Our current workers compensation system allows fraudulent injury and illness claims to be filed without recourse, supported by courts that too often bend over backwards to discriminate against the employer, robbing profits that are already difficult to come by in today's manufacturing environment.
The whole idea of post-termination, cumulative trauma claim is unfair. Of course working in a job for 20 years leaves our bodies weaker than when we started. Duhhh!
These kinds of claims are a perversion of the workers' comp system; a perversion of the basic agreement that the worker will not sue as long as the employer provides medical care for an injury or illness that occurs at work. Where does a post-termination, cumulative trauma injury fit into this basic agreement, when no injury was ever reported during the time the applicant worked for the company, and the employer did nothing wrong, yet is hit with a bogus claim backed by a lawsuit?
Where is the integrity of an applicant attorney who pursues these claims? What are the ethics of an attorney who contacts workers after they have left the job and convinces them to file these claims? Is this why these attorneys went into the legal profession in the first place? To game the system? To pursue claims they know are unjust?
How about the ethics of medical clinics thatorder unnecessary tests and treatments to boost their revenues? Is this why they went into the business? Is their goal to provide treatment or to plump up profits simply because the system is open to being taken advantage of?
What we really need is greater integrity...much greater.
