 Sadly, working is a dangerous thing. Every year somewhere between 5,000 to 6,000 people nationwide, about 150-200 people in Ohio leave their home for work in a civilian job and don’t return. Some die instantly, some days, weeks or even years later. But it’s too high a number. And it’s not just the people you think of. God bless our first responders who run to danger and don’t always make it back, or without long term cancer or cardiac and pulmonary issues. It’s not just factory workers or nurses, it can be a custodian. It can be supervisor driving for work. On April 28th every year we who fight for workers, lawyers, labor leaders, people of faith, gather to remember those we lost in Northwest Ohio. Workers’ Memorial Day, which is also known as International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured is held on that around the world, to remember the injured and dead from our workforce. Our neighbors to the north in Canada make it a national day of morning. This year’s remembrance will be held on Monday April 29th @ 6 PM by our partners at Local 500 of the Laborer’s International Union for North America (LIUNA) on Nebraska. There will be speakers, there will be stories about those we lost, we’ll light candles and sing “Solidarity Forever’, and in the words of Mother Jones (Mary G. Harris an Irish born labor organizer from the 1800 and 1900's, she died at the age of 93) , “Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living”. This all started in 1989 when the AFL-CIO declared this day to be Workers’ Memorial Day. Why April 28th? It is the anniversary of the date the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 went into effect, and when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was formed (April 28, 1971). Previously, in 1984, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) established a day of mourning. The Canadian Labour Congress declared an annual day of remembrance in 1985 on April 28, which is the anniversary of a comprehensive Workers' Compensation Act (refer to the entry Workplace Safety & Insurance Board), passed in 1914. In 1991, the Canadian parliament passed an Act respecting a National Day of Mourning for persons killed or injured in the workplace, making April 28 an official Workers' Mourning Day. And this has spread to England, and then around the world thanks to labor unions. Having done this for 30 years I can tell you I have represented double digit numbers of families whose loved one died due to physical harm from a job. Some died at the scene, some hours or day later in a hospital, others months or years later. It’s always a horrible thing to deal with. I can tell you that there is some help for these families. But it is dependent on whether they had people who depended on them. Spouses are automatically taken care of if legally married, children until age 18, unless they continue their education in an accredited trade school or college. Anyone else has to prove their dependency. If you can’t they pay a burial expense. That’s it. Unless you can proven an intentional act by the employer, that’s the extent of it. If a worker has benefits that were due them, and passes away without dependants, or we can’t prove that the death was related to work, we can still get an estate those accrued benefits. My most used Ohio Supreme Court case involves that type of death claim. An injured worker who lingered in a coma for 16 years before succumbing to injuries from an on the job motor vehicle accident. When you hear people claim that the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation is neutral and will take care of legitimate hurt workers, read The State ex rel. Estate of Sziraki vs. Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, et al., for lawyers it’s 137 Ohio St. 3d 201, you can get it from the author’s here - https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2013/2013-ohio-4007.pdf Dean Sziraki was 34 years old, unmarried and with no children. He had taken over the family business ahead of schedule due to the untimely death of his father. He was involved in a horrific accident, driving site to site to check on projects. Dean severed his spinal cord and so horribly damaged his brain that he lingered in coma from May 14, 1991 to until his death in a long term care facility in January of 2007. But he never regained meaningful consciousness. The employer, his mother Marilyn took over the company, certified the claim. They paid Dean Temporary Total Disability (TT) benefits for about a year then found him to have reached Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI). This is the end of ongoing money and normally you would apply for Permanent Total Disability (PTD). Dean’s mother, as the employer filed for that for him. Normally that takes about 9-12 months to process and can go back to the end date of the TT. But, nothing was done with the application for several years. When it was processed, someone decided they were doing family a favor to convert this to Statutory PTD. Statutory PTD is a benefit available to those who lose to amputation or lose all work use, of two or more limbs or other major body parts. The advantage to a worker is that you will get paid every two weeks for the rest of your life AND can return to work if you can. Dean was in a coma, he was a quadriplegic, but again, was not going back to work. In all a process that should have take 9-12 months didn’t result in a payment to the family from 1992 to until 2007. You read that right, 15 years. And that was after Dean died, his family’s probate attorney hired me, and we fixed what we could. But Dean’s family, had the hired any workers’ compensation attorney would have got paid from 1992 until his death, PTD, a benefit for PTD recipients where the ravages of inflation (Ohio workers’ compensation claims have no cost of living adjustments) put you below a liable payrate called DWRF, and $363,800 for the fact that his arms and legs never worked again known as a Scheduled Loss Award Instead they cheated these people, and they admitted in court the BWC knew the family was entitled to these benefits, out of $44,512 in Permanent Total Disability payments and $297,032 in Scheduled Loss Awards. The BWC’s attorneys in court actually argued with a straight face they have no legal duty to pay any benefit, even when the law allowed them to pay it without a motion and they didn’t take legal action to protect Dean, they said they were going to do and didn’t, a year past a deadline for them step in had passed. So to the families of the next 65,000 - 70,000 or so injured workers in Ohio (yearly average per BWC Annual Reports 2020-23) and the 150-204 (yearly average per BWC Annual Reports 2020-23) hire an attorney. They are not looking out for you. If they did that Dean’s family, imagine what you’re not getting. And until I can’t do this anymore, I will mourn the dead, and fight like hell for the living.  
