It is a brilliant and powerful montage, one in which a female voice sings in the background, “I am falling half an acre.” The images depict a string of events in which people uncharacteristically go out of their way to do the right thing for their fellow human kind.
“Liberty Mutual considers responsibility a core value for its brand, employees and customers, and we created the advertising campaign and online community as a forum for discussing a topic that resonates with our customers and organization,” said Paul Alexander, Liberty Mutual Group Senior Vice President, Communications, as the company launched a second phase of the popular advertisement themes in 2009.
While it is a great ad campaign, it loses its vital steam when juxtaposed against the background of the Linda Vela case. Linda Vela was convicted of 12 counts of insurance fraud on February 8, including three counts of Presenting a False Statement concerning payments from an insurance policy that she received from Liberty Mutual Insurance, through which Ms. Vela had a long-term disability policy.
In August of 2003 Vela, according to a press release from the Yolo County District attorney, a 25-year veteran employee of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, went out on disability and was diagnosed with bi-lateral carpal tunnel syndrome. She had surgery on her right wrist in June of 2004 which, by all objective signs, was successful. Vela, however, complained that she was still in pain after the surgery and that she could not go back to work despite the surgeon’s recommendation that she could return to work.
Based on Ms. Vela’s stated complaints of pain, and her reported inability to use her hands, her physician kept her off work as “totally disabled.”
Despite the image that Liberty Mutual portrays, it is the 82nd company on the Fortune 500 list in 2011, with an annual revenue of more than $33 billion in 2011.
The real story of the Linda Vela trial was how Liberty Mutual and the Yolo County DA’s office used their immense resources and power to squash the small and vulnerable Ms. Vela like a bug.
As Public Defender Ron Johnson would argue in his closing statement, the victim in this case worked for the Sacramento Bee for 25 years, she worked hard, she was great employee, but when she went out on leave because the pressure to perform in this job became too great and she began to break down physically, the Sacramento Bee began pointing the fingers of fraud.
But it was not fraud, and even the DA acknowledges that they were not claiming Ms. Vela was not hurt and they were not claiming that she was not entitled to some disability. They were only claiming that she was untruthful in her representations to the insurance doctors, that she could have worked in some capacity, and that she was entitled to as much compensation as she got.
The real story is how they went about doing this – and along the way they found a willing accomplice in the Yolo County DA’s office fraud team, and eventually they managed to convince a Yolo County jury.
Linda Vela’s colleagues describe her last months at the Sacramento Bee as horrific. Under immense pressure due to cutbacks, Linda Vela pressed on, working long and hard hours to ensure that her group got their bonuses. But in doing so, they could hear her at times literally screaming and crying in pain as she refused to pause.
When she finally had as much as she could take, she went to the doctor. And Dr. Chan performed surgery on the carpel tunnel, but as he testified, there were additional recommendations that he made in terms of treating both the physical pain and the depression that accompanied it that neither the company nor the insurance companies doctors followed, and so Linda Vela never improved.
Instead of treating her, Liberty Mutual, the company that was supposed to stand for doing the right thing and being responsible, hired investigators to spy on Linda Vela. They also sent her to a string of insurance company doctors. Each time she visited the doctors, she was charged with a felony for insurance fraud.
These are predators in their own way. Doctors like Dr. Charles Xeller, who makes nearly half a million a year on such cases but who was so bad even the DA had to admit he probably would not want his sister marrying him.
This is the type of person that Liberty Mutual sent, not to get Linda Vela help and find treatments for her that Dr. Chan had recommended, but instead to prove that Linda Vela was not really sick at all.
In a case of fraud where the defendant is said to have been lying, it is ironic that the one person shown to be lying was not the defendant but rather the insurance doctor.
It turned out, as even the prosecutor admitted, that Dr. Xeller had a long track record of malpractice suits – at least 15 of them.
He had been charged with an act of domestic violence, and during cross-examination Deputy Public Defender Ron Johnson showed him documentation that he had reached a $1 million settlement in a civil matter in which he was accused of domestic violence.
You do not settle cases for $1 million as a way to hush up the plaintiff. This is not make-the-lawsuit-go-away money. This is real money, because he really did what he was accused of.
But it is more than that. According to DPD Ron Johnson, Dr. Xeller was sanctioned for not filing reports on time. This is not a small factor, as he was paid off by the insurance companies while causing people to go without benefits.
During the trial he testified to a full examination he says he gave Ms. Vela.
But he was lying. Instead of testifying about his examination, he was merely reading from another doctor’s report, and he simply walked in, grabbed Ms. Vela’s hand and pulled it back – when she screamed out in pain, he left and that was the extent of his investigation.
“[Dr. Xeller] came over to me, pulled my fingers back hard and I pulled away,” Ms. Vela told the Vanguard. “He said just a minute I’ll be right back – he never came back.”
