Workers' Comp Judges More Likely To File Claims For Job-Related Injuries
By Associated Press - November 23, 2004SACRAMENTO (AP) _ California's workers' compensation judges are more than six times more likely than the state's other administrative law judges to file claims for job-related injuries, a newspapers' investigation shows.
The Sacramento Bee found that 15.8 percent of 184 working or recently retired workers' comp judges had filed claims for workers' compensation benefits, compared to only 2.4 percent of 378 judges who handle appeals in three other areas: unemployment insurance, general services and social services.
"Who knows the system better than a workers' comp judge?'' asked Samuel Gold, executive director of the California Injured Workers Coalition, which represents workers' comp applicants. "As workers, yes, they're entitled to it like anyone else. But who better to know the tricks? The judges have to set an example.''
But a recently retired judge said workers' comp judges don't overuse the system. Other workers don't use it enough, she added.
"Workers' comp judges are more aware of their rights when they do have an injury and more aware that their employers can't retaliate,'' said Barbara Stevens, who won a $14,480 settlement for shoulder injures caused by lifting boxes.
The reasons for claims by the workers' comp judges include rearranging artwork, slipping on a lunchroom puddle, lack of air conditioning, loading a crate in a truck, tripping over a phone cord and writer's cramp.
One judge, Ruby Theophile, was awarded $20,737 and lifetime medical care in 1998 after she filed a stress claim. A workers' comp judge decided that she was 30 percent disabled from psychiatric injuries and hypertension brought on by a death threat from a worker's comp applicant and long-term conflict with her supervisor.
Her attorney, Martin Shapiro, said the fact that she was a worker's comp judge shouldn't have prevented her from seeking the benefits.
Worker's comp judges are more familiar with the system, he said. "Familiarity brings an opportunity to protect themselves,'' he added. "You have more knowledge, so you happen to be more aware of the rights and pitfalls of not taking action.''
In another workers' comp development, The Bakersfield Californian said Sunday that a Colorado businessman who paid the state for medical records on thousands of people who appealed worker's compensation decisions may have violated a ban on using the information for commercial purposes.
The papers said James Donato filed a lawsuit last month seeking $8,500 from a Bakersfield chiropractor for "workers' compensation mailing lists.''
Donato refused to comment on the suit, the paper said. | 
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