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So when most people think of Toledo and history they don’t think of much. Oh, a nearby battle or two, a very large venue built in North Toledo for an event and torn down, Jeeps, a few stars. But one of the most important moments in workers right and labor in the US occurred here in Toledo 90 years ago this week. Toledo had been hit hard by the Great Depression. Willys-Overland, the folks that started what is now the Jeep, had declared bankruptcy, Two the largest banks and almost everyone of the savings and loans associations had failed, 150 police officers had been laid off and the unemployment rate was 70%. Which meant, of course, employers were running over workers with a steamroller. The American Federation of Labor, which later becomes the AFL-CIO, was organizing workers and a large scale strike between locals of the AFL and major car and parts manufacturers were only adverted by the intervention of President Franklin Roosevelt. But the agreement didn’t hold everywhere. Federal Labor Union, Local 18384 in Toledo was organized a bit differently than most locals at the time, but more like many today, representing workers at not one but multiple employers including the Auto-Lite Factory in Toledo. Auto-Lite was a major manufacturer of spark plugs. Later Champion Spark Plug where my grandfather worked was another one. The Local and Auto-Lite were nowhere in negotiations. Management was not even giving in on the unacceptable compromise that the President had negotiated. So on April 12, 1934, a strike voted on by the workers began. Initially it wasn’t a huge success but groups, including the American Workers’ Party and other organized unemployed workers to essential surround the factory and try to stop efforts to break the strike. Over the coming months a legal battle ensued. And then a physical one between the Ohio National Guard, the Lucas County Sheriff, professional strike breaker and the strikers. It escalated from isolated fist fights, to leaders being addressed and beaten, to rock throwing and worse. When the dust cleared from the physical confrontation, two were dead, hundreds injured. But by June 6th, a new contract was signed, the union was in place and the labor movement in Toledo, then the region began to flourish. Toledo was one of the most unionized cities in the Nation for most of the 20th and early 21st Century. And FLU Local 18384 become UAW Local 12. My Uncle and Grandfather were members of it’s sister local, UAW Local 14. Both of which we are proud to support and help the injured members of. In August of 1999, the site was turned into a memorial park. In the Vistula neighborhood, just outside of Downtown Toledo. We frequently hold rallies and events there to this day. And I can tell you it is an inspiring spot. See a video I shot at Lucas County Party Chair for Labor Day years ago. https://fb.watch/rvEDr6e8XN/ So, thank you to the brave strikers and their supporters for giving us many of the laws we have today and for standing up to protective them over and over again. So, believe it or not, there is an actual day for this. It’s the second Tuesday in April. And while it’s a little self-serving, we thought what a great opportunity for us to pass along a little knowledge about the law and lawyers. Now, I am sorry to say that shows like Suits, LA Law, Ally McBeal, the Practice, etc. are not really good portrayals of the life of a lawyer. I really do wish I was Harvey Specter and could get my clients the kind of deals and wield the kind of power he can bring to bear. But let’s give you a quick history of lawyers. The first references to law in record history appear in Ancient Egypt around 3000 BC. These “laws” were based on Ma’at, which promotes concepts like truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. The idea of a court and lawyers begins to appear in Mediaeval England and other places. Originally it was the King’s Court, you know those scenes in movies and TV where a king or queen on a throne and nobles, and occasionally the commoners, came to ask the monarch to intervene. Generally you had to be a nobleman aka a knight to appear. It was then taken down to the level just below that, or the Esquires. And yep, we kept that one. Lawyers use that title from time to time. And we brought our legal system over from our days as a British Colony. So the common law, esquires, judges, sovereign immunity came with us when we founded the United States. In the 1700's, lawyers and judges emerge as a profession in the United States. Early lawyers were not formally trained—instead, they would learn the trade through apprenticeship and watching court hearings. So Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr didn’t go to a law school. That’s now about a seven year college journey. In 1779, the first law school—The College of William and Mary—opens in the United States and is still in operation today. In 1844, Macon B. Allen becomes the first African-American admitted to the Bar in the United States. In 1879 Belva Lockwood becomes the first woman admitted to the Bar in the United States. By 1900 there were approximately 114,000 lawyers in the US. By 2022 that number, per the American Bar Association estimates. there are over 1.3 million active lawyers in the United States. So why a day to love your lawyer? Well here’s some statistics from studies done in the last 10 years of lawyers and law students from the American Bar Association. A survey of 3,300 law students from 15 law schools. found that 25 percent of law students are at risk for alcoholism, 17 percent of law students suffer from depression, 37 percent of law students report mild to severe anxiety, 6 percent of law students report having suicidal thoughts in the last year. And that doesn’t end when they become attorneys. One study of 13,000 working lawyers found that 28 percent lawyers suffered from depression; 19 percent of lawyers had severe anxiety; 11.4 percent of lawyers had suicidal thoughts in the previous year We go through training every two years that keeps us current on the law, but it also includes about 90 minutes on helping us avoid joining those statistics and there are special programs to help lawyers