one. Then, he called me about three days later and told me my check bounced. DePaolo was a joker so I thought he was kidding. I laughed back at him. But then he insisted that no, he was serious. My check had bounced!
I freaked. This was still the days when there was no online banking. What I had done was I’d called my bank and asked a representative to make a transfer into my checking account of $5,000. She mistakenly only transferred $500. But DePaolo was very forgiving. He laughed and in a fun-loving way chewed me out using the “f-word” in abundance.
We used to get on the phone and as we discussed our work we would cuss like sailors. We loved to trash talk together! Working with DePaolo was always hilarious with never a dull moment in sight. I totally loved the man. We were friends. It was a friendship that came so naturally.
DePaolo in 1999 wanted a site that was “form generating”. That’s what he told me. He was all about providing all the forms electronically for the workers’ compensation industry. However, that was just the beginning, but he didn’t act like there was any more to come at that time. It’s just that he was so creative, it was as if he couldn’t help himself. His initial seed grew further and into full blown journalism for workers’ compensation news nationwide. That wasn’t surprising, as he was a great writer. Then, more services were added to WorkCompCentral, such as a wide range of industry training.
Sitting here at my desk at my beach house on the Pacific Coast in Baja California, I can hear the waves roaring loudly through the sliding glass door. I can feel DePaolo out there right now riding a wave. That’s where he is now. That’s where he always wanted to be.
Lonce LaMon, journalist, lonce@adjustercom.com
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