This is indicative of the caliber of insurance doctors sent by Liberty Mutual, not to treat Ms. Vela, but rather to show that she was lying.
But while Liberty Mutual could hire $500,000 attorneys, they could not prosecute a felony fraud case by themselves. They needed a partner, but Sacramento’s district attorney, where the Sacramento Bee was based and most of the doctors’ visits occurred, was not interested in turning this into a criminal investigation.
Enter Dan Stroski, an investigator for the Yolo County District Attorney’s office.
In November of 2010, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors voted to authorize the District Attorney’s Office to accept grant funding from the California Department of Insurance for three 2010-11 grants in the amounts of $230,000 from the Workers’ Compensation grant, $38,942 from the Life and Annuity grant and $132,796 from the Automobile Insurance Fraud grant.
There will be no general fund impact, the staff report reads. According to the report, “These are continuing programs and funding will cover the associated costs.”
The report continues, “The Workers’ Compensation grant finances a full-time Lieutenant assigned 100% and a part-time Deputy District Attorney assigned 45% to the project, the Automobile Insurance Fraud grant finances a full-time Investigator assigned 100% and The Life and Annuity grant finances an hourly Extra Help Investigator. We do not anticipate any need for local funding as a result of these programs.”
The DA receives $400,000 to hire a part-time Deputy DA and two full-time investigators, including Lt. Dan Stroski.
Back in September 2010, Dan Stroski discussed the grants and his work.
According to him, since 1994 the county has received grant money for their fraud prevention program.
“It’s based on performance,” said Lt. Dan Stroski, an investigator with the DA’s office and who heads up the program, a few years back. “The Fraud Assessment Commission likes the job we are doing.”
According to past reports, the DA’s insurance fraud department has the responsibility, among other things, of investigating and prosecuting employees “who make fraudulent misrepresentations to obtain or enhance insurance benefits they are otherwise not entitled to receive.”
“The District Attorney’s Office remains absolutely committed to protecting the community from the damaging effects of workers’ compensation insurance fraud,” said District Attorney Jeff Reisig in a release back in 2007. “Our success in obtaining this grant validates the hard work we have been doing for many years.”
These statements make it clear receiving these grants is based on performance.
Back in July of 2011, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced nearly $32 million in grants to District Attorneys across the state to assist them with the investigation and prosecution of workers’ compensation insurance fraud.
“Workers’ compensation insurance fraud is a costly problem in California,” said Commissioner Dave Jones in a press release. “As the economy struggles to recover, fraud of this type creates an additional strain on the system. We must protect those injured workers who need care and compensation so they can return to work in a timely manner and bring to justice those who seek to cheat the system.”
But this money is not automatic.
According to their press release, “The grant funding is the result of assessments on California employers that are determined annually by the Fraud Assessment Commission. Counties submit applications to the Department, which convenes the Workers’ Compensation Grant Review Panel who then reviews and makes grant funding recommendations based on multiple criteria including previous year performance.”
“The panel then forwards a recommendation to the Insurance Commissioner who either accepts or amends the panel’s recommendation. Once completed, the Commissioner’s recommendation is submitted to the Fraud Assessment Commission for their advice and consent.”
Yolo County got a worker’s comp grant almost immediately following the commencement of the investigation into Linda Vela. Most recently in 2011, Yolo County received a $245,960 grant from the state to prosecute worker’s comp fraud cases.
The grant provisions contain use-it or lose-it incentives. The rules allow for the “carry-over” of funds into “a subsequent funding cycle [to] carry-over” into the next funding cycle. These “unused funds” cannot exceed “twenty-five percent (25%) of the total funding award.” To carry money over, the agency must “specify” and “justify” in a written plan to the commission “how those funds will be spent.”
In their annual reporting audit they must include an accounting of the number of investigations initiated related to disability insurance fraud, the number of arrests, prosecutions, convictions and the dollar savings realized as a result of disability insurance fraud case prosecutions.
In other words, the district attorney’s office needs to be able to show that it is making use of the funding with results – cash for convictions.
The California Department of Insurance, in their 2010 Annual Report of 2010, lists by county the number of “Reported Suspected Fraudulent Claims 2008, 2009 and 2010.” The report lists by name all of those arrested for fraud and the amount of money received in Assets Frozen, Restitution, and Criminal Fines.
In seems that the mighty Liberty Mutual, the Yolo DA, and the Department of Insurance have all teamed up to squash Linda Vela like the proverbial bug that they must see her.
In the original Star Trek, they depict a small and furry critter known as the Tribble. Despite their cute appearance and pleasing sound, the Tribbles are a problem, as they breed at a ridiculous rate and eat large stocks of grain.
