My client left work due to a workers’ compensation accident that caused a hernia, and he needed an operation. He had worked for this company for 10 years and had been paying premiums for short-term and long-term disability with the Prudential Insurance Company. Prior to the accident, he had developed COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and his doctor had told him he needed to stop full-time work or he would risk death. He wanted to keep working as long as he could.
He underwent the hernia operation and was cleared to return to work on his normal shift, at 2 pm. On that morning he was to return, he felt significant fatigue due to his COPD, so he went to the doctor. His doctor laid down the law saying, “You are too sick to work and will die if you go.” He decided, then, that he would not go back to work, but would file for his disability. Did he get it?
No. The policy was written so that had he left work when his doctor first told him to leave (due to his COPD), or had he gone to work for even one minute when he was released back to work after he had recovered from his hernia, he would have gotten his benefits.
Do you ever hear an outcry about insurance companies winning on technicalities? No. Why? Because we are so beholden to authority that we would kiss the corporate derriere and gouge each others’ eyes out to think one or the other is getting a “step up” on us before we would realize that we, working people, have more in common than we do with our corporate overlords.
Loren M. Lambert © August 18, 2015
He underwent the hernia operation and was cleared to return to work on his normal shift, at 2 pm. On that morning he was to return, he felt significant fatigue due to his COPD, so he went to the doctor. His doctor laid down the law saying, “You are too sick to work and will die if you go.” He decided, then, that he would not go back to work, but would file for his disability. Did he get it?
No. The policy was written so that had he left work when his doctor first told him to leave (due to his COPD), or had he gone to work for even one minute when he was released back to work after he had recovered from his hernia, he would have gotten his benefits.
Do you ever hear an outcry about insurance companies winning on technicalities? No. Why? Because we are so beholden to authority that we would kiss the corporate derriere and gouge each others’ eyes out to think one or the other is getting a “step up” on us before we would realize that we, working people, have more in common than we do with our corporate overlords.
Loren M. Lambert © August 18, 2015
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