‘Meatball Justice’ Creates World of Hurt for NY Workers’ Comp Claimants

A once-groundbreaking system of helping injured New York workers obtain treatment and reasonable compensation from their employers is now a struggling $5.5-billion-a-year state-run "subbasement of the legal world" in which delay and questionable results reportedly are commonplace.

At some hearings of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board, judges looked on as lawyers chatted on cell phones and read the newspaper during testimony, reports the New York Times in a magazine-length article resulting from an 18-month investigation. Expert witnesses, the newspaper writes, "seemed biased to the point of caricature."

Comparing the state's trial court to its workers' comp system, "is like comparing a hospital to a MASH unit,” insurance company attorney Anthony Pizza tells the newspaper. “A lot of it is meatball justice.”

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