The Tribble was revisited in the later series and there was an exchange between the character Worf, a Klingon – a proud warrior race who told his colleagues that the Tribble was once “considered motal enemies of the Klingon Empire.”
“This?” a character said, holding up the cute creature. “A mortal enemy of the Empire?”
“They were an ecological menace, a plague to be wiped out,” Worf responded.
He added, “Hundreds of warriors were sent to track them down throughout the galaxy. An armada obliterated the Tribbles’ homeworld. By the end of the twenty third century they had been eradicated.”
“Another glorious chapter of Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the great Tribble hunt?” the colleague asked mockingly.
Linda Vela was a 25-year employee of the Sacramento Bee who made $40,000 a year. This is the woman that the DA admitted was in pain and entitled to some disability.
However, when the jury convicted her of all 12 charges, not only did the DA succeed in doing the insurance company’s dirty work, they sent out a press release telling the world about their great conquest.
In ten years, when Steve Mount is retired, perhaps he will still tell tales about how he and DA Investigator Dan Stroski got the conviction and brought this dangerous criminal to justice.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David: Unfortunately, the “win at all cost” attitude by Steve Mount and the DA’s office seems to often overtake what is logical and just.
See Robert H. Jackson, Attorney General of the United States, comments:
“The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen’s friends interviewed. The prosecutor can order arrests, present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial. He may dismiss the case before trial, in which case the defense never has a chance to be heard. Or he may go on with a public trial. If he obtains a conviction, the prosecutor can still make recommendations as to sentence, as to whether the prisoner should get probation or a suspended sentence, and after he is put away, as to whether he is a fit subject for parole. While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.”
I hope we don’t have the “worst” scenario.
So was the jury wrong?
This is nothing but an emotional, unsubstantiated, and innuendo filled rehash of this case. It does not change the fact that Ms. Vela did not attempt to try and work out a reasonable accommodation with her employer, so that she could continue to work in some capacity. She merely decided for herself that she could no longer work, and wanted her employer to pay her for not working. I am not prepared to conclude, on this fact pattern presented which is highly and inexcusably biased in favor of the defense, the jury of Ms. Vela’s peers got it wrong. A 1 hour (or however long it was) interview at a Denny’s restaurant with Ms. Vela, giving her the opportunity to play to a sympathetic audience, an audience out to vilify the DA at all costs, is not evidence, nor is it in the least convincing.
I know a fair amount about disability law. I used to run a support group for those who were disabled, and regularly gave legal advice on workplace disability law. When a person becomes disabled in the workplace, it is their responsibility to request a reasonable accommodation for their disability. The employer cannot read the person’s mind as to what it is the disabled person wants or needs. They cannot know how much pain the disabled person is in, or what type of reasonable accommodation would be required. By law, the employer must make reasonable accommodation to keep that person working. From Ms. Vela’s case, it appears typing was a large part of her work. She could have easily asked for special computer software that would type what she said into a microphone attached to earphones (Dragon Naturally Speaking). If Ms. Vela was becoming depressed bc of the pain problem, she needed to seek out help to improve her condition from her own doctor. There are many medications for depression on the market these days; as well as many very effective pain killers. Bottom line is that this woman did nothing to help herself other that to arbitrarily decide she could not return to work; and she wanted to get paid for not returning to work. Unfortunately her conduct hurts truly disabled people who do try and work out reasonable accommodations.
From [url]http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/accommodation.html#requesting[/url]
[quote]REQUESTING REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
How must an individual request a reasonable accommodation?
When an individual decides to request accommodation, the individual or his/her representative must let the employer know that s/he needs an adjustment or change at work for a reason related to a medical condition. To request accommodation, an individual may use “plain English” and need not mention the ADA or use the phrase “reasonable accommodation.”(19)
Example A: An employee tells her supervisor, “I’m having trouble getting to work at my scheduled starting time because of medical treatments I’m undergoing.” This is a request for a reasonable accommodation.
Example B: An employee tells his supervisor, “I need six weeks off to get treatment for a back problem.” This is a request for a reasonable accommodation.
Example C: A new employee, who uses a wheelchair, informs the employer that her wheelchair cannot fit under the desk in her office. This is a request for reasonable accommodation.
Example D: An employee tells his supervisor that he would like a new chair because his present one is uncomfortable. Although this is a request for a change at work, his statement is insufficient to put the employer on notice that he is requesting reasonable accommodation. He does not link his need for the new chair with a medical condition.
