Book Description

All across America's workplaces; workers are being injured, killed or exposed to toxic chemicals from which they are dying. An estimated 66,000 persons die each year from occupational illnesses and injuries in our country: An epidemic of monumental proportions. Almost a century after the introduction of Workers' Compensation; workers, their families, communities all pay the price for the devastating human and environmental consequences of this failure to hold corporations accountable for their actions. The stories in Depraved Indifference are the stories of ordinary people. Discarded and forgotten by their employers, denied medical coverage by the workers' compensation insurers; many have been left to die, slowly and agonizingly, unnoticed by all but the ones who really care - their grieving families. Depraved Indifference represents over five years of research and interviews. It lays bare a Workers' Compensation system that cavalierly exposes workers to severe injury, toxic exposure and death; while throwing the major cost unto the family and the taxpayer, without fear of lawsuit, prosecution or even public outcry. It is a call to action. Depraved Indifference by Patrice Woeppel is a well researched look at the failure of workers' compensation laws to deliver the promise of fast, sure and adequate benefits based upon a no fault approach to compensating on-the-job injury and death. The author makes the case that miniscule benefits, the ability to starve out injured workers and their families, the lack of official oversight, the lack of meaningful penalties for violations and the lack of any criminal prosecution of employers for criminal acts of depraved indifference to human life, make for an unsafe workplace for millions of Americans. The numbers are staggering. It is an epidemic of death and economic destruction in the American workplace, unchecked by trial by jury to bring wrongdoers to the bar of justice. -Mark L. Zientz, Esq. Woeppel explains the problem and also lays out a solution " Depraved Indifference: The Workers' Compensation System is a scholarly look at the American workers' compensation laws and how they are unjust for today's world filled with high risk jobs and deadly chemicals that many must work with almost daily. With a suggested reform model presented, Woeppel explains the problem and also lays out a solution, giving Depraved Indifference a critical recommendation. -James Andrew, Midwest Book Review The workers' compensation system does more to protect corporations than injured workers, according to this well-researched analysis that draws on a number of actual cases, including the author's own experience after an injury while working in a hospital. The final chapter gives her prescription for reform. -Matt Witt, City University of New York, New Labor Forum, Vol. 18, No. 2: Spring, 2009. Depraved Indifference: The Workers' Compensation System is the best book on workers' compensation in thirty years. -Daniel M. Berman, Ph.D., author of Death On the Job: Occupational Health and Safety Struggles in the United States.