[Cross-Posted at Progress Ohio]
I read a hilarious article Link by Paul Kostyu in the Canton Repository about Auditor Mary Taylor’s megalomania and self-promotion on her official state website. Mary leaves no opportunity undone in her zeal to advertise her CPA.
“Press releases coming from her office and her office Web site are emblazoned with the Ohio seal and her name followed by CPA in big, bold letters.”
How pathetically embarrassing. I used to work with a guy that signed every letter with his name followed immediately by “M.B.A.” He was the source of much snickering and amusement in an office filled with Ph.D.s, M.D.s, J.D.s, and plenty of Masters degrees in topics I could only pretend to understand. I just want to pick up the phone and say “Mary, Mary, Mary…enough with the CPA-thing”.
People want you to be well-educated. But once they have placed their faith in you, they do not want to be reminded of it, and they are less forgiving of you when you make a mistake. I learned long ago that the secretaries, mailmen, clerks, receptionists, maintenance personnel and every other support employee are the real backbone of every office. The rest of us are pretty much expendable and things will progress smoothly until the next guy arrives. And they will cover for you and help you do your job to the best of their abilities as long as you do your job well and show them the respect that they deserve.
But watch out if you don’t. Take my father-in-law (PULEEZE :). I once sent a Christmas card with a return address label that had my name and “Esq.” I never gave it a thought, since they were the free labels that come with a plea to support disabled vets or the heart association. Three years later when he was mad at me he pulled out the gem “that I rub his nose in the fact that I am an attorney”. I was stunned as I had always been careful to avoid any discussion of politics or legal issues. When I called him on the comment, he pointed out the return address label on a Christmas card three years previous.
Mary, let my father in law and a return address label be a metaphor for the electorate. You may have gotten your job based on your credentials, but unless you do the job that you were elected to do (such as responding for a request by SOS Brunner to audit the SOS’s office), your self-aggrandizing, even if it is in the form of a free return address label, will be perceived just as it is.
The voters put you in your position but expect you to do your job. And they don’t like to hear about how much you love yourself. Save your CPA letters for when you sign an audit report, if you must. Oh, and when you write to our Governor, I hope that you follow his name with HIS credentials, B.A., M.Div., Ph.D. Somehow I suspect that you won’t.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
NASA and Coal?
Cross Posted at Progress Ohio
I ran into an interesting article Link by Kevin Kelley with West Life News, a Westlake area publication, that is worth a read. The article followed Governor Strickland’s visit a few weeks ago at NASA Glenn Research Center.
Apparently the Governor’s visit was to take a look at the alternative fuel research going on at the NASA facility. The Governor visited the facility’s “Advanced Subsonic Combustion Rig”, the only device of its kind in this country, which is being used to develop alternative jet fuels. The combustion process converts CO2 and hydrogen to produce liquid fuel.
What caught my eye is that NASA is looking at technology to convert Ohio’s coal into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Fuels converted in this process have no sulfur emissions (which produces acid rain) and reduced CO2 emissions. Just think, a coal-powered space shuttle?
I find this very exciting, although I am concerned about applications that increase the mining of coal within the state without a concurrent policy to deal with the devastation left behind. Greater use of our coal resources would be a huge economic boost to our Appalachian areas of the state. Coal use further may increase with “clean-coal technology” in the generation of electricity. Add “liquid fuel” to the mix, and the mining industry will indeed be happy.
If the cost of coal increases, many ecologically sensitive areas that were too expensive to mine in the past may be economically viable. Because of federal law, mining companies are doing a better job at “reclamation” of land after mining activities have ceased. But the landscape is forever changed. And older mines have left a legacy of ecological problems, from mine subsidence to acid mine drainage into our potable water. There is not enough funding to address these problems created by mining companies long relegated to history. It is my hope that if these new technologies are successful, that increased mining is predicated on provisions for taking care of the environmental costs associated with the past, present and future mining operations.