While an individual with a disability may request a change due to a medical condition, this request does not necessarily mean that the employer is required to provide the change. A request for reasonable accommodation is the first step in an informal, interactive process between the individual and the employer. In some instances, before addressing the merits of the accommodation request, the employer needs to determine if the individual’s medical condition meets the ADA definition of “disability,”(20) a prerequisite for the individual to be entitled to a reasonable accommodation.[/quote]
[quote]There are a number of possible reasonable accommodations that an employer may have to provide in connection with modifications to the work environment or adjustments in how and when a job is performed. These include:
making existing facilities accessible;
job restructuring;
part-time or modified work schedules;
acquiring or modifying equipment;
changing tests, training materials, or policies;
providing qualified readers or interpreters; and
reassignment to a vacant position.(7)
A modification or adjustment is “reasonable” if it “seems reasonable on its face, i.e., ordinarily or in the run of cases;”(8) this means it is “reasonable” if it appears to be “feasible” or “plausible.”(9)An accommodation also must be effective in meeting the needs of the individual.(10) [/quote]
[quote]an individual with a disability should request a reasonable accommodation when s/he knows that there is a workplace barrier that is preventing him/her, due to a disability, from effectively competing for a position, performing a job, or gaining equal access to a benefit of employment.(23) As a practical matter, it may be in an employee’s interest to request a reasonable accommodation before performance suffers or conduct problems occur.[/quote]
ERM, excellent, as usual…
[quote]ERM, excellent, as usual…[/quote]
The coverage of this case particularly bothers me – bc I know how hard fought ADA rights are. Situations like Ms. Vela give the disabled a bad name, and make it that much harder for the truly disabled to get the reasonable accommodations they need… and there are employers out there who can make it very difficult…
What the…?
Didn’t we just go through this story?
Did Ms. Vela’s defense come up with some new evidence that suggests that she might be innocent of the many, varied crimes of which she just has been found guilty in a fair trial? I mean, it’s a sad story all around, but….
Her only complaint at this point is that there might be lots of folks out there who haven’t been caught for the same fraudulent crimes Ms. Vela committed–and may well get away with it for years to come.
The best I can see from the second installment of this story is that law enforcement did its job, the big corporation did its job, the legal system did its job.
All parties are involved in protecting the rights and property of all citizens who manage and invest in companies and who have to pay the bills for people who cheat. Remember who the real victims are in this picture.
Let’s not automatically assume the people who watch for wrong-doing and act when they find it are wrong.
Come back again when there’s the slightest evidence of wrong-doing on the part of parties other than the dependent. Good places to look: 1.) cases overturned on appeal and 2.) cases where the dependent is found not not guilty by a judge or jury.
[quote]“In thinking about this story, it occurs to me that Ms Vela may have, at least in part, been led astray by a common mistaken idea about what doctors can and cannot do. Many people who come to me believe that doctors grant disability or determine insurance claims. We do not. “[/quote][quote]“Based on Ms. Vela’s stated complaints of pain, and her reported inability to use her hands, her physician kept her off work as “totally disabled.”[/quote]I’m wondering, medwoman, if this isn’t just the kind of misguided view you were talking about?
I’d think management would seriously consider a personal doctor’s evaluation, but might be troubled by a physician who “kept (his patient) off work…based on her stated complaints….”
If she didn’t show up for work or exhibited some attitude of disabled entitlement without a convincing physician’s report, it wouldn’t seem unusual at all to have her get other opinions from the employer’s or insurance company’s contract doctors.
“So was the jury wrong? “
This is probably a much more complex answer than you perhaps want. There have been times when I have spoken with jurors who very much disagreed that a case should be tried, disagreed with the law, but felt that given the law, they had no choice but to convict.
I did not speak to the juror here, but it is interesting to note that the jury in this case took more time than the jurors in the Topete case – either phase – to deliberate.
So I will break it down:
1. Given the trial and evidence provided, I can see how the jury reached the verdict they did.
2. There is evidence that doctors were dishonest about their examinations of Vela, and also evidence that Ms. Vela misunderstood the nature of the examinations and further evidence that her representations may not have been as absolute as the DA portrayed.
3. Nevertheless, I think there is evidence that she exaggerated her condition. For that to be fraud, it had to be intention with the intent of defrauding the insurance company and worker’s comp and it is very difficult for me to believe that she had even the capacity to have that kind of intent.
4. In short, I think she was in pain and trying to get help and she was having to deal with insurance doctors rather than people trying to help her.
5. The insurance company clearly did wrong here and relied on some very disreputable people to do it.
6. The DA charging whatever she did as 12 felonies is ridiculous.
Elaine says “The coverage of this case particularly bothers me – bc I know how hard fought ADA rights are. Situations like Ms. Vela give the disabled a bad name, and make it that much harder for the truly disabled to get the reasonable accommodations they need… and there are employers out there who can make it very difficult… “
Elaine has never met Linda Vela and has no idea how disabled she actually is. Elaine has never been in the courtroom. I think that her representation that there are employers out there who can make it very difficult is exactly right, but she fails to recognize that this is one of them. I don’t believe Linda Vela was in any condition to work, if you met her and talked to her for even a minute, you would understand why that is. Not enough was made about the combination of physical and mental ailments that Ms. Vela clearly suffers from.
