For the record

Our law office in Skowhegan is one of the few in western Maine that still handles any Workers’ Compensation cases. While most lawyers have ceased doing such work, and while it has never been the bulk of our practice, we continue to try to help those unfortunate injured people who seem to be most in need.

I have lately been sharing this experience with other members of the Labor Committee in an open process to develop a few modest reform measures that might help improve the process for injured workers while retaining the dramatic rate reductions that have been produced by the 1992 Blue Ribbon Bill on top of the earlier reforms enacted in 1985, 1987, and 1991.

John Rooney, who has aggressively lobbied against workers’ comp reform on behalf of his employer, wrote to the Bangor Daily News (April 24) complaining that he once sought legal advice from me concerning his own workers’ comp claim. He says he was charged the grand sum of $100.

To set the record straight, I conferred with Rooney on five separate occasions concerning his claim and gave him an extensive summary of his rights and responsibilities as an injured worker. His case had difficulties which I am not at liberty to discuss. He also states that he later went for a year on his own without being able to find someone to help him.

Unfortunately, Rooney’s case is typical. There are many workers in the current system who are not able to obtain prompt and effective legal assistance.

Rooney’s position as a paid agent of his current employer is at odds with his own history. Were he more true to his own experience, he would be applauding the effort to improve the process. Peter Mills State senator Skowhegan