I ran into an interesting article Link by Kevin Kelley with West Life News, a Westlake area publication, that is worth a read. The article followed Governor Strickland’s visit a few weeks ago at NASA Glenn Research Center.
Apparently the Governor’s visit was to take a look at the alternative fuel research going on at the NASA facility. The Governor visited the facility’s “Advanced Subsonic Combustion Rig”, the only device of its kind in this country, which is being used to develop alternative jet fuels. The combustion process converts CO2 and hydrogen to produce liquid fuel.
What caught my eye is that NASA is looking at technology to convert Ohio’s coal into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Fuels converted in this process have no sulfur emissions (which produces acid rain) and reduced CO2 emissions. Just think, a coal-powered space shuttle?
I find this very exciting, although I am concerned about applications that increase the mining of coal within the state without a concurrent policy to deal with the devastation left behind. Greater use of our coal resources would be a huge economic boost to our Appalachian areas of the state. Coal use further may increase with “clean-coal technology” in the generation of electricity. Add “liquid fuel” to the mix, and the mining industry will indeed be happy.
If the cost of coal increases, many ecologically sensitive areas that were too expensive to mine in the past may be economically viable. Because of federal law, mining companies are doing a better job at “reclamation” of land after mining activities have ceased. But the landscape is forever changed. And older mines have left a legacy of ecological problems, from mine subsidence to acid mine drainage into our potable water. There is not enough funding to address these problems created by mining companies long relegated to history. It is my hope that if these new technologies are successful, that increased mining is predicated on provisions for taking care of the environmental costs associated with the past, present and future mining operations.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
What is Your GE (Greenhouse Emission) Quotient?
(As Posted at Progress Ohio)
Hey, it’s Superbowl Sunday so of course it is time for online car shopping. Well, it didn’t start out that way. It started from a Time Magazine article wherein I read a Joe Klein article on the hand-wringing of the GOP at an audience of conservatives convened by the National Review.
Not that this was not entertaining enough, but I saw an argument put forth by former CIA Director James Woolsey that caught my eye. The article sums up Mr. Woolsey’s argument thusly, “As a matter of national security, the U.S. Government should support hybrid technology and alternative fuels”. It wasn’t that it was a particularly brilliant observation, it was just the source and the audience that the argument was made to that I found striking.
Not to be outdone by a bunch of Post-Traumatic Stress-suffering GOP-ers, I set out on trying to find out what our federal government was doing about energy policy. Not much. Increase the strategic national reserve, “environmentally sensitive drilling”, now there is an oxymoron. O.K., so if the government is not doing anything, what can I do?
That is when I stumbled upon a decent government website on car fuel economy. A few statistics:
58% of our oil is imported, domestic resources are waning.
About two-thirds of the world’s oil resources are controlled by OPEC members.
Oil price shocks and price manipulation by OPEC have cost our economy about $7 trillion from 1979 to 2000 cost the U.S. economy—and each major price shock was followed by a recession.
Ultimately, the solution to this problem lies in technological progress:
•Developing advanced vehicle technologies that use energy more efficiently
•Creating new energy sources that can replace petroleum cleanly and inexpensively
But what about today? How can we reduce our gas use “footprint”? By taking an interest in fuel economy, we can reduce U.S. oil dependence now and create incentives for carmakers to produce cleaner, more energy efficient vehicles.
Only about 15% of the energy from the fuel you put in your tank gets used to move your car down the road. The rest of the energy is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies and idling. Therefore, the potential to improve fuel efficiency with advanced technologies is enormous.
Energy efficient technologies that also reduce greenhouse emissions are available today. I found a nifty “side-by-side comparison” of automobile models that everyone should try out just to see how we are individually contributing to energy non-efficiency. Link
For example, my beloved older model Ford Taurus Wagon seems pretty conservative to me in comparison to the Urban Assault Vehicles that pass me every day on my commute. But when I compared it to a Kia Rio, I was a bit embarrassed. Worse still, I found that buying a Honda Civic Hybrid would reduce my gas consumption by 356 gallons (8.5 Barrels!) per year and reduce my greenhouse emissions by 5 tons/year.
