"There is nothing that the law or any legislator or attorney can do to make your life whole again in the Connecticut Workers Compensation system from a job related injury. 

There is no system here in CT to enable us to say you are 100% whole again". 

"It is terrible, IT STINKS, that the workers compensation law cannot make injured workers whole"

"Workers Compensation is a Judicial System - the Commissioners are Judges"   Representative Melissa Olson(2009)

The replacement of the constitutional right to access to the courts was the workers' compensation scheme. It was supposed to be a fast, sure and adequate benefit replacement. It is neither fast, nor sure, nor adequate. It hasn't been so since the Report of the National Commission on State Workers' Compensation Laws said so in unanimous agreement in 1972.

“Construing the Workers Compensation Act liberally advances its underlying purpose, i.e., to provide financial protection to the claimant and his family. Laliberte v. United Sec., Inc. (2002) CT Supreme Court 801 A.2d 783, 261 Conn. 181.”

The present Workers Compensation system is depraved indifference! Depraved Indifference Woeppl (2008)

The Report of the National Commission on State Workers' Compensation Laws said so in unanimous agreement in 1972. The Congress finds the following:

(1) The full protection of American workers from job-related injury or death requires an adequate, prompt, and equitable system of workers' compensation as well as an effective program of occupational health and safety regulation.

(2) The vast majority of American workers and their families are dependent on workers' compensation for their basic economic security in the event such workers suffer injury or death in the course of employment.

(3) In 1972, the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws found that the system of State workers' compensation laws was `inequitable and inadequate'. Since that time, changes in reductions in State workers' compensation laws have increased the inadequacy and inequitable levels of workers' compensation benefits.

Serious questions exist concerning the fairness and adequacy of present workers' compensation laws.
 

Are You Sick & Tired Of Rampant Insurer Fraud That Goes Unchecked?  

Judges who ignore it!

Legislators who condone it!

Insurance Commissioners who closes their eyes to it!

Attorneys who look the other way while their clients are victimized by it!

The type of fraud that destroys and ruins the lives of injured workers and their families!

Where in the Workers Compensation Statute does is say:

 1.)     Commissioners may make formal decisions to terminate employee benefits over the telephone to unrepresented employees?

2.)   Commissioners may disregard the statutory law of the treating physician to determine reasonable and necessary medical treatment?

3.)   Commissioner my terminate benefits at an informal hearing without raising by employer and while the employee is unrepresented and the employer is represented?

4.)   Commissioners may determine “scientifically approved treatment”?

            (Commissioners operate in an Administrative Agency, but they see themselves as Judges,            Doctors and now Scientists.)

5.)   Only one injury may be treated at a time and the employer gets to choose?

6.)     Employees must submit to surveillance and depositions?

7.)    Commissioners may determine reasonable and necessary medical care.

8.)     Commissioners may determine curative and palliative care.

292 Connecticut residents with work-related upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders were identified.  Of the 292, only 31 (10.6%) had filed a worker’s compensation claim.  Of the 31 cases, only 23 cases (7.9% of the 292) were accepted by the insurer.  Sixty percent of cases were primary wage earners.  Another 13% had been the primary wage earner prior to the injury.  Twenty-one (7.2%) reported job loss due to their condition.  The study concludes that almost 90% of the work-related musculoskeletal disorders are not reported to workers’ compensation. Ref. Depraved Indifference Patrice Woeppl (2008)  If you even think you cared about something before and did nothing, read this book now.

We, the Injured Workers across the nation contend the following iniquities of the Workers' Compensation System.

The Workers Compensation System;

a.     delays timely diagnosis and medical treatment and approval of such treatment
within the time frame set by existing laws.

b.    delays timely automatic benefits within the time frame set by existing law

c.     often obtains medical as well as personal information on injured workers which has no pertinence to the claim and serves no necessary purpose in resolving the claim, but rather is used as a tactic to deter and frighten claimants out of litigation and into unfair settlement.

d.    prolongs litigation, knowing the compensations courts are overloaded with cases, causing further severe psychological, physical and financial damage to the claimants, in hopes of pushing claimants into premature and unfair settlement.

e.     makes fraudulent charges against many claimants in order to intimidate them and to avoid having to     medically or financially compensate claimants.

f.     consistently cuts and denies benefits in order to starve claimants out and force their acceptance of inadequate, unfair settlements and shifts the burden of responsibility for permanently disabled injured.

We need a Commission for Injured Workers to assure proper application of the current law. 

Workers Compensation organization is the unconstitutional 4th branch of government.

Former Commissioner Michael Miles 2010 testimonysaid the 1997 workers compensation directive would have given injured workers all the necessary medical treatment needed, such as no delays caused by denial of treatments for the same injury, if the directive had been followed in the past 10 years.

Commissioners act like judges and consider them more knowledgeable than treating physicians.

We need to rein in the assumed authority of Workers Compensation Commissioners and denial of our due process rights as citizens.

This Commission will carry the charge of evaluating Connecticut workers’ compensation laws in order to determine if these laws provide an adequate, prompt, and equitable system of compensation and medical care for injury or death arising out of or in the course of employment.  It will also assess whether additional remedies should be available to ensure prompt and good faith payment of benefits and medical care to injured workers and their families.