Once again, dear readers – Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Orange County District Attorney has announced that it has charged a Costa Mesa Police Officer with insurance fraud, claiming that he faked a work-injury of striking his fist against a wall during an arrest. An internal investigation “uncovered evidence contradicting [the officer’s] account of how and when the injury occurred.” Your humble blogger is declining to name names at this time, as this is only an accusation, and falls short of a conviction.
As noted on this blog a time or two, certain public employees, typically law enforcement officers and firefighters, hold a certain degree of public trust. Only in a society as confused as ours, are workers’ compensation defense bloggers and attorneys not the pride of the population… To abuse that trust does a considerable amount of damage to society in general.
But, bitter cynic that your humble blogger is, he can’t help but wonder about two particular issues in such scenarios.
On more than one occasion, your humble blogger has met some resistance from law enforcement agencies in having obvious, obnoxious, and borderline heinous instances of fraud ignored – the damages are too small, the fraud not high-profile enough, etc., etc. How often does a law enforcement agency decline to prosecute a person who steals from its coffers on those very grounds?
Furthermore, we obviously have instances of fraud on the part of law enforcement officers. This blog has documented sheriff’s deputies, police officers, firefighters (pretend they enforce the law against fires), and CHP officers charged with and convicted or confessed to various forms of workers’ compensation fraud. It is possible to be an officer of the law and steal from your employer (and the tax payers)! Why, then, do we continue to offer so many presumptions to favor LEOs in workers’ compensation cases? Nothing against cops or firefighters – of course there are some great folks in uniform that are honest, hard-working, and brave, but why the kid gloves and special treatment?
There are construction workers that are honest, hard-working, and brave. There are lots of professions that expose people to dangerous conditions. Even workers’ compensation defense attorneys can encounter danger from time to time (sometimes parties can react violently to not getting certain benefits, after all).
It’s obvious that the badge or the fire truck don’t make one a paragon of truth and justice – even the rotten ones get to play with the siren or shoot the water hose.
Perhaps we need more powerful lobbying groups – perhaps workers’ compensation defense attorneys should maneuver the legislature into various presumptions to favor our interests – such as conclusive presumptions that we’re handsome devils; witty and charming beyond contest; and when we turn to blogging, there is an irrefutable presumption that we’re humble.
Given the considerably disconcerting events involving law enforcement officers making the news lately, perhaps it’s time we departed from the hero-worship that leads congenital heart conditions to be found compensable and instead subject law enforcement officers’ claims to the same scrutiny as the common man – both as to the veracity of claims and the burden of proof in establishing compensability.
That is, of course, until the defense attorney lobby gets going and membership in the profession establishes a presumptively compensable psyche claim…
Power through, dear readers, your weekend is just around the corner!