“I’d think management would seriously consider a personal doctor’s evaluation, but might be troubled by a physician who “kept (his patient) off work…based on her stated complaints….”
If she didn’t show up for work or exhibited some attitude of disabled entitlement without a convincing physician’s report, it wouldn’t seem unusual at all to have her get other opinions from the employer’s or insurance company’s contract doctors. “
The Bee had the opinion of a medical doctor – Dr. Chan. However, the HR person, who is not a doctor, decided (as she testified) that Linda Vela was faking it and then Liberty Mutual put their team to work to play gotcha. You take a few incidents out of context of the rest of her life, capture a few good moments amid tons of bad ones on video, and you hire $500,000 doctors to lie, and have yourself a fraud case.
I think that there are two cautionary notes here for both doctors and patients.
1) Every evaluating doctor has the obligation to do a good faith exam, to document ir carefully, and to tell the patient the full implications of what they have observed and documented. Disability and insurers alike are apt to act favorably on a claim backed by physical findings such as decreased grip strength or objectively observed limitation of range of motion. In my experience, they are not likely to respond positively to claims relaying the information that “the patient states she is unable to work due to pain, fatigue, depression, stress….” although that may indeed be the case. A more convincing argument in the case of depression might be a PHQ9 score of > 10 or descriptives such as slowing of movement and speech, unkempt appearance, inability to make eye contact ….
Without such objective findings, it is unlikely that a disability claim will be found credible.
2) The second point is that not all doctors act ethically and in an unbiased manner. I am in no way stating that I fully accept Ms. Vela’s description of the exams provided by the corporate doctor, but I would find it very interesting to see a copy of his exam and assessment. Did it include neuroconduction studies, grip strength ( easily measured in the office), or range of motion and dexterity studies. Did anyone of her doctors suggest physical or rehabilitative therapy ? Did anyone suggest alternative pain management strategies such as acupuncture, acupressure or meditation all of which are gaining mainstream medical support in cases in which standard western medical management is ineffective?
It sounds to me as though Ms.Vela may have had an incomplete understanding of her options and the potential outcomes of her decision.
It also sounds to me as though the insurance company was very willing to pour money into proving that Ms. Vela was intentionally committing fraud instead of helping her to find legitimate ways to deal with her challenges and begin to be productive again which would have been beneficial to all. One might argue that this is not the job of the insurance company. I strongly disagree. Insurance is marketed to individuals and employers as a means to protect one’s health through preventative care and to provide necessary care when one is sick or injured. This is what we pay for, and this is what we should receive.
Also I am wondering if medical professionals were excluded from the jury pool as I have been in the past due to my knowledge and involvement with the subject matter. If this is the case, I am sure it is legal, but I am also sure that it biases a jury who are likely to be swayed by short clips of Ms. Vela using her hands, while failing to appreciate that these say nothing about her ability to sustain performance over a prolonged period of time as required by most jobs.
[quote]3. Nevertheless, I think there is evidence that she exaggerated her condition. For that to be fraud, it had to be intention with the intent of defrauding the insurance company and worker’s comp and it is very difficult for me to believe that she had even the capacity to have that kind of intent. [/quote]
To what purpose would she exaggerate unless it was with the intent to obtain disability payments she was not entitled to?
[quote]Elaine has never been in the courtroom. [/quote]
First of all, how could you know this? You never asked me. Also, from previous posts you should have known I have been in the courtroom many times, as an attorney, as a plaintiff, and as a defendant, as a witness. I have had more courtroom experience than many attorneys…
[quote]I think that her representation that there are employers out there who can make it very difficult is exactly right, but she fails to recognize that this is one of them. I don’t believe Linda Vela was in any condition to work, if you met her and talked to her for even a minute, you would understand why that is. Not enough was made about the combination of physical and mental ailments that Ms. Vela clearly suffers from. [/quote]
Your problem is that you never knew a defendant you didn’t believe… I’m being a bit snarky, but this statement calls for such a pointed response. What Ms. Vela said to you or her appearance across the table from you, a sympathetic listener, at a Denny’s for an hour is NOT EVIDENCE of anything – it is very biased anecdotal conversation, and nothing more…
You believe Ms. Vela cannot work bc she told you so – but you are not an expert on the subject, not even knowledgeable on the subject. Yet you are right, and the jury was wrong? Oh wait, you conceded the jury was correct, just for the wrong reasons? Your logic is so convoluted and ridiculous it is hard to have a reasonable discussion here…
Not once have you addressed the key issue in this case – Ms. Vela’s responsibility to approach her employer and try and work out a reasonable accommodation so she could continue working – something she never bothered to do…
“To what purpose would she exaggerate unless it was with the intent to obtain disability payments she was not entitled to?”