Thus, you will find me during the game car shopping. And if the model comes with lower greenhouse emissions, higher gas efficiency and Sirius radio, in that order, I may just even buy!
Hey, it’s Superbowl Sunday so of course it is time for online car shopping. Well, it didn’t start out that way. It started from a Time Magazine article wherein I read a Joe Klein article on the hand-wringing of the GOP at an audience of conservatives convened by the National Review.
Not that this was not entertaining enough, but I saw an argument put forth by former CIA Director James Woolsey that caught my eye. The article sums up Mr. Woolsey’s argument thusly, “As a matter of national security, the U.S. Government should support hybrid technology and alternative fuels”. It wasn’t that it was a particularly brilliant observation, it was just the source and the audience that the argument was made to that I found striking.
Not to be outdone by a bunch of Post-Traumatic Stress-suffering GOP-ers, I set out on trying to find out what our federal government was doing about energy policy. Not much. Increase the strategic national reserve, “environmentally sensitive drilling”, now there is an oxymoron. O.K., so if the government is not doing anything, what can I do?
That is when I stumbled upon a decent government website on car fuel economy. A few statistics:
58% of our oil is imported, domestic resources are waning.
About two-thirds of the world’s oil resources are controlled by OPEC members.
Oil price shocks and price manipulation by OPEC have cost our economy about $7 trillion from 1979 to 2000 cost the U.S. economy—and each major price shock was followed by a recession.
Ultimately, the solution to this problem lies in technological progress:
•Developing advanced vehicle technologies that use energy more efficiently
•Creating new energy sources that can replace petroleum cleanly and inexpensively
But what about today? How can we reduce our gas use “footprint”? By taking an interest in fuel economy, we can reduce U.S. oil dependence now and create incentives for carmakers to produce cleaner, more energy efficient vehicles.
Only about 15% of the energy from the fuel you put in your tank gets used to move your car down the road. The rest of the energy is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies and idling. Therefore, the potential to improve fuel efficiency with advanced technologies is enormous.
Energy efficient technologies that also reduce greenhouse emissions are available today. I found a nifty “side-by-side comparison” of automobile models that everyone should try out just to see how we are individually contributing to energy non-efficiency. Link
For example, my beloved older model Ford Taurus Wagon seems pretty conservative to me in comparison to the Urban Assault Vehicles that pass me every day on my commute. But when I compared it to a Kia Rio, I was a bit embarrassed. Worse still, I found that buying a Honda Civic Hybrid would reduce my gas consumption by 356 gallons (8.5 Barrels!) per year and reduce my greenhouse emissions by 5 tons/year.
Thus, you will find me during the game car shopping. And if the model comes with lower greenhouse emissions, higher gas efficiency and Sirius radio, in that order, I may just even buy!
Saturday, February 3, 2007
What's Plan B?
I read a recent blog on Emergency Contraception being denied to the Florida woman arrested on old warrants and it reminded me of a recent Dayton story about the Wal-Mart pharmacist who refused to dispense “Plan B” to a married couple.
According to the story, “Tashina Byrd, 23, of Springfield, said the pharmacist ‘shook his head and laughed’ when a pharmacy attendant asked this month about giving the woman and her boyfriend Plan B. The hormone pills can help prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.”
“Brent Beams, the pharmacist, told The [Columbus] Dispatch that he denied the couple's request for the contraceptive pills because ‘I do not believe in ending life, and life begins at conception.’ After the pharmacist turned them down, O'Neill and Byrd asked for a store manager who "came over and said, 'The pharmacist has the law on his side,' " O'Neill said.”
