Hooray for Lee Schoenbeck, crusader against corporate fascism!
Jonathan Ellis reported last weekend that insurance companies are trying to limit the ability of injured workers to sue insurers for lying and hiding information. The intent is to quash “bad faith” lawsuits that allow injured workers to collect punitive damages that make many workers compensation cases worth lawyering up for.
Lawyer Lee Schoenbeck says insurance companies are abusing workers rights:
Lee Schoenbeck, a Watertown lawyer and longtime state lawmaker, said the state has a “terrible problem” now with the way employees are getting abused and mistreated by insurance companies in work comp cases. To further limit employee rights, he said, would be a mistake.
Schoenbeck said he represents a retired police officer who was hit head on while driving for a job. The accident caused severe injuries, but every six months the insurance company simply stops paying. Often, he said, the insurance companies harass employees until the employees get fed up and settle for less money than they were entitled to.
“This isn’t how the system is supposed to work, and everybody ought to be embarrassed,” he said [Jonathan Ellis, “Injured South Dakota Workers Could Lose Rights, Lawyers Warn,” that Sioux Falls paper, updated 2017.06.11].
That’s our guy Lee, standing up for the working class! Now if we can just get him to call the insurers pond scum….
The South Dakota Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council meets Monday, June 19 at 9 a.m. in Pierre. They were supposed to take up the insurers’ anti-worker proposal Monday, but Ellis reports the insurers have asked to delay discussion of their proposal until August.
Don’t worry, Mr. Wronged Police Officer. There are plenty of good liberal personal injury lawyers in Watertown capable of defending you before the insurer biased South Dakota Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council.
Well, hurrah for Lee Schoenbeck. I wish more lawyers would step up and speak out. Insurance companies have been victimizing the injured, the ill and the elderly for decades. What South Dakota needs is more regulation of insurance companies!!
Remember, Caitlin, Schoenbeck is not exactly doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He’s representing a client, but at least he’s speaking out.
And Cory, I wouldn’t exactly call Schoenbeck a hero of Labor. He’s represented SD for years in Pierre and what did he do for Worker’s Rights during all that time.
He’s another one that is scared of transgenders, and probably immigrants also.
Billie Sutton is the true hero of Labor and LBGT Rights.
Where I live in MN, a hero of Labor is one who doesn’t cross the line at a worker’s Strike, a representative that fights tirelessly for safe working conditions and living wages. A hero of Labor fights for ALL workers, like the rights for LGBTQs and minority working immigrants. :)
In SD, I guess that’s too much to ask for. :(