As of December 2009 Congress passed new laws prohibiting payment of past due social security disability insurance benefits (“DIB”) & supplemental security income (“SSI”) benefits to any person who is (1) incarcerated; (2) a “fleeing felon”; &/or even (3) a probation or parole violator.  Under the new law ALL past due benefits, or “backpay” as it is called, will be withheld from an otherwise entitled claimant, even for months in which the individual is NOT incarcerated, a fleeing felon, or parole violator, until he or she is released from incarceration or otherwise rectifies his or her situation as a fleeing felon or parole or probation violator.

Prior law allowed payment of backpay or benefits for any months an individual was not incarcerated or otherwise in one of the non-pay categories.

Please note that payment of past-due benefits is just delayed, not altogether denied.  Thus when an individual is no longer in one of the three above-described catagories–benefits will then be paid.  The lesson to be learned here is that any applicant for social security disability benefits should identify and rectify any outstanding legal and criminal issues he or she may have hopefully before or shortly after filing his or her claim for disability benefits, or risk substantial delays in receiving past-due and monthly benefits if awarded at the end or during the long appeal process.

Don’t make the assumption that social security will not identify through its own recources any of the above impediments and simply pay out benefits in your case.  Our experience has been that if one has a warrant outstanding for his or her arrest or is or has been in violation of his or her probation &/or parole, no matter how old or even in a far away state, social security will likely identify this and place you in a non-pay status.

Tulsa attorney, Robert V. Seacat, obtains an award from an Okmulgee County jury in the amount of $94,528.00 on behalf of an injured worker wrongfully terminated from his warehouse job for hiring a worker’s compensation attorney and filing a claim with the Worker’s Compensation Court.  The worker had been surgically treated for a ruptured ankle ligament sustained on the job.  After being released by his doctor to return to full duty, the worker reported to his $8.00 per hour job, and was fired within minutes.  The warehouse gave different and inconsistent reasons for the termination throughout the litigation and trial.  The verdict included compensation for the worker’s lost wages, his mental anguish and punitive damages.    

Tulsa attorney obtains $69,360.00 permanent partial disability award from the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Court for a 45-year-old Sand Springs production line operator.  This case combined both a rotator cuff tear shoulder injury with impingement syndrome and arthroscopic surgery as well as a cervical spine neck injury with a one-level fusion with instrumentation.  The shoulder cuff tear injury occurred over time on a cumulative trauma basis from this worker’s ongoing production work activity.  Shoulder surgery was accomplished to avoid this claimant developing a “frozen shoulder”.  The neck injury was from the claimant sustaining a slip-and-fall near the production line thereby causing a herniated or ruptured intervertebral cervical disc in her neck.  The one level cervical spine discectomy and fusion surgery was designed to correct the herniated disc caused by the fall thereby reducing the risk of the claimant developing a spinal cord injury or other nerve damage, including neuropathy.  Both surgeries were successful in relieving claimant’s symptoms and pain.

The Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Court order also awarded this injured worker job or vocational retraining and rehabilitation as well as future continuing and lifetime medical treatment and prescription medication.

Attached is the court’s order-determining-compensability-and-awarding-permanent-partial-disability-benefits1

The claimant in this case was represented by ASH/LAW attorney Scott Ash.

54-year-old Tulsa area cement mixer driver receives $163,759.00 award from the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Court for aggravation of his pre-existing cervical spine injury.

The claimant in this case had sustained 2 prior injuries to his neck while working for a previous concrete company as a cement truck driver, for which he received surgery as well as temporary total disability (TTD) and permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits.  Claimant ultimately settled these two pre-existing workers’ compensation cases in 2002.  Following this settlement claimant returned to work as a cement truck driver and sustained his current injury from carrying concrete chutes and riding in his cement mixing truck, both of which aggravated his previous neck injury to the point where he could no longer work as a driver and required repeat surgery for his recurrent ruptured disc.

Following trial a workers’ compensation judge awarded claimant $163,759.00 in monetary benefits.  Of this claimant received $115,975.01 in temporary total disability (TTD) benefits and $47,784.00 in permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits.  The PPD award was over and above the amount previously paid to claimant as a result of the cervical spine injury and surgery he sustained in the late 90s and was paid to him as a result of his current herniated disc injury and resulting neck fusion surgery.  In addition to the monetary benefits described above the Judge also awarded claimant job retraining to place him in a light-duty position as well as future medical treatment all of which to be paid for by claimant’s employer &/or its insurance company.

Attached is the order-determining-compensability-and-awarding-temporary-total-and-permanent-partial-disability-benefits3

The claimant in this case was represented by attorney Scott Ash.

A forty-eight-year-old Okmulgee County, Oklahoma police officer sustained a disc injury to his low back or lumbar spine after falling on his job.  This worker had unfortunately sustained a previous work-related lumbar spine injury while working as a police officer for which he had a lumbar spine fusion surgery for a herniated disc and resulting spinal cord damage, with a subsequent surgery for orthopedic hardware removal.  This previous on-the-job injury occurred some 4 years prior to his current injury, and this claimant received a permanent partial disability settlement for this prior workers’ compensation injury claim.  This claimant’s current injury was to the L4-L5 disc, which would be the level directly above the L5-S1 level which was operated on years prior.  In the current case claimant had a repeat surgery on the L4-L5 disc, which was herniated or ruptured as well.

In this case claimant exercised his legal right and chose his own surgeon, who had done his previous lumbar spine fusion, to treat him and perform his most recent laminectomy and fusion surgery.  Following his healing period claimant settled his case before the workers’ compensation court for $60,000 representing permanent partial disability benefits.  This was over-and-above the amount he received for his prior spinal cord injury and back surgery four (4) years prior.  Claimant also received $44,840.98 in temporary total disability benefits (TTD) all paid during his healing period.

Attached is the 60000-joint-petition-settlement-agreement

The claimant was represented in this workers’ compensation case by attorney Scott Ash.