WCDefenseCA

If a car is ever invented that uses cynicism for fuel, California’s workers’ compensation system will likely serve as the mother lode for this amply abundant resource. 

Your humble blogger has heard countless accusations from bitter applicant attorneys that the only reason to go to trial instead of stipulating to 100% in every case is so that defense attorneys can bill more.  How often have we heard that insurance companies are lighting Cuban cigars with $100 bills paid for by the suffering of injured workers?  And certainly, there is no such thing as employee workers’ compensation fraud – it’s always just the employers using misinformation to poison the well of public discourse.  Nonsense, certainly, but there’s plenty of it to go around.

Well, the defense community has its cynics too, particularly about suspected but rarely proven schemes where certain applicant attorneys and vendors are in the cahootiest of cahoots to enrich themselves not by obtaining appropriate benefits for injured workers, but by scamming the system at the expense of consumers.

It’s often a jolt to the system when there is an investigation and a conviction of such a scheme, but it happens now and then.  It appears that Jon Woods, Esq., has been convicted of 37 felony counts of insurance fraud and sentenced to four years in state prison and ordered to pay restitution to several insurance carriers. 

New Santa Ana reports on a scheme to charge attorneys and vendors fees for referrals of clients.  As alleged, Jon Woods also worked with Edgar Gonzalez, using his subpoena company, USA Photocopy, in exchange for having various business expenses of Mr. Woods paid for by Mr. Gonzalez.

So, besides getting deeper entrenched in our cynicism and convictions that there is a giant conspiracy out there to defraud every workers’ compensation defendant, what can we do?

Well, if you have liens from USA Photocopy, you may want to question them and look closer based on these revelations.  Furthermore, in any case where you have any subpoena service with a lien which also has or had Mr. Woods as the applicant attorney of record, you may want to consider looking closer at the basis for the subpoenas.  This conviction suggests that if one apple in the barrel was rotten, the rest may have turned too.

Don’t let this sour you, dear readers.  This is a reason to be ever vigilant against fraud, but not to see it everywhere.  There are actual employees in California.  Those employees do, on occasion, actually sustain injuries.  And, upon seeing the benefits notices and the panel process, not to mention being seen by a particularly grumpy workers’ compensation clinic doctor, some of those actual employees with actual injuries might actually seek legal counsel.

The vast majority of the cases we deal with are not fraud, so let’s let this story fuel our attentiveness and our determination to catch dirty hands in cookie jars when the situation calls for it.  Your humble blogger, as always, remains eager and willing to cheer you on in doing just that.