Entries for 2004/02/20 — 2004-06-15

Restaurant owner blames "deceitful" claims....

In a recent article in the Victorville Daily Press (archived), restaurant owner, Val Christensen, is quoted extensively. One paragraph says:

"Christensen said his business has had minimal workers' compensation claims. He blames the skyrocketing costs on fraud and abuse relating to workers' comp, including lawyers encouraging employees to deceitfully file disability claims as workers' compensation claims, thus allowing the lawyers maximum involvement in the claim."

It's interesting that the anecdotal claims of the small business owner are interwoven with a bank survey of small business owners to raise workers' compensation insurance rates as a major concern of small business owners.

However, the facts are that statewide, fraudulent claims account for less than 1% of all claims filed. Who are these "lawyers" who encourage employees to file false disability claims? And how can they possible benefit from these false claims. Work injury lawyers are paid a maximum of 15% of the award they obtain for an injured worker. Clearly a false claim would yield an award of $0.00. My mathematics tells me that 15% of 0 is 0. Is the small business owner aware that any attorney caught encouraging such a practice would be disbarred and prosecuted for a felony that might have a prison term of five years and a fine of $50,000?

I wonder why the small business owner doesn't complain about the insurance carrier raising his premiums to make up for their investment losses over the past several years. Has anyone explained to them that there is nothing regulating the insurance carriers ability to make a profit?