You don't need to be a genius, or a nine year old, to know something is wrong when you're having fits of coughing which leave you unable to breath, burst the blood vessels in your eyes making them completely red, and make doing just about anything painful. Let me emphasize the point. Imagine that everytime you exhaled it was joined by three or four uncontrollable powerful and painful coughs. Because THAT is exactly what my Father had at the beginning.

"Okay, he's sick. What's wrong with him."
My Father operated a large vacuum former, it would heat a sheet of plastic then a vacuum would would suck the softened plastic into the contours of a mold. When the plastic sheet was heated it would give off fumes, these fumes contained (and still do) toxic chemicals which range from carcinogens to nerve agents. The dosage was low but it built up and, after twenty years of work, the effects finally made themselves known. Lung damage, and the resulting scar tissue have left him with continued breathing problems, and in the past few years he's formed a heart condition related to his low oxygen in-take and chemical exposure.

Now, to the point of this whole article. STATE COMPENSATION INSURANCE FUND. My Father's ailment was a work injury, he didn't smoke, and he didn't have asthma. State Fund was my Grandfather's Worker's Comp. carrier. And at first, State Fund paid out the proper disability benefits.

But as more and more doctor's reports came in which confirmed that my Father was really injured. And injured in such a way that State Fund was going to have to pay LARGE amounts, and for quite a while. That's when State Fund, a STATE AGENCY (part of the State Gov-ern-ment), started to play dirty, read illegal. First, just after receiving a report from the Treating Physician which basically said, "Yes, he's injured. You don't need to keep sending him to other doctors. Instead, figure out how much you're gonna pay him for his iunjury and likely 20 year loss of life span." Well, five days after reading that, what else would a successful State Agency do but turn off his benefits and claim he's not injured. This was in 1991, after paying nearly two year of benefits.

Time goes by and it's now 1997, wow (in)justice move fast. My Father's Worker's Comp. case goes to trial and, thanks to Judge Rafael "State Fund=Pay Check" Vivero, he's found not to be injured. My, it's awful kind of State Fund not to ask for any of their disabilty payments back. Anyways, my Father appeals Judge Patsy's decision.

It's in State Fund's response to my Father's appeal that they put their head on the chopping block. How so? Oh, only by commiting fraud and obstruction of justice. Here's more details.

The next point of this article is how those who hold the keys to justice have given a qualified "thumbs-up and a pat on the back" to any crimes State Fund, a fellow member of the State Government, has or may commit.

Everybody in State Government that should have been told of State Fund's crimes, was told. And guess what their response was, they all basically put their heads in the sand and hoped we'd go way.

There was a time for about two years, that the Los Angeles District Attorney's Fraud Unit was going gung ho. They investigated, they seized State Fund's documents, they even impaneled a Grand Jury. All was well, they were even getting ready to arrest Gustavo San Jose, the State Fund lawyer who signed their pack-of-lies. But then the Fraud Unit got some personnel changes. And BANG, the charges were dropped. By the way, the DA's Fraud Unit violated an Appellate Order when they stopped pursuing State Fund.

During this same two year period(2000-2002) my father was able to get, what we mistook for, a good attorney. Yolanda Marsili was going to reopen the Worker's Comp. part of the case, as well as file a civil suit. She was outraged at the Fraud Unit when they dropped the case, apparently so outraged that she forgot about that whole Lawyer-Client Privilege thing, and sent a reporter for the L.A. Times a copy of my Father's file.

With the DA taken care of, that left State Fund's "Wand-of-Influence" to tap Yolanda Marsili on the head. Just a few months after the DA dropped the case, Marsili illegally drops my Father case. Since she didn't give any reason why she dropped him, I'm forced to pick one of the these two scenarios. 1. She received one of her kid's ears in the mail. or 2. Her children suddenly had VERY large college funds.

State Fund's head still lays on the chopping block. Waiting for the day that someone, perhaps the Feds, sees that justice is carried out and that there is REAL Worker's Comp. reform. I hope against hope that my Father will see and benefit when State Fund is held accountable. But one thing's for sure, I'm young, I'll see that the axe falls.

In closing, it's interesting to note that the lawyer who dismissed the DA's charges, Lauren Weis, has since become a Judge. In addition, Kristie Hutchinson who was my Father's greatest ally at the DA's office, now works at a law firm that defends employers from those pesky injured workers and is "well-versed in aggressive techniques which lead to 'take nothings' at trial."