Help Wanted: Top Ten Worst DBA offenses of 2009
Posted by defensebaseactcomp on December 30, 2009
While there was no shortage of fraud, criminal intent, negligence, or just plain meanness and disrespect carried out against injured contractors this year we’d like your help in remembering them here.
Recommended categories:
AIG and CNA and looks like Zurich needs to buck up, DBA Insurance Company Defense Lawyers, Our own DBA Lawyers, Claims Adjusters, Claims Examiners, ALJ’s, Dirty Tricks by Defense Lawyers. Name names only if you have documentation but feel free to tell your story so everyone else will know what to look out for.
Include previous years offenses up to this point as this is our first edition.
Add your entries as a comment here.
Defense Base Act Compensation Blog 
defensebaseactcomp said
We’re going to start the ball rolling here by nominating KBR and the AWOL Medical Records.
The Department of Labor in it’s entirety continues to this day to allow KBR to deny access to medical records of it’s employees who had no choice but to use their medical facility while deployed.
Many of these records can win or lose a claim.
If KBR cannot or refuses to come up with the medical records they should be forced to forfeit the claim.
This is blatantly a tactic against the injured contractor that should be considered illegal in or out of the DBA psuedo law system.
Barry said
One of the top offenses is the fact that the DOJ and DOL have not taken the evidence that this blog and ProPublica have published and presented the evidence to a Grand Jury and conducted sweeping raids of the insurance companies involved !!
This is certainly organized crime because the same tactics that are being used to destroy deceased and injured war zone contractors rights and lives are also being used by the insurance companies to destroy the rights and lives of injured and disabled workers in America.
The intent of the laws and justice have been turned upside down, and our government leaders seem to be wearing blinders no matter who is in the White House.
The fact that nothing significant has happened since the Congressional hearings has really changed me personally. We must keep trying to seek justice from our government but at the same time the only way I have been able to maintain my hope for the future is to pray often that God will bring justice very soon for everyone whose life has been and is being damaged or destroyed.
brit guy said
Here is a thought there must be an attorney in America somewhere that would take this on get as many people together as you can and site on of the CEO’s directly for tort damages. The evidence is clear they are surly breaking the law. The act is clear if the DOL and DOJ and the ALJ will not act a court finding one of them guilty for damages would open the flood gates I bet you wouldn’t have one outstanding claim.
Just a thought
Anyway I would like to say happy new year but for most of us it will not be so good luck keep fighting
William said
I have some things to post but I am waiting on the outcome of my case. I hope that some things have been fixed but only time will tell. God bless the troops, contractors and their families that are deployed during the holiday season!
Marcie Hascall Clark said
Dr. John Dorland Griffith and AIG’s Fab Four Defense Medical Examination Doctors in Houston along with the DBA lawyers who send their unwitting clients to them. Most of these clients are told to travel from out of state to see these biased hired guns.
I have in my possession documentation of one plaintiff’s lawyer making these arrangements with the defense lawyer to travel from out of state to see the Fab Four in Houston. This claimant lost his case.
This same plaintiff’s lawyer continues to have his clients travel from out of state to see AIG’s doctors.
Dennis Kucinich asked a plaintiff’s lawyer at the hearing in June if he was aware that Dr. Griffith consistently denied a diagnoses of PTSD in injured contractors. His answer was yes
You can see the results for yourself at the DBA X Files
There is more to come on these arrangements, documented, and Dr John Dorland Griffith in particular.
But for now injured contractors remember that you are not required to leave your geographic area much less travel from four and five states away to see AIG or anyone else’s hired guns.
Marcie Hascall Clark said
Another important offense to look out for:
When your lawyer has your claim moved to the jurisdiction that they live in from the jurisdiction that you live in or from NY where your claim will be handled if you are not living in the US.
dbacasualty said
DBA Lawyers who take money from their broken and or injured contractor clients and family members.
One DBA lawyer took $5,000 or more from a PTSD Suicide Widow, not sure if the ALJ approved that or not, it was after the case was lost.
Another DBA Lawyer told his client that his fee would be 20% of his settlement, a bargain in his own words, without mentioning that the clients fees would be covered under the DBA. He wrote this in a letter.