There are two plausible answers to this question:
1. That she was in pain and hoping to get the doctors to act where they haven’t in the past in the mistaken belief that the purpose of the visit was to help her not to prove she was lying
2. That she was not being logical or rational in her thinking because of increasing mental health problems
Both of these are plausible explanations given the facts of the case (and the specific jury instruction requires that the jury accept the explanation that points towards innocence if there are competing reasonable interpretations of the facts).
“First of all, how could you know this?”
I didn’t see you at the trial and I was there.
[quote]It sounds to me as though Ms.Vela may have had an incomplete understanding of her options and the potential outcomes of her decision.
It also sounds to me as though the insurance company was very willing to pour money into proving that Ms. Vela was intentionally committing fraud instead of helping her to find legitimate ways to deal with her challenges and begin to be productive again which would have been beneficial to all. One might argue that this is not the job of the insurance company. I strongly disagree. Insurance is marketed to individuals and employers as a means to protect one’s health through preventative care and to provide necessary care when one is sick or injured. This is what we pay for, and this is what we should receive. [/quote]
This is just incorrect. It is Ms. Vela’s responsibility BY LAW to approach her employer and let the employer know she has a disability that requires a reasonable accommodation. The employer cannot read her mind. It is not the responsibility of the employer or its insurance company to read employees’ minds. Instead Ms. Vela decided on her own she could not work and should get paid for it, come h_ll or high water. It is not her right to make that determination…
“Your problem is that you never knew a defendant you didn’t believe…”
It’s not only snarky, it is patently untrue. There are a number of cases we never pursue because we simply do not believe the defendant.
I remember last summer a defendant gave this whole story to us about how (it was a DV case) his wife actually beat him up and she was completely lying. So we watched the trial, and it was patently obvious that the wife was the one who was the victim, the guy was completely unbelievable, and he lied to my face.
That was the extreme example, but it happens all of the time, which is why we pick and choose the cases where there really are problems.
Crime happens in this county, the system gets cases right. We leave those cases up to the newspapers and the DA to get the word out.
This is not one of those cases.
Arggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! This conversation is so frustrating, bc it shows complete ignorance of disability law. When an employee has a disability that interferes with their ability to work, it is the EMPLOYEE’S responsibility to notify the employer, and ask for a reasonable accommodation. The employer is required to make a reasonable accommodation to make sure that employee can continue working if at all possible. The employee does not get to decide unilaterally if they can work anymore or not, for OBVIOUS REASON…
I believe she can’t work because I talked to her and her family on a number of occasions for several hours and believe that she has nothing to gain by not working if she could work.
“What Ms. Vela said to you or her appearance across the table from you, a sympathetic listener, at a Denny’s for an hour is NOT EVIDENCE of anything – it is very biased anecdotal conversation, and nothing more…”
You’re right, it is not evidence. It was not supposed to be evidence either. I was there to tell her story based on what she told me. The evidence was what was presented at trial.
“You believe Ms. Vela cannot work bc she told you so”
Again, I believe Ms. Vela cannot work because she is not only in pain, but she is not in her right mind. All one has to do is listen to her try to talk much of the time to realize that.
“Not once have you addressed the key issue in this case – Ms. Vela’s responsibility to approach her employer and try and work out a reasonable accommodation so she could continue working – something she never bothered to do…”
I have addressed this multiple times. You are assuming she was capable of doing this and that is where I think you start to misread the entire situation. She let her company know that she could not work. The physical ailments are only the tip of the iceberg here.
You ask what about the jury, I think the jury was in an impossible spot. They were getting misleading information from the insurance doctors, videos that purported to show behaviors that were supposedly inconsistent but may not have been if taken in the full context. I’m convinced that she was not in pain to the point where she could not use her hands at all but at the same time, I do not believe she would have been able to work.
The DA concedes that she was injured and could not have worked a full day, and yet they have no problem turning this into a criminal matter when I doubt very much that Ms. Vela had an intent to defraud anyone.
” It is Ms. Vela’s responsibility BY LAW to approach her employer and let the employer know she has a disability that requires a reasonable accommodation. The employer cannot read her mind. It is not the responsibility of the employer or its insurance company to read employees’ minds. Instead Ms. Vela decided on her own she could not work and should get paid for it, come h_ll or high water. It is not her right to make that determination…”
You’re just not correct here. She had doctors saying that she could not work. The doctors performed surgery on her. She did not do this on her own. It was only later that the insurance company had their hired people look at her and they started to claim that she could work. When she was still in pain, her treating doctor recommended additional treatment, however, it was at this point that the insurance company and Bee collaborated to stop additional treatments.