Here's my RANT: I just about have had it with other people dictating to women their health decisions and making judgments on their presumed lack of moral clarity. The FDA approved the over the counter (non-prescriptive) use of Plan B last August (2006). Under the guidelines, the drug is required only to be offered by licensed drug wholesalers or retail pharmacy operations in order to keep it from the use of minors without a prescription.
So all I should have to do is show my ID to prove I am over 18, and then be given the darn drug. How is it that the pharmacist has “law on his side” when handing it over does NOT require the professional judgment of a licensed pharmacist? Shoot, when I was young, my Catholic education teacher preached that condoms and birth control is a sin. Under the pharmacist’s rationale, these items can be kept from me as well.
It_is_time for pharmacists to be held to licensure standards that prohibit them from supplanting their own moral beliefs for the professional judgment of a licensed physician or the personal beliefs of a women or married couples.
According to the story, “Tashina Byrd, 23, of Springfield, said the pharmacist ‘shook his head and laughed’ when a pharmacy attendant asked this month about giving the woman and her boyfriend Plan B. The hormone pills can help prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.”
“Brent Beams, the pharmacist, told The [Columbus] Dispatch that he denied the couple's request for the contraceptive pills because ‘I do not believe in ending life, and life begins at conception.’ After the pharmacist turned them down, O'Neill and Byrd asked for a store manager who "came over and said, 'The pharmacist has the law on his side,' " O'Neill said.”
Here's my RANT: I just about have had it with other people dictating to women their health decisions and making judgments on their presumed lack of moral clarity. The FDA approved the over the counter (non-prescriptive) use of Plan B last August (2006). Under the guidelines, the drug is required only to be offered by licensed drug wholesalers or retail pharmacy operations in order to keep it from the use of minors without a prescription.
So all I should have to do is show my ID to prove I am over 18, and then be given the darn drug. How is it that the pharmacist has “law on his side” when handing it over does NOT require the professional judgment of a licensed pharmacist? Shoot, when I was young, my Catholic education teacher preached that condoms and birth control is a sin. Under the pharmacist’s rationale, these items can be kept from me as well.
It_is_time for pharmacists to be held to licensure standards that prohibit them from supplanting their own moral beliefs for the professional judgment of a licensed physician or the personal beliefs of a women or married couples.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Where’s Pat?
I read in “ThisWeek” news that U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Genoa Township) has agreed to emcee the Northland Community Council (NCC) civic association awards again this year. The NCC has been in operation for over forty years and was established to promote and foster the development and improvement of the NCC services area, which includes the S.Rt. 161 commercial corridor (East Dublin Granville Rd.) and surrounding neighborhoods.
I find the NCC’s allegiance to Pat a little depressing since Rep. Tiberi moved his family out of the old neighborhood to a 3400 sq. ft. home in Genoa Township valued by the Delaware County Auditor at around $566,000. My Italian friend who lives in Forest Park, a subdivision along the 161 business corridor was more succinct. Feeling abandoned by Rep. Tiberi among the deteriorating neighborhoods, crime, and abandoned storefronts, he stated, “ I will never vote for that *$##!! again.”
Perhaps Pat believes that some face time with the folks in his old neighborhood is enough. My friend disagrees.
I find the NCC’s allegiance to Pat a little depressing since Rep. Tiberi moved his family out of the old neighborhood to a 3400 sq. ft. home in Genoa Township valued by the Delaware County Auditor at around $566,000. My Italian friend who lives in Forest Park, a subdivision along the 161 business corridor was more succinct. Feeling abandoned by Rep. Tiberi among the deteriorating neighborhoods, crime, and abandoned storefronts, he stated, “ I will never vote for that *$##!! again.”
Perhaps Pat believes that some face time with the folks in his old neighborhood is enough. My friend disagrees.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Chief Justice Roberts- Don't let the door hit you...
In his second annual report, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made judicial pay the sole topic of his second annual report ominously predicting that Congress’ failure to raise federal judges’ salaries in recent years has become a “constitutional crisis” that puts the future of the federal courts in jeopardy.
