CA: CHP official seeks workers' comp

Another of the California Highway Patrol's top administrators claims to have been injured at headquarters in Sacramento shortly before he headed out the door for retirement.

Gary Townsend, one of the top three assistants of former Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick, said in a workers' compensation claim that he injured his left foot and ankle as he was moving items out of his office Sept. 30.

That was two weeks after the arrival of Helmick's successor, Mike Brown, who was replacing Townsend and other top administrators with his own assistants.

Townsend said he put in his paperwork for retirement even before Brown was appointed. If he had stayed, he would have returned to his previous lower-ranking civil service position as a deputy chief in charge of information management.

Unlike 70 percent of his CHP colleagues, Townsend did not seek a medical pension to shield half of his retirement income from taxes.

But he did file four workers' compensation cases - including one for the moving mishap.

Contacted at his home, Townsend said that he wanted to make sure his future medical expenses would be covered by workers' compensation.

The Bee reported in September on a phenomenon known within the CHP as "Chief's Disease," in which high-ranking officers make injury claims near retirement, paving the way for workers' compensation settlements and medical pensions.

Well, I can tell you that we had an employee (finally retired a couple of years ago) that would literally miss work from 8 – 10 weeks each and every year for an “aggravated back injury.”

That was interesting because his family owned a nut farm and those weeks he missed every year (for over 14 years) happened to coincide with their harvesting season or whatever they call it.

Since we self-insure WRT worker’s comp, we have investigators check out things like that. Sure enough, he’s out working on the nut farm during the time he “can’t work due to an aggravated injury” and is receiving payment from us.

Guess what? It’s perfectly legitimate. His doctor claims that his injury is severe enough that he can’t do his job here, but isn’t so severe that he can’t “help out” there. End of story. He goes on comp and gets paid, you just grin and bear it and wait until he ultimately retires or does something dumb like steal something so you can fire him.

Now, I can assure you that I know of NO other state that allows shenanigans like that. You may find it hard to believe, but yes, California is THE most f-ed up state when it comes to things like that. Others may have problems too, but CA takes first place.

Other states like WA and OR have done quite a few things to weed out the false (IMO) “stress claims” and such and enacted different reforms over the last decade or so, but CA has not. Not in any meaningful way.

you are right and we have Gray Davis and the Dems to blame for that....I don't even know what other states to in this regard so I won't comment on that........so I agree with you on that OK???? but i wrote earlier about the Calif punch line......i don't care if you make fun of the dems or the politics of the Bay area (where i live) or LA, but when i see the headlines everyday, there is alot weirder stuff going on everyday in a bunch of other states that is not happening in calif......like hunters killing each other, plants exploding and burning down etc........Calif besides it politics is an awesome state and just to use Calif as a punch line cause something happens here is just kind of tiresome after awhile.....Wash state elections, Ohio elections Florida elections, Boston Dig, Montana making medical marijuana legal........a bunch of weird stuff happens all over, not just Calif.....if you ever lived her, and saw the whole state, most of it you would not even recognize as Calif cause you have micro climates and politics that mimic every other state in the union....really...

I think under those circumstances I'd make him come in and put him in a bare office, telling him to sit there for 8 hours. No work required, just stare at the walls. He'd either "recover" or quit pretty quickly I bet.

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