“The employee does not get to decide unilaterally if they can work anymore or not”
And she didn’t decide unilaterally, where do you get this idea?
[quote]You’re right, it is not evidence. It was not supposed to be evidence either. I was there to tell her story based on what she told me. The evidence was what was presented at trial. [/quote]
Yes, and you are hearing only one side, her side…
I’m trying to show you the other side – all those disabled folks far, far worse off than she, who make an effort to approach their employer and work something out in terms of a reasonable accommodation…
[quote]You’re just not correct here. She had doctors saying that she could not work. The doctors performed surgery on her. She did not do this on her own. It was only later that the insurance company had their hired people look at her and they started to claim that she could work. When she was still in pain, her treating doctor recommended additional treatment, however, it was at this point that the insurance company and Bee collaborated to stop additional treatments.[/quote]
No, you are incorrect. Ms. Vela had an affirmative duty to try and work out a reasonable accommodation with her employer, and she failed to do so…
Elaine: I watched a whole trial, I got the DA’s side, the insurance company’s side, the Bee’s side. What we never got was Linda Vela’s side of the story other than through her attorney. One of the reasons the case was delayed so long was that she had to have competency hearings on her competency to stand trial. And they did not want her to testify because she get confused very easily according to her family. I heard the other side, and while I can see where the jury can reach the decision they did, I never could understand why this was a criminal matter and why it necessitated 12 felony charges.
You keep asserting the same thing over and over again that she had a duty to try to work out a reasonable accommodation, but you are assuming she was capable of doing that and I don’t think she was.
[quote]You keep asserting the same thing over and over again that she had a duty to try to work out a reasonable accommodation, but you are assuming she was capable of doing that and I don’t think she was.[/quote]
Now you are arguing mental incompetency, when clearly she was determined competent enough to stand trial…
This is one of the oddest discussions of our law enforcement/legal system you’ve ever carried on in Judicial Watch.
To come to the conclusions you have about Ms. Vela, Liberty Mutual, the [u]Sacramento Bee[/u], the DA’s office, the state government and the court require that you completely disregard the law and the responsibilities of government and businesses in society.
Your “complex answer” to Mr Obvious was indeed complex, mostly irrelevant to his question (“So was the jury wrong?”) but did not contain an answer.
Almost all of the “facts” you keep repeating or even adding to the mix either have nothing to do with Mr. Vela’s guilt or innocence and/or were or could have been considered by the jury at the trial.
The jury found her guilty of charges you think shouldn’t even have been brought. But, they [u]were[/u] filed and the jury considered all the evidence offered by her defense counsel and the prosecutors, including the issue of intent.
Based on [u]everything[/u], the jury found her guilty–[b]not a “little guilty” of a few charges but guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty beyond reasonable doubt.[/b]
There’s no way to get to how you feel about Ms. Vela without starting your case contending that she’s not guilty. That has to mean you think you know more or better than the jury and actually do conclude that they “got it wrong.”
But, you can’t go quite that far because it would be such a rejection of a basic foundation for our system. There’d be nothing left to fight for if we get to disregard any jury finding that goes differently than the way we wish it had.
In all these words, you’ve offered little that suggests Ms. Vela didn’t get a fair trial–even if the attorneys, judge and jury didn’t have the advantage of defining the true facts in a self-serving family interview at Denny’s.
It seems to me that you have blinders on for this case (a lot like your struggle accepting how the Topete case proceeded) even though you claim some special enlightenment.
I sure can see how Elaine is so frustrated here as you refuse to consider the basic points of law claimed by medwoman (twice) and Elaine (18 times?). These kind of details make a difference in questions of guilt and innocence.
Finally, after two stories full of misdirection, we finally get to your real contention. You determined during your Denny’s examination that Ms. Vela is insane or mentally incompetent.
I’m not sure of your credentials to make such a diagnosis during such a limited exam. However, I certainly would accept it as a much better defense for her actions that the ones you’ve offered until now.
With your two stories and additional comments, you’ve gotten me to a point where I can no longer follow this case. I’ve heard everything.
Just Saying:
There are a number of times when I have believed that the jury just flat out got it wrong. This is not one of those times.
Why? Because I can see how they reached their conclusion.
I still remember what the jurors told me in the Artz trial – they thought the statutory rape charges were bogus, that the law should not apply given the circumstances particularly the lack of age difference, that they shouldn’t have been filed at all but they also believed that that was not their determination to make and that Mr. Artz violated the law as charged.
I see this as similar.
Once the jury found her guilty of the first charge, they had to find her guilty on all charges.
Were they wrong? Perhaps. I think the notion of specific intent was probably overlooked in all of this. And I think the insurance company and doctors lied a good deal more.
Still I think it came down to her filling out forms that said she could not use her hands at all and video showing her using her hands.