The first thought that came to my mind upon reading this gem was “this is what our greatest judicial minds believe is worthy as the sole topic of an annual report?” And to call it a “constitutional crisis”? No, a constitutional crisis I’m thinking would be an unlikely event like the U.S. Supreme Court halting the recounting of valid ballots in a presidential election. But that is just the thought of a common mind, not the thought of high intellectuals like the members on the Supreme Court.
I give the learned Justice the fact that judges pay has fallen behind the national average for wages. Welcome to public service. You are in the same position as all those non-thinking public lawyer bureaucratic drones that you diss in your annual report.
In the report, Justice Roberts states that federal judges are being increasingly drawn from among lawyers working in the public sector, rather than the private sector. He states, “It changes the nature of the federal judiciary when judges are no longer drawn primarily from among the best lawyers in the practicing bar.” What unmitigated arrogance from our Justice Roberts who was pulling down a million per year in his private practice before being appointed as a justice. This from our venerable Chief Justice who parlayed his Republican appointed public service jobs in the U.S. DOJ and the Office of Whitehouse Counsel into his cushy private sector job?
And who do you think would make a better federal district judge? One who has been in the trenches of public service as municipal court judges, common pleas court judges, state appellate and Supreme Court judges, or a $300 per hour corporate counsel rainmaker from a large city law firm? I’d put my fate for justice in the hands of a long-term public servant judge before I’d stick my neck in the noose before some overpaid former lawyer that specializes in clogging the court system. I have seen loyal government public servant attorneys eat high-priced lawyers for lunch. So much so, that the next move is for these large law firms is to summon their “lobbying” arm to change the law for their client.
So go ahead Congress, give the whiner a raise, but don’t do it because you believe Justice Roberts’ unsubstantiated proclamation that private attorneys make better judges. And as for Justice Roberts’ assertion that “[i]nadequate compensation directly threatens the viability of life tenure,” I say, that is your choice to leave public service. We really do not want you in the judiciary for life anyway.
The first thought that came to my mind upon reading this gem was “this is what our greatest judicial minds believe is worthy as the sole topic of an annual report?” And to call it a “constitutional crisis”? No, a constitutional crisis I’m thinking would be an unlikely event like the U.S. Supreme Court halting the recounting of valid ballots in a presidential election. But that is just the thought of a common mind, not the thought of high intellectuals like the members on the Supreme Court.
I give the learned Justice the fact that judges pay has fallen behind the national average for wages. Welcome to public service. You are in the same position as all those non-thinking public lawyer bureaucratic drones that you diss in your annual report.
In the report, Justice Roberts states that federal judges are being increasingly drawn from among lawyers working in the public sector, rather than the private sector. He states, “It changes the nature of the federal judiciary when judges are no longer drawn primarily from among the best lawyers in the practicing bar.” What unmitigated arrogance from our Justice Roberts who was pulling down a million per year in his private practice before being appointed as a justice. This from our venerable Chief Justice who parlayed his Republican appointed public service jobs in the U.S. DOJ and the Office of Whitehouse Counsel into his cushy private sector job?
And who do you think would make a better federal district judge? One who has been in the trenches of public service as municipal court judges, common pleas court judges, state appellate and Supreme Court judges, or a $300 per hour corporate counsel rainmaker from a large city law firm? I’d put my fate for justice in the hands of a long-term public servant judge before I’d stick my neck in the noose before some overpaid former lawyer that specializes in clogging the court system. I have seen loyal government public servant attorneys eat high-priced lawyers for lunch. So much so, that the next move is for these large law firms is to summon their “lobbying” arm to change the law for their client.
