Legal Issues

There sometimes occur events that allow for our personal lives to instantly overlap with our professional life.  As a paralegal, it is a constant mental note of the importance of keeping business separate from personal matters.  Working within the legal spectrum has afforded me many useful contacts and colleagues.  Unfortunately, the level of moral decency was more compromised than I could have ever imagined.
   
In June of 2009, my husband, Kevin, sustained a severe shoulder dislocation and separation injury while at work.  His employer claimed that he could not find the proper paperwork to fill-out an accident report.  Kevin informed the employer that he was leaving to seek medical attention for his injury to which the employer agreed.  Over the course of the next month and a half, Kevins shoulder continued to get worse rather than improving.  The attending physician referred him to an orthopedic specialist for advance treatment.  The employer at this point had still not filled out the accident report.  I conferred with one an attorney from my employment for reference to other avenues that could be pursued in order to make the employer comply with the law.  In August 2009, the orthopedic surgeon determined that Kevin could no longer work without surgery to replace his entire shoulder joint.  He added that there would be a long period of physical therapy involved and said there was no guarantee that he would ever regain full use of his arm.  This was devastating news to my husband as he is only twenty-eight years old.
   
I made an appointment for my husband to meet with my attorney friend to address the matters of the employer not filing an accident with the appropriate sources, failure to provide medical reimbursement, and compensable pay for temporary total disability under the workers compensation laws of our state.  The attorney demonstrated complete professionalism, and assured us that he was fully capable of handling the matter effectively and swiftly.  He filed the paperwork in reference to the workers compensation complaints with the Office of Judges for a hearing.  All releases were signed so the attorney could begin collecting documentation to substantiate the claim.  The case was set for a hearing in October 2009, which was expedited.  Two days prior to the hearing, the attorney phoned to inform Kevin that he was resigning from the case as he felt it would not be a winnable situation.  He further stated that the time it would take to win the case was not financially worth his efforts, and then he apologized and hung up.  I was enraged as this was completely unethical by any legal or moral standard.
   
While I have legal training, my area of expertise does not include areas of workers compensation.  We debated dropping the claim altogether, pursuing the claim without an attorney, and contacting our private insurance company.  At this juncture, my husbands salary had been interrupted, and he was not receiving any paychecks.  My employment was only part-time and we were beginning to see the urgency to do something, especially since we have four children under the age of nine.
   
I decided to take on this issue by myself.  While it may constitute a moral dilemma in the eyes of some in the legal community, I put all my educational experience into the public library and the internet (Elias  Levinkind, 2007).  I contacted our private insurance company and discussed the matter since there was some discrepancy about them being billed for an injury that is the financial responsibility of another.  Our insurance company agreed to pay for the surgery, medications, and treatment of my husband with the understanding that once the workers compensation case was finalized, we would work conjunctively with them to retrieve compensable funding from the employers insurance company (Thomason, Schmidle,  Burton, 2001).  We proceeded to the court hearing the following morning.  I did my best to have my husband prepared.  In this state, a spouse is not allowed to represent another spouse in matters of this nature.  The first claim was denied, but I appealed it immediately.  The case went before the panel of judges in November on appeal.  The panel of judges had ninety days to render a decision on the matter.  During this period, time was allotted to introduce any new evidence to support the original claim.  Kevin had undergone surgery to replace his shoulder, so I forwarded all medical records pertaining to the matter.  The orthopedic surgeon even included prognosis reports, recommendations, and summary notes indicating future obstacles, treatments, and problems.
   
In February 2010, we received notice via certified mail that the Office of Judges had rendered in Kevins favor.  We won the appeal.  The office of judges cited that the originally denied claim was done so in grave error.  The order further stated that the employer and his insurance company were compensable for any and all damages related to the injury (2001).  This order was backdated to June 2009 when Kevin was hurt on the job.
   
The moral dilemma here involves the unethical value put on a client by the colleague that I was affiliated with.  In some ways, it was a bad idea to seek legal counsel from a friend due to the probability of conflicts of interest.  I felt equally in a moral dilemma in trying to figure out all the legal ins and outs of the workers compensation laws without actually being an attorney.  The thin line between business relationships and personal relationships is very gray.  The fact that the case was not financially valuable enough to the attorney left us feeling unworthy of justice.