Then this summer a DBA Lawyer demanded $10,000 from a DBA widow or he would not move forward with her claim. Fortunately there were several other DBA lawyers humane enough to try to pick up the pieces of this claim even though they risk not being paid for it and one of them has it now.
Sorry guys but they don’t all come easy.
All payments to DBA lawyers must be approved by the ALJ.
So while this may not be fraud, criminal,or negligent it could be said that lawyers taking money from widows, children, and injured contractors is disgusting.
Sorry no names here, they do get pretty defensive about their reputations.
brit guy said
Just a quick note to you all.
I had some serious reservations about how my case was being handled. I contacted the office where it is held and spoke to one of the examiners.
The examiner has to put in the recommendation that the carrier will be liable for claimants attorneys fees should the claimant prevail this was backed up in a letter from one of the ALJ assigned to the case. I am told this never used to be an issue but the carriers attorneys have been able to argue recently that if it is not a recommendation then under the act the claimant is liable.
Also if an attorney is demanding a percentage of what you are awarded in benefits they are also breaking the act. The claimants attorney has to submit a list of work undertaken on the case the claims examiner will asses the work done and award fees appropriately.
Click on this link but please do your own research
http://www.dol.gov/appeals/attorneys_longshore.htm
Remember knowledge is power
Marcie Hascall Clark said
So recommendations made by the District DoL Claims Examiner are not binding…..
Except this one favoring the carrier
anonymous on purpose said
Happy New Year!
I would say one of the dirtiest tricks is the old “phone system malfunction” when a deposition with a busy doctor that you have been waiting months, if not YEARS for. That is one of the oldest tricks in the books! THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL…SOB’s! When your own lawyer defends the actions of these low life scumbags, something is wrong. Any sensible person knows that in today’s technological age, there are so many different ways of making a simple phone call that there is no excuse, just another reason to go to the insurance friendly judge and plead “We need more time, sniff, sniff!” and sure enough, they get it. All the while the contractor suffers unnecessarily.
Another dirty trick that NO sane person would believe: an “independent” medical “review” by a so-called “expert” who invariably finds for the insurance company. How can these men and women live with themselves after taking the Hippocratic Oath?
How about trying to use online articles and blog posts that have not been officially sworn in to the court record?
I so wish karma would strike down all of these unethical, mean spirited, self centered, narcissistic jackasses!
Chuck said
Hello all,
I have been battling with AIG for over a year with two fractured disks in my back. They have cut my pay for months to starve me, and the doctor. I still have not yet seen a surgeon or even had one approved. If anyone is interested in starting some kind of movement to bring these crimes to light email me.
See you on the high ground.
defensebaseactcomp said
That’s pretty much standard procedure.
Presuming you already have a lawyer. Not that any of them seem to be able to make this harrassment of injured contractors stop.
William said
Well, it’s been nearly two (2) years since I left a little comment. I am currently STILL waiting on another procedure that the doctor wants to do. However, CNA thinks it’s more important for me to go and see yet ANOTHER DOCTOR. This will be number six (#6)! I do NOT know how these guys are getting away with treating the contractors the way they are! The company that I worked for has not contacted me ONCE, to see how I was or to see if they could do anything for me or my family. The only time they have contacted me was to tell me that I was being “terminated” and “no longer carried on the books.” I have heard soooooo many horror stories that, again, I can NOT believe that CNA and the private contracting companies are getting away with this! If you think that the American contractor/employee is being treated unfairly, how do you think that the foreign country contractor/employee feels? I have witnessed first hand that if a foreign contractor even thought about complaining of being sick, they were IMMEDIATELY “sent home!” We are America, for God’s sake! How can you sleep at night, and you know who I am talking about, when you ignore people that are obviously in pain and near death?! How can someone LIE about someone’s well being that could effect them and thier families for their entire life?! It makes me sick to know that people like that are in a position of authority and abuse it! May God judge you for who you are (ALL OF YOU!) and what you have done! You make me puke!
defensebaseactcomp said
AIG bounces checks to Injured Contractors.
Are they so above the law?