So go ahead Congress, give the whiner a raise, but don’t do it because you believe Justice Roberts’ unsubstantiated proclamation that private attorneys make better judges. And as for Justice Roberts’ assertion that “[i]nadequate compensation directly threatens the viability of life tenure,” I say, that is your choice to leave public service. We really do not want you in the judiciary for life anyway.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Ohio Workers Dealt Blow by Ohio Supreme Court
Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) has a little pamphlet on its website that tells us that if we are injured on the job, we have a right to workers' compensation benefits. Ohio workers' compensation is an insurance policy that allows workers to receive prompt medical and wage benefits for work-related injuries and at the same time protect employers from financial ruin by preventing the injured employee from suing the employer. Implicit in the system is that no fault may be assessed to either the injured employee or to his or her employer.
However, if an employee is terminated from employment then later claims a job related injury is keeping him from finding other employment, an employer may raise what is known as "job abandonment", and worker's comp will not pay for lost wages. This defense is to protect employers from spurious claims from an employee that was terminated for cause and then later claims a work injury. Until this week, the firing of an injured employee for not following work rules that contributed to the employee's injuries was not grounds for denying wages to the injured employee.
In a seminal holding by the Ohio Supreme Court, and in a classic example for first-year law students that "bad facts make bad law", the court turned classic workers' comp law on its head. The case involved David M. Gross, an injured 16 year old who worked at a KFC in Dayton. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Gross voluntarily abandoned his job when he ignored repeated warnings not to boil water in the restaurant's Henny Penny gas pressure cooker to clean it. Therefore, although employed at the time of his injury, his "voluntary abandonment" of his job by not following workplace rules meant that he no longer had a job when he was injured.
The 16 year old was working at the Dayton-area KFC on Nov. 26, 2003, when boiling water spewed from a pressure cooker and caused third-degree burns around his hip and groin and second-degree burns on his arms, torso and back. Two co-workers were also burned. The company investigated the claim after the injury and found that Gross had ignored warnings in the employee handbook and on the cooker as well as repeated warnings by two co-workers and a supervisor. The company fired him in February 2004 and his wage benefits were canceled.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, upheld the termination of wage benefits. The Court considered Gross' argument that he was entitled to temporary disability benefits because the workers' compensation system, as the Ohio Supreme Court has previously held, was designed "to remove negligence and fault - by either employee or employer - from the workplace injury equation." He further argued that his firing stems from a negligent act on his part and that by allowing that act to bar temporary total disability compensation, the court would reinsert negligence into the equation. The high court majority wrote that although Gross' argument is "thought-provoking," it nevertheless inexplicably concluded that "Gross willfully ignored repeated warnings not to engage in the proscribed conduct, yet still wishes to ascribe his behavior to simple negligence or inadvertence." The court thereafter refused to address this argument finding that to do so would "validate [his] categorization" of negligence.
In the dissent, Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton questioned the majority's decision to ascribe Gross' conduct as justification for refusing to pay temporary total disability benefits, judiciously expressing that "our workers' compensation laws do not permit the introduction of fault." Stratton points to previous Ohio Supreme Court case law that holds that if an employee's departure from the workplace is "causally related to his injury" it is not voluntary and should not preclude the employee's eligibility for wage compensation. Justice Stratton argued that although KFC may have been justified in firing Gross for his misconduct, Gross still should receive temporary total disability benefits.
On the concept of the voluntary abandonment defense, Stratton points out that under previous case law, "an employer may argue that a claimant has voluntarily abandoned his former position of employment only if the worker was medically capable of doing the job at the time the abandonment occurred…but if the claimant leaves the job because he can no longer perform his duties as a result of an industrial injury, the separation is involuntary." Noting that "Gross was a teenager at the time of the accident and, most likely, he was immature and naïve," Stratton wrote, "he suffered serious injuries as a consequence of his actions." The "purpose behind workers' compensation is to protect those who suffer work-related injuries regardless of their own negligence or fault."
