Hello world!
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009The purpose of this blog is to comment on the wacky world of Ohio workers’ compensation. I want to point out the good things being done by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) and the Industrial Commission of Ohio (ICO), as well as some of the decisions and actions that strike me as questionable. I hope that you will provide additional information on any topic. Or ask me questions about workers’ comp in Ohio. I’m not a lawyer and can’t give legal advice, but I can give you my opinion based on more than 25 years of experience.
I will also share my opinions on some other business issues, like human resources and how it can interact with Ohio workers’ compensation.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose would by any other name smell as sweet.” At least, that’s how I remember it from eight grade English class (now called Language Arts). Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet may have been young but she understood that while Romeo may be lovable, his family name decreed that he was her family’s enemy.
The term for the person who files a workers’ compensation claim in Ohio: Injured Workers (IW). Originally, the term was Claimant, but a number of years ago the legislature changed it to Injured Worker. What’s the difference? Well, sooner or later, the vast majority of people who have been injured on the job are no longer injured. And what about the person who filed a claim but wasn’t injured, or didn’t work for the company the claim was filed against? Claimant is a more appropriate description of a person claiming benefits. The BWC and ICO are required to give the benefit of the doubt to the claimant, and so it isn’t necessary to stack the deck in their favor any more than it already is.