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Workers' bill had its roots in Stafford Date published: 1/28/2009
RICHMOND-- In the early morning of Sept. 9, 2006, Arthur Pierce was found at work, lying by his dump truck with a head injury.No one saw what happened that morning at Owens Trucking in Stafford County. Neurosurgeons later told his family his injuries were consistent with a fall from a height--the height, say, of his truck. The day before, Pierce had told his daughter there was something wrong with the tarp arm atop the truck, and he'd have to climb up there and fix it. But no one was around when whatever happened to Pierce happened. And while his family fully believes he fell off his truck while trying to fix that tarp arm, Pierce's brain injuries were too severe for him to tell anyone what happened--he could barely utter a random word. So his family was unable to get workers' compensation, even though Pierce never recovered from his injury. He spent the following months having constant care, unable to even change the TV remote, and died in January 2008. Pierce's wife, Claire Pierce, filed a workers' compensation claim in the fall of 2006, seeking benefits for loss of wages and payment of medical expenses. She says the trucking company's insurance company denied the claim. So she took her case to the Workers' Compensation Commission. It was denied, she says, because the commission felt the evidence did not explain why Pierce fell. By that point Pierce had died. An appeal by Claire Pierce's lawyer was also denied. In that denial, her lawyer was told that while the case law was clear that the death presumption--the provision in workman's comp law that says someone found dead in the workplace is presumed to have died as a result of an incident in the workplace--does not apply in cases where the employee dies later. The fact that Pierce did die, said Deputy Commissioner Susan Stevick in a letter to the attorney, didn't change the fact that the Pierces had to establish that his original injury was compensable as a workplace injury.
if it was not for the companys who would pay workers compensation comminsion there would not be a job there you decide why they do what they do.our goverment at there fineest
that our senators did what their contributors asked them to do.
I am certainly happy that this never happens in the US
Congress...
Can't a fake be discovered by doing a CAT scan?
...our state senators NOT to reform workers compensation because it could lead to employees "faking brain injuries!"
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