With this ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court has upset the balance between injured workers and their employers. Moreover, ascribing fault to a 16 year old who cannot legally drive without parental approval, vote, drink alcohol, or join the military is unconscionable and removes any responsibility from the employer who knew young Mr. Gross had a problem following direction yet, rather then fire him before his injury, put him back on fryer-cleaning duties. Legislative action is needed now to correct this injustice to all Ohio workers that has been committed by this overly business-friendly Supreme Court that has ignored years of legal precedence to reach this result.
However, if an employee is terminated from employment then later claims a job related injury is keeping him from finding other employment, an employer may raise what is known as "job abandonment", and worker's comp will not pay for lost wages. This defense is to protect employers from spurious claims from an employee that was terminated for cause and then later claims a work injury. Until this week, the firing of an injured employee for not following work rules that contributed to the employee's injuries was not grounds for denying wages to the injured employee.
In a seminal holding by the Ohio Supreme Court, and in a classic example for first-year law students that "bad facts make bad law", the court turned classic workers' comp law on its head. The case involved David M. Gross, an injured 16 year old who worked at a KFC in Dayton. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Gross voluntarily abandoned his job when he ignored repeated warnings not to boil water in the restaurant's Henny Penny gas pressure cooker to clean it. Therefore, although employed at the time of his injury, his "voluntary abandonment" of his job by not following workplace rules meant that he no longer had a job when he was injured.
The 16 year old was working at the Dayton-area KFC on Nov. 26, 2003, when boiling water spewed from a pressure cooker and caused third-degree burns around his hip and groin and second-degree burns on his arms, torso and back. Two co-workers were also burned. The company investigated the claim after the injury and found that Gross had ignored warnings in the employee handbook and on the cooker as well as repeated warnings by two co-workers and a supervisor. The company fired him in February 2004 and his wage benefits were canceled.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, upheld the termination of wage benefits. The Court considered Gross' argument that he was entitled to temporary disability benefits because the workers' compensation system, as the Ohio Supreme Court has previously held, was designed "to remove negligence and fault - by either employee or employer - from the workplace injury equation." He further argued that his firing stems from a negligent act on his part and that by allowing that act to bar temporary total disability compensation, the court would reinsert negligence into the equation. The high court majority wrote that although Gross' argument is "thought-provoking," it nevertheless inexplicably concluded that "Gross willfully ignored repeated warnings not to engage in the proscribed conduct, yet still wishes to ascribe his behavior to simple negligence or inadvertence." The court thereafter refused to address this argument finding that to do so would "validate [his] categorization" of negligence.
In the dissent, Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton questioned the majority's decision to ascribe Gross' conduct as justification for refusing to pay temporary total disability benefits, judiciously expressing that "our workers' compensation laws do not permit the introduction of fault." Stratton points to previous Ohio Supreme Court case law that holds that if an employee's departure from the workplace is "causally related to his injury" it is not voluntary and should not preclude the employee's eligibility for wage compensation. Justice Stratton argued that although KFC may have been justified in firing Gross for his misconduct, Gross still should receive temporary total disability benefits.
On the concept of the voluntary abandonment defense, Stratton points out that under previous case law, "an employer may argue that a claimant has voluntarily abandoned his former position of employment only if the worker was medically capable of doing the job at the time the abandonment occurred…but if the claimant leaves the job because he can no longer perform his duties as a result of an industrial injury, the separation is involuntary." Noting that "Gross was a teenager at the time of the accident and, most likely, he was immature and naïve," Stratton wrote, "he suffered serious injuries as a consequence of his actions." The "purpose behind workers' compensation is to protect those who suffer work-related injuries regardless of their own negligence or fault."
With this ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court has upset the balance between injured workers and their employers. Moreover, ascribing fault to a 16 year old who cannot legally drive without parental approval, vote, drink alcohol, or join the military is unconscionable and removes any responsibility from the employer who knew young Mr. Gross had a problem following direction yet, rather then fire him before his injury, put him back on fryer-cleaning duties. Legislative action is needed now to correct this injustice to all Ohio workers that has been committed by this overly business-friendly Supreme Court that has ignored years of legal precedence to reach this result.
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