I know this posting is probably a waste but I have to try one last time. I spent over thirty years trying to help the members and retirees of NYCERS and it drives me crazy when I see the current management trashing them.
In a June 30, 2013 posting I wrote about how NYCERS and in particular, Karen Mazza, was crushing a disablity retiree.
I am making a direct appeal to Bill De Blasio, John Liu, and Scott Stringer, and the other members of the NYCERS Board of Trustees to correct Mazza's mistake. If this was March 1, 2005 when I was executive director, NYCERS would have given this retiree his legal due process. I am asking you now as the head of the agency to do the same.
Two days ago I received a copy of a new letter from Mazza concerning this case. This letter is dated July 30, 2013 and is in response to a July 9, 2013 letter from the original lawyer asking the trustees to correct a NYCERS error. The error occurred in 1990 when NYCERS did not process the retiree's application for accident disability under S.507.
In a June 18, 2013 letter, Mazza had denied an initial April 19, 2013 request from the lawyer. Mazza had stated that the Medical Board had determined that the incident was not an accident and therefore there was no need to process the member's S.507 application.
In the July 30, 2013 letter Mazza was forced to apologize for the false statement she made in her first letter. She now claims:
What I should have written was: "Since the Medical Board had already determined that the on-duty event did not aggravate the condition he claimed to be disabling, he was not eligible to be considered under S.507 of the RSSL for accident disability."
As an aside, this woman is a licensed attorney getting paid a lot of money. To any competent lawyer this correspondence above is a hard reflection on Mazza's competence as lawyer. It reminds me of a clip from a deposition from years ago. You can read it below.
We also can see Mazza's dubious footwork in the following sentence trying to shift responsibility for her words to the outside lawyer:
I apologize for this error. Nevertheless, on the basis of our prior correspondence about this case, you should have been aware that the Medical Board's determination was related to the causation issue rather than the accident/incident issue.
While Mazza's original statement was false, her new statement about causation is both false and absurd. If the Medical Board finds a member not disabled under S.605, it is not possible for the Board to determine whether the incident caused a nonexistent disability. The Board is not authorized to make hypothetical determinations.
In addition, the final determinations on causation and accident are made by the Board of Trustees. Since the member, under S.605, was not disabled, the Trustees never addressed the causation and/or accident issues for this member nor made a final determination on these issues. The member had no opportunity at that time to argue these two issues before the Board of Trustees.
Since causation was not dealt with in the S.605 process, it is absolutely clear the S.507 application should have been processed in 1990 but it was not. No notice of denial was given to the member in 1990. Since NYCERS must correct all errors, it must process the original S.507 application.
The Medical Board must review the Social Security Administration disability decision and the documentation that supported that decision. They must accept the disability determination made by the Social Security Administration in spite of the fact that it is contrary to their own medical determination. They then must in good faith make recommendations on causation and accident relative to the disability and the claimed incident.
The Medical Board's recommendations must then be submitted to the Board of Trustees to make the decision about whether the incident caused the disabilty and whether the incident was an accident. The retiree has the right to argue his case before the trustees.
In closing, I am asking Bill De Blasio, John Liu, Scott Stringer, and the other trustees to do the right thing.
From an old Mazza deposition, "What I Wrote is Not What I Meant."
16 Q. I will direct your attention to the
17 upper part of the memo.
18 What do you mean you're uncomfortable
19 if anybody in-house asks to see your deleted
20 E-mails; uncomfortable about what?
21 A. I wanted to know if anybody else was
22 asking to look at those deleted E-mails.
23 Q. That wasn't my question. I understand
24 that. That is what it says. My question to you
25 is, why were you uncomfortable about this
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1 Mazza
2 information being recoverable, the deleted
3 E-mails?
4 MR. MARKS: Objection to the form.
5 A. I wasn't uncomfortable with it being
6 recoverable. I was uncomfortable with other
7 people asking to see it.
8 Q. I am reading what you wrote. "I am
9 somewhat uncomfortable with this info being
10 recoverable." That is not my words. That is what
11 it says here.
12 My question is, when you wrote this,
13 why did you say that? What were you uncomfortable
14 with about having this information, that is the
15 deleted E-mails, being recoverable?
16 MR. MARKS: Objection to the form.
17 A. That is not -- what I wrote is not what
18 I meant. When I say recoverable, I meant being
19 seen by somebody else.
20 Q. Well, you couldn't see it if it wasn't
21 recovered.
22 A. Right.
23 Q. Why were you uncomfortable that the
24 E-mails that you had deleted would be seen by
25 somebody else "in-house"? Why?
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1 Mazza
2 A. My purpose in writing that paragraph
3 was, we were in the middle of a DOI investigation
4 and I wanted to know if anybody else was asking
5 Kin to show them my deleted E-mails.
6 Q. You're not answering my question.
7 I asked you, using your own words, why
8 were you uncomfortable with this information being
9 recoverable. I am asking you why.
10 A. I answered you and said that --
11 Q. No, you haven't answered me. Why were
12 you uncomfortable; because it would show that you
13 doctored a resume?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Why were you uncomfortable; because you
16 deleted E-mails and it related to a subject that
17 you were sitting on a panel?
18 A. What I said to you in my answer
19 previously was that what I wrote is not what I
20 meant.
21 Q. You're a lawyer, Ms. Mazza. The trade
22 of a lawyer is the usage of words. I want to
23 know, what did you mean when you used the words, I
24 am somewhat uncomfortable with this information
25 being recoverable? At that time, what did you
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1 Mazza
2 mean?
3 MR. MARKS: Objection to the form.
4 Q. What did you mean?
5 A. What I meant was, I want to know if
6 Mr. Murphy was asking to see my deleted E-mails.
7 That is what I meant.
1 comment:
She's going to lose her job. It's just a matter of time now.
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