I don’t think that is the end of the story and I think a good deal of this was manipulated by the insurance doctors. I think the jury got that part write.
I don’t think Ms. Vela did not get a fair trial, I think she did not get fair and equitable treatment by her employer who was convinced early on that Ms. Vela was lying or by the insurance company who spent huge amounts of money to prove that she was.
[quote]I don’t think Ms. Vela did not get a fair trial, I think she did not get fair and equitable treatment by her employer who was convinced early on that Ms. Vela was lying or by the insurance company who spent huge amounts of money to prove that she was. [/quote]
But you yourself concede Ms. Vela “exaggerated” her condition. Where do you draw the line between “exaggerate” and lie? How big does the exaggeration have to be before it becomes a lie? The jury drew the line, and it was the appropriate one, and determined Ms. Vela was guilty of lying. And the reason is bc Ms. Vela made no attempt to work out a reasonable accommodation with her employer. Had she done so, I suspect she would not be in the predicament she is now.
Furthermore, when did she become mentally incompetent? Certainly at trial she was deemed competent to stand trial. Is it conceivable she “lost it” once she was found guilty and now cannot bear to live with the consequences of her ill-conceived choices?
You are missing the point in the law here, the intent has to be in order for her to get benefit that she is not entitled to. It is a specific intent law.
[quote]You are missing the point in the law here, the intent has to be in order for her to get benefit that she is not entitled to. It is a specific intent law.[/quote]
Ms. Vela exaggerated, but she didn’t “intend” to exaggerate, so that she could obtain disability payments? If she didn’t intend to exaggerate to gain benefits, then why bother exaggerating?
I gave you two possible answers to that above:
1. That she was in pain and hoping to get the doctors to act where they haven’t in the past in the mistaken belief that the purpose of the visit was to help her not to prove she was lying
2. That she was not being logical or rational in her thinking because of increasing mental health problems
I’m still a little confused about whether you agree with the jury’s finding (“this is not one of those times (that I believe they flat out got it wrong” and “the jury got that part right”and “I don’t think she did not get a fair trial”) or disagree (“were they wrong….perhaps”). But, it doesn’t really matter.
It’s obvious that you wish Ms. Vela hadn’t gotten involved in such a situation. It’s a mystery how you “don’t think this is the end of the story” because I don’t see anything in your reports that suggests this will be overturned.
If you want to blame her employer and the insurance company for being suspicious about the degree of her disability, fine. Hard-ass bosses are a big pain to employees.
However, their lack of sympathy isn’t to blame for the state pursuing a case against her for breaking several laws. If Yolo County hadn’t found evidence of wrong-doing, they wouldn’t have filed charges.
If the jury hadn’t found beyond reasonable doubt that she broke the law including the issue of her intent (even if you don’t like the law or wouldn’t have voted the way they did), that’s just kind of tough for Ms. Vela.
There’s not much you can do about it–anymore than her own attorney could have helped her–with the facts of this case.
And, that’s pretty much the way it is.
IMHO….
Elaine
A somewhat related question. What is the rationale for, and your feeling about the dismissal of potential jurors because they have specialized knowledge of the questions at hand ?
[quote]A somewhat related question. What is the rationale for, and your feeling about the dismissal of potential jurors because they have specialized knowledge of the questions at hand ?[/quote]
I’m not sure I quite understand what you are asking. Each side has a certain number of peremptory challenges, and may dismiss a certain number of jurors for any reason. After that, jurors can only dismissed for cause (a showing of unfair bias)…
My question is with regard to the “showing of unfair bias”. The actual example that I was alluding to was the selection of a jury for a case involving drug sales. The question put to us by the judge was ” Did anyone participate in drug counseling as part of our job? ” All of us who answered in the affirmative were then dismissed. Interestingly enough, a former police officer was not dismissed.
Interesting to see the view points of people who know nothing about a person and yet condemn them as though they know everything about them. No matter what anyone says or believes. The truth is absolute, and the truth is, an innocent woman was convicted for nothing other than desperately seeking help from those of whom she worked so hard for, and being stoned and shunned for it. That’s it. And I know, because I have been a close part of this for as long as it has been going on, unlike anyone else here. It’s sad, America, that a wealthy man like Chris Brown can beat a woman senseless, get no jail time and then tell everyone to “F-off, I won a grammy”, as if that’s his exemption. Why is people like him and Lindsay Lohan are able to slide by when hard working, innocent people get the shaft? That judges can get away with sending young people to prison for minor offenses because they get a kick back from the private prisons they send them to? Sure, the judge was eventually taken down but not before a young man took his life over it. I can agree with Michael Jackson’s song Scream, all this injustice certainly makes Me want to scream. Linda Vela was just added to the list of injustices in our country.