We first covered the Charla Nash story back in October 2009.

She’s the Connecticut lady who got ripped apart by the 200-pound chimpanzee owned by Sandra Herold, who has been described as both friend and boss. While in recovery after the attack, Nash learned that she may not be able allowed to sue for damages because the boss maintains Nash was working and therefore is covered by workers comp provisions. If that is the case, Nash will lose recourse to possibilities for a larger settlement from a civil suit.

Officer cites emotional stress

In the meantime, the case has taken another twist that may affect state worker’s comp law: the police officer who had to shoot the chimp applied for coverage for treatment of emotional stress, according to a May 6 piece at stamfordadvocate.com. Initially declined, the claim has led to legislative proposals to close what has been called a “loophole” in dealing with dangerous animals. Shelved by missing a deadline, the proposal will likely resurface in the 2011 legislative session.

Lawsuit not stopped yet

Nash appeared on Oprah’s TV show in November, and Oprah removed the hat and veil covering what’s left of Nash’s ravaged face (here’s a clip from ABC, but be warned: as the commentator mentions, many will find it disturbing).

According to an ABC.com May 7 post, Nash was discharged from the Cleveland Clinic earlier this month and transferred to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where experts were evaluating her for face and hands transplants. William Monaco, Nash’s attorney, told ABC that the $50 million civil suit he filed is proceeding but that “he did not know when the case would go to court,” and it is “possible Nash would testify.

” ‘It remains to be seen if she’ll testify,’ Monaco said. ‘She does not remember much about the attack, but her testimony about her life since then will be key.’ ”

Frank Chiafari is the Stamford police officer who, apparently, was next on the list for the attacking chimp. According the Advocate, “After almost killing Nash, the chimp charged at Chiafari, who shot and fatally wounded the frenzied animal.”

‘Monster with fangs’

According to various reports, subsequent tests revealed the presence of the prescription drug Xanax in the chimp’s system, but it’s unknown whether that contributed to the animal’s violent behavior. Regardless, the chimp was so agitated that Chiafari had to plug him four times at what must have been very close range. During the legislative process, the officer described the encounter as running up against a “monster with fangs and blood all over it . . . .”

Subsequent to his saving Nash and killing the animal, says the Advocate, “Chiafari applied for workers’ compensation . . .  asking the city of Stamford to cover his treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The city denied his claim at first, but later agreed to cover out-of-pocket . . .” expenses “. . . related to his treatment.”

The loophole: Humans? Check. Animals? No.

Revealed in the process was the loophole the new legislation aimed to sew shut: As the law stands, police officers can “receive workers’ compensation for emotional stress following a dangerous situation involving another human being” but not for similarly threatening encounters with animals.

What’s barely been mentioned is whether the stress derives from encountering “wild-animal” behavior or, instead, from putting down a pet that has gone loco.

Regardless, lawmakers were not able to push the bill through both houses during this session, and the wording has already undergone an oddball change in language.

Originally “introduced to the General Assembly nearly a year after” the event, the bill passed the state Senate 29-4 in April. “But it died in the state House of Representatives when the legislative session deadline passed Wednesday night [May 5] before it could vote on it. State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, introduced the bill and said he will do so again during the next legislative session.”

All animals? No–let’s restrict that to ‘mammals’

McDonald was quoted as saying the bill had enough support in  the House, but the reps’ missing the deadline cut it short. However, there’s apparently some dissension in the lege about how far to stretch the new parameters. For example, the original wording applied to “imminent danger” from animals. But a later version changed the wording from all animals to “mammals.”

Which, of course, rules out dangerous encounters with reptiles and raptors… For example, although rarely encountered, Connecticut does have Timber Rattlers and Northern Copperheads as well as hawks and owls. That’s not to suggest that such animals are inherently dangerous. Still, if cornered, they could certainly damage a human.

Oh, and what the other end of the scale, away from big, scary creatures toward little scary critters, as in bacteria and viruses? That’s something any public safety or health worker might encounter.

Think that’s silly? Maybe. But look where the lawmakers took the discussion.

Skunks and squirrels squeak into the question

The bill’s sponsor, McDonald, alluded to “pockets of opposition” that would have created enough drag on the process to threaten other needed legislation. “McDonald said lawmakers who opposed the law by claiming it would allow for officers to gain workers’ compensation benefits for encounters with mammals such as skunks did not thoroughly read the law.”

” ‘People who talk about the skunk and the squirrel are choosing to disregard language that the officers be in imminent risk of dying,’ McDonald said. ‘It’s not the emotional trauma of having to shoot a dog or anything like that.’ ”

**************************************************************

Have you, a friend or a loved one been injured on the job? Whether you’re merely seeking answers about your rights or believe a lawsuit may be necessary, be sure to seek counsel with attorneys trained and experienced in workers’ compensation. Here’s some resources:

Workers compensation basics

Injury on the job

Choosing an attorney

One of the crucial aspects of the pending financial reform legislation involves strengthening requirements for banks to have more cash reserves on hand. Here’s a quick summary from John Waggoner at USA Today: “The legislation would give regulators more information on mortgages and derivatives, which are complex agreements whose value depends on the level of interest rates, indexes or other financial instruments. Financial companies would have to keep bigger cushions against losses. And the government would be able to seize failing institutions and liquidate them or sell them off, as it can with commercial banks.”

The entities that finance the monetary benefits awarded to injured workers face similar issues and constraints. When employers game the system, by, say, under-reporting headcount or by claiming employees as subcontractors, there’s less funding in the account than there should be. This is why states wrangle with so many permutations of systems to legitimately address treatment for injured workers.

