A World of Hurt For Injured Workers, a Costly Legal Swamp

By N. R. KLEINFIELD and STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The NY Times

The hurt workers wait on benches at the Queens office of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. People like Hopeton Watkis, 64, a laborer, who lost two teeth when he fell and hit a wheelbarrow.  Or Rajcoomar Jagan, 50, a construction worker, who injured a leg falling off a scaffold.

Or Vicki Marquez, 32, a retail sales associate, who hurt her elbow hauling clothes.

They come to the board seeking authorization for medical treatment and replacement wages-in short, a quick and fair resolution from a system set up to replace fractious court fights between employers and employees.

What they find instead is a subbasement of the legal world, a $5.5 billion-a-year state-run bureaucracy that, an examination by The New York Times found, struggles to treat workers with due speed, protect employers from fraud or mute tensions in the workplace.

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