"No" to Judge Stephens
Mary Bailey June 7, 2005
The Nominating Committee for OJCC Victor V. Marrero Director Risk Management Division Broward County Sheriff's Office 2601 West Broward Blvd Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33312 954-831-8358 954-321-4587 fax Victor_Marrero@sheriff.org
I am writing on behalf of an organization called VOICES Inc. I am writing because my health will not permit me to attend in person. We are a statewide organization that advocates for injured workers. We wish to express our opposition to the reappointment of Deputy Chief Judge Scott Stephens to his current position. We do this after much thought.
The comp system is adversarial to say the least. Our right to a trial by a jury of our peers has been taken from us. Therefore, we must be certain that the judges of compensation claims are fair and unbiased.
We are concerned about several issues with Judge Scott Stephens. They are as follows:
In talking with injured workers, it seems that there are above average rulings that have been overturned in appellate court on Judge Stephens. Rulings that he has ruled against injured workers in compensation court but that the appellate court found in favor of the injured worker. This leads us to believe that Judge Stephens has a bias against injured workers. We suspect this bias is systemic but we must start somewhere to make the system fair. The Chief Justice of the Workers Compensation Court is the place we believe is the starting point to make the system more fair.
We have requested information from Judge Stephens on the judges of this state to find how their rulings came out. We were seeking the number of cases for and against claimants as well as the number of split decisions on this. Judge Stephens failed to respond to our request.
VOICES believes there are a number of judges on the bench for workers compensation that are biased against injured workers and that rule far too frequently in favor of the employer/carrier.
Please do not mistake our contention that there are a number of judges on the bench for workers compensation that are biased against injured workers as us believing that all judges are biased against us.
We feel relatively certain that the majority of the judges on the bench are fair. We are only concerned about the few judges who openly show bias and it seems Judge Stephens does nothing about it.
Anyone, who may have read the OJCC annual report, would see a number of important areas that were not addressed. In my opinion it also shows a complete bias against injured workers and claimant attorneys.
There are several statements that are misleading in that report. The first being on page one of the report. It states: leading indicators foretell a decrease in litigation. Likely due to the 2003 reforms. It further states that there has been a 15% decrease in PFBs. There is no concern stated there that the reduction is related to three things. One is the fact that many claimants with small claims cannot find an attorney to take their case due to the 2003 law. The other being that the EAO office at the Department of Financial Services has been successful in obtaining more medical and other benefits for injured workers.
Also PFBs are down because JCC Stephens is arbitrarily dismissing thousands of PFB's because they didn't have a Social Security number, a phone number or an address. While we understand it is protocol to have this information on PFBs, it is also another delay in the system that harms injured workers. Why has there been no concern expressed on this?
There was an allocation for 4 new JCC's that was vetoed specifically because JCC Stephens didn't ask for any more JCC's in his budget, even though no tax dollars are used to pay for JCC's, it is all insurance company money in the Administrative Trust Fund! Judge Stephens often refers to the workload of the judges as being heavy so why not ask for some new judges, specifically in the geographical areas that are having difficulty meeting the statutory time table for the period between the PFB to final hearing.
There are also many questions and/or statistics that I feel should have been addressed in the report to fairly evaluate the true effectiveness of the JCCs as well as the impact the JCC has on injured workers lives.
Where are the statistics showing the time from PFB to final hearing? How many cases go over a year or more before they get to final hearing and what is Judge Stephens doing to see that the hearings are timely?
Why are there double the continuances granted, (6734), to the number of final orders, (3095)?
How many cases did not meet the statutory time limit from PFB to mediation and mediation to final hearing? If this is a fair report then why aren't these figures in there? Why are these things not considered an important statistic?
Why aren't the cost of defense attorney fees listed in this report?
How many judges do not rule on a case within the 30 day statutory time limit and how often?
Why can't we get statistics on judges rulings, for claimants, against claimants, and split decisions?
Why can't we get the number of cases a judge has on appeal and the number of decisions on a judge that were overturned?
The judge accuses attorneys of keeping old act cases alive longer than necessary on page 8 of the OJCC report. Old act cases are only brought back to life when the E/C denies legitimate benefits. Why do judges let the E/C bring to court frivolous cases with no new evidence or indication from the treating physician that there has been a change in the claimants medical status/ability to work status? When this happens the state and DOAH assist the E/C in starving out the claimants.
Why does Juge Stephens continually attack claimant attorneys in this report by talking about how claimant attorneys keep filing for benefits? Benefits usually are not filed for if they are not due and unless they are denied? It is usually the claimant that encourages their attorney to file for benefits when the carrier denies them.
Why does Judge Stephens consider it good that only 5% of all PFBs get to final hearing when in all reality it simply means the E/C has successfully starved the claimant out?
Where is Judge Stephens criticism of defense attorneys and the E/C not obeying the law?
How many JCCs are claimants attorneys and how many are defense?
Voices has heard from some claimant attorneys that they are being intimidated by the JCCs.
VOICES firmly believes the state is assisting the E/C in starving injured workers out by taking such a long period of time to get through the litigation process. We believe that Judge Stephens, as well as the state, know full well there would not be such a great need for litigation if someone enforced the law and quit allowing the E/C to file and/or cause frivolous lawsuits.
Still there is no report anywhere that addresses this issue.
The report is clearly biased as is much of the comp system, leading us to believe it is often difficult to get a fair shake in anything dealing with comp. If injured workers do not feel that Deputy Chief Justice Scott Stephens is fair and impartial, how can we have faith in the workers compensation judicial system?
Because of the things listed above we ask you to investigate the OJCC report by Judge Stephens and we ask you to please not reappoint him in the name of justice and fairness.
Mary Bailey President, VOICES Inc.
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