I just got my Motion for Reargument and Clarification back from the Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court.
The response:
ORDERED THAT THE MOTION IS DENIED, WITHOUT COSTS.”
One page: no explanation.
Like screaming into the wind!
I submitted a credible Motion for Reargument and Clarification, Appellate Brief, Reply Brief, three explicit Workers Compensation Appeals and a detailed Hearing request report, all medically documented. I held the truth up and begged Judges to listen, over and over– for all of us, not just for me. But Judges turned their faces away, erected a wall of “no authority,” refused to read 49 years of documentation and ignored the gravity of severe autonomic injury supported by decades of adjudications and carrier accommodations.
By Workers Compensation Appeal Judges ruling that the carrier does not have to pay for my severe causally-related diagnoses because of the Medical Treatment Guidelines, Workers Compensation Law Judges have effectively ruled that New York State Workers Compensation does not cover severe injury: excluding a whole class of people. But their private health insurance won’t cover them, because the injury occurred at work.
WCB, Appellate Judges worship at the alter of uniformity to protect a grossly faulted Medical Treatment Guidelines law and avoid setting a precedent.
Variance timelines are death sentences for injuries requiring consistent, immediate response– allowing carriers 15 days to respond to a variance (utilizing carrier-employed denial hatchet-men pumping out rote “scientific evidence”) and 30 more days to conduct an IME (a notorious process of carrier-employed-sell-out-doctors hired specifically to justify denial). Carriers abuse with denials, delays, ad infinitum requests for information they then deny receiving. Make a rule, carriers will find a way to skew it into a cost-saving denial. Truth is their play-thing. That is not paranoia, it is truth. In WCB, the injured are guilty until proven innocent. And many carriers are guilty of blatant fraud that everyone will talk to you about behind closed doors, but nobody will stand up to. New York state Workers Compensation is heavily carrier enabled. The carrier controls the WCB court. The judges take cues from carrier attorneys and hold pro se claimants to technicalities. But lawyers wont take a medical-only case because they get no money.
The executive and legislative branches quietly passed Universal Authorization and Fraud legislation to fix glaring failures of a 112-year-old law, admitting systemic constitutional failures of the Medical Treatment Guidelines law. But, the gap between today and the 2028 implementation date creates a lethal ‘interim zone’ where catastrophic patients are left to die and carriers know they can exploit the expiring system with impunity. And, the severely, catastrophically injured are still being held to a law (MTG) specifically designed for standard, orthopedic injuries– demanding proof of improvement, penalizing non-recovery, penalizing permanent total, severe, atypical, catastrophic injuries, retroactively reversing adjudicated medical care and providing grossly-abbreviated-to-no-care for non-recovery.
Governor Hochul has announced funding for WCB Fraud detection with the Universal Authorization legislation. It is being promoted to investigate not only doctors, but carriers, lawyers and judges. My sincere hope is that it is true, and that the program will remain independent and honest. The WCB program has been a closed, untouchable entity that polices itself, This has allowed blatant fraud and corruption to putrefy the system. And that makes New York State look like a facilitator of corporate greed over human suffering. My most fervent hope is that this will end with Governor Hochul!
There was no due process in my case, because there was no process at all. Judges ruled “no authority” all the way down the line of Appeals. They ruled autonomic injury is not covered by the MTG’s: but my care must be rendered by the MTGs, but the carrier does not have to pay for anything not covered by the MTGs, thus stripping me of four-plus decades of life-time adjudicated medical care. Judges refused to READ my medical documentation, bragging that no lawyer will take your case because there is no money in it, refusing to rule, citing technicalities.
When state courts fiercely enforce biased mandates over medical necessity and human suffering in a compulsory program, forcing unattainable mandates on the severely disabled, deliberately to cut their care, when rigid administrative rules strip catastrophically injured workers of life-preserving medical care that the legislature clearly states was not their intention, and the courts retroactively change unappealed, decades-long adjudications to match MTG mandates, it is unconscionable.
I fought to keep the state from reversing my adjudicated medical care, so I wouldn’t die. They turned a blind eye to reality, to shield a cost-saving, carrier friendly, mandated, biased program that desperately needs a second look, not glaring regulatory capture and spoliation of evidence and lethal decisions.
I have walked through the sewage of New York State Workers Compensation for five-long-litigated years now, fighting for medical care that judges guaranteed until I die– for permanent, catastrophic, work-inflicted injury that was caused because my employer was negligent in property maintenance and because Chubb refused me medical care for 4 1/2 years, as my spinal cord kept bleeding.
Under the present Medical Treatment Guidelines legislation, Workers Compensation and Appellate judges skew flawed, biased state legislation to ingratiate massive global insurance conglomerates. With this flawed law, the mission and goal of Workers Compensation has completely reversed from the original intention to protect injured workers with medical care while giving employers the incentive of not being sued, to categorizing, stigmatizing and classifying people: penalizing injured workers for non-recovery while worshiping improvement and expeditious return to work. It has created two distinct classes of people: injured workers and severely injured workers. One class is accepted and provided adequate medical care, the other class, perceived as deficient, incapable, unsalvageable, is penalized for non-recovery, left to languish with glaringly inadequate care, assured they will die an anticipated early death and clear the carrier’s books. Severe, permanent injuries are New York State’s “anticipated acceptable collateral damage” of the Medical Treatment Guidelines law. Under the MTG’s, Workers Compensation has become a biased, bigoted, abusive, cruel, carrier enabling, enforcer, fiercely shielding a grossly faulted, cost-saving, misapplied medical program, protected by NYS Appellate Court’s partnering.
I am writing a Petition to the Court of Appeals and a Human Rights Complaint and seeking a Civil Rights Attorney. I am fighting for my life! This is not just about me! It is about all seriously injured New York State Workers– past, present and future– who are being forced to deal with legalized insanity.
If I die because of this, my story will live on with my documents preserved here, to shine light on truth, change the law, and be my voice in a wrongful death suit. Someone will read the story of how I overcame what I went through and it will be their survival guide.
I will not whisper! I am not finished yet!