Off-site Archive

  July 29, 2019 FLORIDA LEADING THE WAR ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING By David Langham Back in 2014, I wrote  Where did it Come From, Where is it Going, and How Huge is it ? It was published twice, but neither publication is available online at this time. The article addressed the sheer volume of workers’ compensation in America. As a matter of fact, workers’ compensation has begun to celebrate centennials in various states; in its modern American form it is reasonably recent, although the concept of compensating for injury literally dates back thousands of years, perhaps to 2050 B.C. according to some.   The “How Huge is it” question came from a quote written by Judge Mills of the Florida First District Court of Appeal, who said:   “Workers' compensation is a very important field of the law, if not the most important. It touches more lives than any other field of the law. It involves the payments of huge sums of money. The welfare of human beings, the success of business, an...

  July 01, 2019 SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EMPLOYABILITY By: Judge David Langham In the law, we have all learned that defendants “take the plaintiff as we find him” or “her.” This is a “rule” or legal maxim that essentially holds that there are people that are perhaps more susceptible to injury than others, based upon our physical frailty, or even personality. What might be an inconvenience to one might be a much more serious injury to another.  Essentially, we all react to our environment and life events, physically and emotionally, in our own personal manner. In personal injury litigation, this has been referred to as the “ eggshell plaintiff ” maxim (if a particular plaintiff has a frailty, such as a thin skull, is more susceptible to injury, “the defendant is still liable for all the damages that occur”).  This maxim is applied in injury cases, both civil and criminal. As the Florida Supreme Court noted many years ago, “it is well settled in Florida that a criminal t...

  May 10, 2019 THE LANGUAGE AND DIALECT OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION By: Judge David Langham You can be in the same room, on the same topic, and yet not on the same page.   I am struck by the number of dialects there are in some languages. Dialects came to me recently; a Judge described a hearing involving a translator. A witness made some statements and the translator dutifully interpreted. But, in the course of reciting one of the answers in English, the Judge interrupted and corrected the translator. There was some “back and forth” with the witness, and eventually all agreed to the substance of the witnesses’ answer, which was not as originally translated.   This is not a reflection on the translator. This is a reflection on the idea of dialect. Spanish, for example has a number of dialects. As  Languagenext.com  notes, “Spanish comes in many flavors,” which it notes are “dialects” and “accents.” That website contends that this is a result of the “dynamism of lan...

  April 03, 2019 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, HUMAN TRAFFICKING, AND WORKERS' COMPENSATION Written by: Judge David Langham Recently, Fox News reported  Detective assigned to murdered 21-year-old Utah female student-athlete's case is out of job: report . The underlying issue with the college student involved her relationship, which had eroded. She felt threatened by her ex-boyfriend and contacted the police for help. Much that I have read suggests it is not uncommon for some people to be disinclined to seek police support in a variety of potentially violent situations. Victims who overcome their reservations, in some instances, have complained that they do not perceive themselves as being taken seriously by officials. Some contend that the way police react to such reporting contributes to the unwillingness or resistance to reporting.  In this instance, the young lady student was “threatened with compromising photos,” and she contacted the police at her university campus. She receive...

  February 19, 2019 “EVIL PREVAILS WHEN GOOD MEN FAIL TO ACT.” By Judge David Langham There are great failings in our world. Some are the result of malfeasance, that is, people doing bad things. Some are misfeasance, people failing to do things in an appropriate manner. And, some failings are the simple result of all of us being way too busy, too involved, and thus spread too thin, distracted, and frankly exhausted. Edmund Burke, a  champion of conservative thought , said  that “ evil prevails when good men fail to act .” Undoubtedly, there is not one among us that is doing all we can, every day, to make this world a better place (O . K . , perhaps Captain America, Wonder Woman,  etc., but  you get the picture).  In September, the  Comp Laude ®  will convene in Huntington Beach, California. Through its iterations in Burbank, San Diego, and now Huntington Beach, the Laude strives to act, to do good, and to recognize the multitude of workers’ compen...