Right On Daily Blog

One of the recurring themes during my 13 month detonation of Stan Sniff was that he could care less about the plight of injured employees.

Again and again, I was contacted by legitimately injured employees whose claims were all getting denied, paperwork kicked back repeatedly and people who ended up being forced to hire Worker’s Comp Attorneys over what should have been three month injuries that turned in to permanent disabilities because County Worker’s Comp refused to treat the injury when it could have been contained early.

I am talking about Back Injuries, that were minor to moderate that were allowed to degenerate while County Admin ran through their time-tested procedure of DENY DENY DENY regardless of merit. This is the heartless actuarial formula called mitigation by denial. This is the sort of behavior Insurance Carriers get accused of, but is rarely ever done on my side of the Insurance World.

Only twice in my 21 year career have I ever had to advise an insured to retain an attorney and sue the Insurance Carrier I placed them (or their employer) with. It has, however been put to this blogger repeatedly that several well-meaning employees in the County of Riverside tell injured workers off the record to hire an attorney because their claim is going to be denied.

Where does Stan Sniff come in? It appears that Worker’s Comp Claims of his chosen few were “picked up” almost immediately as opposed to the usual 2-3 year fight that the County puts up against the “Non-Chosen”. This suggests that either the Union President calling the County or the Sheriff Calling has an impact on the outcome.

I blistered Stan Sniff several times over attempting to use injured employees as campaign props. One of the assertions I made is that once they were no longer useful, he’d forget about them.

Witness Jay Youngblood. Witness Jason McMillan. While Sniff never visited McMillan in the hospital, he was there to stage pictures with McMillan for his social media. Christopher Brandon Ford was apparently present at Youngblood’s bedside attempting to recruit Youngblood on to team Sniff.

It is apparent that Youngblood did not play ball as County Worker’s Comp is doing their usual. Youngblood is PARALYZED and COUNTY WORKER’S COMP IS REFUSING REHAB OR ADA modifications to his house! Read the previous sentences again. When the County is not busy taking minor or medium knee/back injuries and making them permanent by an arrogant, heartless, merciless blanket refusal to pay for basic medical services – they are also denying service to a paralyzed deputy as well.

Who has oversight of the Bureaucrats in Riverside County’s Worker’s Comp? That’s right: Kevin Jeffries, Marion Ashley, John Taviglione, Chuck Washington and V Manuel Perez. None have said a peep for years while these repeated abuses occur.

Ashley and Taviglinone are retiring and will be replaced by Karen Spiegel and Russ Bogh/Jeff Hewitt (who is leading). Perhaps the Riverside County Board of Supervisors need to be hammered for the denial of basic medical care to legitimately injured employees? This cuts across party lines.

Note – Since the County of Riverside is a Government Agency and is self-insured, they act like they are EXEMPT from most of the regulatory oversight regular Worker’s Compensation Carriers have. This also suggests that the County thinks the only recourse for injured employees is to sue and they are taking full advantage. This artificially created employee versus government environment was deliberately created to break the system to get people crying for socialized medicine as a solution for uniform standards. All it takes is the County Board of Supervisors intervening and changing the culture of abuse in County Admin as opposed to a state-run Worker’s Comp monopoly (which would be worse for EVERYONE).

Blogger’s Note: anyone being abused by the County of Riverside should file a complaint with the Department of Industrial Relations, they have oversight of all Worker’s Comp in California (self-insured or otherwise)

Meantime, here is Jay Youngblood being forced to Crowd Fund for his necessary medical expenses. This is an outrage, but is posted so you can get involved and help Jay as well as to pressure the feckless board of supervisors to do their job and deal with the abuses.

My brother, Jay Youngblood, is a Deputy from the Riverside County Sheriffs Department. On July 24, 2018, Jay was training to become a motorcycle officer and was in a catastrophic accident which, in medical terms, left him as a T4 complete injury. In non-medical terms means Jay is paralyzed from the chest down. We are praying this is not God’s plans for the remainder of his life and we know that if anyone can overcome such odds it’s Jay.

Jay has been home from the hospital for almost 2 months and his kitchen still remains inaccessible to him, making simple tasks such as getting something to eat or drink impossible without assistance.  We have been trying to work within the system for months and are now out of options. You would think since Jay was injured on duty, that the County of Riverside Workman’s Compensation would be helping Jay, unfortunately that is not the case.

Jay has requested to attend a rehabilitation center that specializes in spinal cord injuries to increase his chances of overcoming this injury, however the county keeps kicking it back.

WE NEED HELP!!! All donations will go directly to my brother to cover the necessities to make everyday life accessible to him, necessities that Workman’s Comp is not covering.

It looks like the County of Riverside has determined that Jay Youngblood being paralyzed versus rehabilitation of the injury is the most cost-effective solution. Who cares about Jay’s future quality of life. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors? Crickets.

P.S. The link to file a complaint with the DIR is here. DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS WEBSITE