in substance abuse and mental health crisis. So, I can tell you I love my job, but it’s not an easy one. I have to help out 300-500 of you at any given time to stay afloat. My main area of practice, Workers’ Compensation is shrinking dramatically. In 1997 when I moved to Toledo after practicing in Cleveland for a year and half, the largest firm who does what I do was about 16 attorneys and about 30 support staff. That firm now has 1 full time, one part time attorney and two support staff. The largest has 2 attorneys and about 3-4 support staff. They make it harder and harder to help my clients every year, the last change was just a few weeks ago which will cost my clients and me countless tens of thousands of dollars per year. But we keep on fighting. What can you do to celebrate. And no you don’t have to spend a dime. Don’t get me wrong, I have many tokens of appreciation from clients all over my office. But it’s not about money. Here’s several free ways: 1. Leave your favorite lawyer a review. Positive Google reviews are critical for lawyers—in fact, the 2022 Legal Trends Report found that positive reviews are the most influential factor for consumers when hiring lawyers. We are listed on Google, Linked In, Facebook, Avvo, and others. A good review from you helps other clients find us like you did. 2. Consider giving the gift of a referral. Know someone looking for help with a legal problem? Referrals are another great (and free!) gift for the lawyer in your life. The lawyer benefits from a customer referral and a one-off client issue may set the groundwork for a great long-term lawyer-client relationship. We get about 80% of our clients via word of mouth, so telling someone in need about us helps tremendously. 3. Follow your lawyer’s social media pages. Lawyers work hard to get their business out there. Show them you appreciate their hard work by following their professional accounts and engaging with their content. If you’re reading this, you probably are already, but go to Facebook, Linked-In, YouTube, and other platforms and give us a follow. We’ll appear in your social media feed and you can help others get helpful information and assistance. 4. Once in awhile, say thank you to your lawyer and their team. We know we’re handling some of the darkest times in your life. And we are the voice and face of a system that is not pretty. But a thank you, I appreciate, you and your team rock, goes a long way and gives any of us a boost and incentive to stay in the fight. Oh and if gifts are your love language, don’t hesitate to show your lawyer you care with a gift. Following the advice of a wise friend and writer on the practice of law as a business, I have little tokens of appreciation from clients all over my office. A hand made lighthouse clock, a coffee mug, a hand painted Yoda picture, a hand drawn portrait of one of my favorite presidents a Simpsons figure, a few hats, just to name the ones I can see scanning the room. And my team and I love food, so feel free to drop us off handmade or store bought goodies. Lawyers play a crucial role in ensuring access to justice and upholding the rule of law. In doing so, they’re often subjected to stress, long hours, and complex cases and clients. Taking the time to recognize and show gratitude for lawyers’ hard work can go a long way in boosting morale. So Happy International Be Kind to Lawyers Day 2024 (and you know me, full disclosure there is a Love Your Lawyer Day in November too, but hey ready above tough gig).    Recently we started posting videos to a You Tube Channel and our website about dealing with workplace injuries in Ohio. Why, what we do in Ohio Workers’ Compensation is complicated contrary to anything someone at work, the Employer MCO or TPA, or the BWC tells you. How can I prove to you it’s complicated? Well, besides over thirty years of being a part of this system, how do I know?
In, the Ohio Supreme Court in 1993 decided that it was time for lawyers to be allowed to say they specialized in certain complicated areas of law. First organizations had to apply to be one allowed to confirm them, The Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA) was if not the first one of the first. When the Ohio State Bar Association picked areaa of law to do that in to select areas of law that were highly complex and complicated, assemble panels to practice length, reference & other criteria and create an administer a test. The Ohio State Bar Association looked at wide variety of the areas of practice that Ohio’s attorneys engage and decided upon Ohio Workers’ Compensation Law as the first because it is that complicated for all sides. That’s how complex the underlying law is. Since 1999, when the first class of these specializations were granted for the first time, I have had the honor of being one. However, we in the legal field are supposed to help you, the Public understand the law. I we take that seriously around here. I take extra time with every client, starting from that first interview and moving forward to explain things in ways you can understand. Well for awhile now, I have been saying we should do something about explaining topics, in bite size, five minutes or less videos, so you can understand them. Finally this year, about two months ago, should do it, became doing it. Here’s the address to the page: https://www.youtube.com/@LawOfficesofKurtM.YoungLLC/videos But to take it a step further we added a VLOG or video blog page to our website. Now I will tell you if the look on that page is not as slick as the rest of the website, that’s because I created it not our very amazing web designers and hosts at Ape Forge (https://www.apeforge.com/). So you can go right on our website and get a brief description of each of these and the link right to the videos. So if you want to know in terms you can understand about certain topics, it’s all right there. Now they are the polar opposite of slick, me at the desk I do my work, talking right to the camera, about these subjects, but so far people who have at least commented to me or others about them have said they are good. You can decide. But again, knowledge is power, so hopefully they help you. |
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