Opt-Out Plans - Workers' Comp

Billy Doyle Walker loved working in the sky. He used to say he could see forever, perched high up communications towers as he applied fresh paint.

More On This Investigation

Justin Volz/for ProPublica

This story was reported in partnership between NPR News Investigation's Howard Berkes andMichael Grabell of ProPublica, an investigative journalism organization. View more of this investigation on ProPublica's website:

Inside Corporate America's Plan to Ditch Workers' Comp 
One Texas lawyer is helping companies opt out of workers' compensation and write their own rules. What does it mean for injured workers?

Price Check: How Companies Value Body PartsBenefits for the same body part can differ dramatically depending on whom you work for. Look up compensation offered by companies like Costco, Home Depot and Wal-Mart in Texas.

Three years ago, working halfway up a 300-foot steel tower at the LBJ Ranch, the panoramic view included the rolling green hills and meadows of the Texas Hill Country. The tower was used by former President Lyndon B. Johnson to communicate with the White House.

Walker's wife, Krystle Meloy, was 23 then. She was home at the couple's apartment in New Braunfels, Texas, with their 4-month-old daughter, Kaylee, when several of Walker's co-workers unexpectedly knocked at the door.

"They just walked in very silent," Meloy recalls, tears forming in her eyes. "They said Billy fell and he's on his way to the morgue. And I said, 'What?'... I just fell. And we all just started crying."

What happened next to Meloy and Kaylee is indicative of an emerging trend in how workers and their families are compensated following workplace injuries or deaths. Nearly 1.5 million workers in Texas and Oklahoma do not receive state-mandated benefits under heavily regulated workers' compensation and are dependent instead on alternative, largely unregulated benefits plans controlled by employers.

State laws in both Oklahoma and Texas allow employers to opt out of workers' compensation and develop their own workplace injury plans. Those plans generally cover fewer injuries, cut off benefits payments sooner, control access to doctors and even impose mandatory settlements, according to an NPR and ProPublica investigation. In Oklahoma, we found that most plans blatantly violate the law, yet regulators say they are powerless to respond.

Read Whole Article Here

Contact Neil O'Toole and John Sbarbaro

at the Law Office of O'Toole & Sbarbaro, P.C.

Phone: 303-595-4777

Located in the Denver Metro area.

226 West 12th Avenue Denver, Colorado 80204

Disclaimer 

Any content of this blog is intended for informational purposes only.It is not intended to solicit business, provide legal advice from The Law Office of O'Toole & Sbarbaro, P.C. and does not serve as a medium for an attorney-client relationship. Therefore, The Law Office of O'Toole & Sbarbaro, P.C. is not responsible for the information on this blog which may not apply to every reader. Always seek professional counsel if you have any legal matters. Contents within the blog of The Law Office of O'Toole & Sbarbaro, P.C., logos and other related media are protected by the copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions.

Privacy Policy