So what happens when the regulators or the fund  itself get things out of whack?

MIMRA deep in the hole

Such is the case in Connecticut, where, according to theday.com, “The Municipal Interlocal Risk Management Agency (MIRMA) was formed in 2002 by the towns of Chaplin and Willington to provide an alternative risk management pool through which towns and other public entities could buy workers’ comp and other insurance.

“But MIRMA has racked up deficits in every year since its formation and now teeters so close to insolvency that a recent report by an external auditor questioned how long the agency would continue to exist.”

Since its creation, designed to provide competition with the Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency (CIRMA), MIMRA has grown to include more than 60 towns and other public entities. Apparently, there’s been warning signs before, but recently the client towns have have had to digest the disturbing news that they are on the hook for more than $9 million.

Creating risk?

Instead of managing risk, MIMRA has been running deficits and was planning on tapping its clients via increased fees, distributed among its 60-plus clients in varying schedules–which could hit some towns to the tune of several hundred thousands of dollars.

According to an April 24 piece at insurancenewsnet.com, “Among the affected towns are North Branford, which will have to pay $600,000 to the agency, and Westbrook, which will pay $158,000, officials said.

” ‘Obviously we were very surprised to hear about this assessment. …. Somehow or other [MIRMA] fell short with projected revenue and had a variety of issues,’ Westbrook First Selectman Noel Bishop said.”

Legislators to the rescue

But facing a major deadline resulting from prior legislation, state legislators have intervened. According to The Day: “But on Wednesday, the state Senate stepped in, voting 33-0 for a measure that postpones by six years the date when MIRMA must bring itself into compliance with the contingency fund requirements. The House of Representatives had earlier passed the bill by a vote of 145-2. The bill awaits action by Gov. M. Jodi Rell.”

In an opinion piece April 25 in the Hartford Courant, Kevin Rennie takes everybody to the woodshed.

“A compelling example of why we don’t trust government to use its authority wisely has been unfolding in the General Assembly. It is a cautionary tale about a small insurance company, bad decisions and legislators who ignore startling facts.”

MIMRA has a “straightforward mission,” Rennie writes,  “and it’s a failure. If MIRMA were a private insurance company, it would have been shuttered long ago. MIRMA, however, enjoys friends and advocates in the legislature, so it careens on toward an expensive abyss. Its financial health has never been robust.”

A series of mistakes

If Rennie’s right, the whole mess is a chain of bad decisions, dating back at least several years, when “the legislature took away the state Department of Insurance’s authority to regulate MIRMA, according to frustrated officials in that agency.

“It has power to review the condition of MIRMA but it cannot act when it sees trouble, and there’s plenty. The department raised the prospect of MIRMA shutting down five years ago. Instead, the legislature passed a bill exempting it from prudent financial standards that require reserves to pay expenses — the medical bills of injured workers.”

Apparently, MIMRA was begun with state-provided capital, unlike its competitor, but by 2004 was running $2.2 million in the hole and about $10 million by the end of 2009. In its most recent audit, an independent outfit found MIMRA’s fiscal condition shaky enough to raise doubts about its ability to continue.

“These bare facts ought to be enough to prompt the legislature to authorize state regulators to intervene,” writes Rennie, adding that, “Instead, a bill extending MIRMA’s exemption from sound business practices sails through the legislature. Swaddled in isolation, the legislature’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee ignored terse February testimony from the Insurance Department describing MIRMA’s troubles.”

Workers’ Compensation Commission Chairman John Mastropietro, “sent a searing letter to MIRMA chairman David Denvir of Killingworth,” says Rennie, “telling him MIRMA must pay the medical bills for the injured workers it insures.” He quotes the chairman: “If doctors and hospitals were to opt out of treating injured employees due to your failure to compensate them in a timely manner, our Workers’ Compensation System would be severely compromised.”

According to The Day, at least part of the impetus in creating MIMRA was because “fully private insurers were not often serving the municipal market, [Rep. Craig] Miner said, noting that MIRMA’s primary approach had been to try to beat CIRMA, its primary competition, on price.”

Co-sponsor claims ignorance of bill

This next revelation from Rennie demonstrates the depth of chaos and confusion. He says he asked one of the new bill’s co-sponsors about the criticism from the WCC chairman–but she said didn’t know about the bill.

“This came as a surprise to one of the co-sponsors of the MIRMA bill, state Rep. Marilyn Giuliano, R- Old Saybrook. She sang the praises of MIRMA and its mission to provide affordable insurance coverage to small towns, when I spoke to her last week. She appeared not to have a clue that the reason it’s affordable is that the premiums it collects don’t cover the cost of paying claims, and haven’t for years.

“When asked why she co-sponsored the bill to exempt from state regulators a company that isn’t paying medical bills incurred for the care of injured workers, she went wobbly. ‘I don’t know where this [bill] might have come from,” she claimed. Perhaps in my research I might ask, she suggested.”

The Day piece closes with a quote from Insurance Commissioner Thomas Sullivan, describing both the way MIMRA was created as well as the dangers of not requiring enough reserves: “This bill is an illustration of the dangers of legislative carve-outs,” said Sullivan. “When companies are permitted to operate with less money than they need, the taxpayers in those towns could be asked to pay more money in taxes to keep the company afloat.”

***********************************************************************************************************************
Whether you’re an injured employee or an  aggrieved employer, if   you’re facing legal problems regarding workplace  injuries, be sure to   seek counsel with attorneys trained and experienced  in workers’   compensation. Here’s some resources:

Workers compensation basics

Injury on the job

Choosing an attorney