No Longer A Pain I’m Used To…

Finally, there is an end in sight to what I hope to be one of our final legal matters relating to our attack of a couple of years ago. The wheels of justice do indeed turn slowly at times. If anyone needs a refresher on circumstances and events relating to this, you can read my initial entry from August 2008 and then this one from October 2010.

Although, I am somewhat reluctant to call ourselves victors, we did receive word about two weeks ago that our employer had decided to settle this matter now rather than take the next step which would have been a proper hearing initially scheduled for June 2011. Thank goodness we didn’t have to wait another eight months to have our day and say in court, although we were fully prepared to go the distance if that’s what it ended up taking. Whew.

We had been hoping that they’d end up settling after what had happened during our initial meeting with the Judge from Small Claims, although we half expected them to dig in their heels even though they were so in the wrong in this case. Have to admit, though, that our initial mediation hearing almost ended up disastrously for us. Their Statement of Defense was riddled throughout with outright lies although they didn’t remotely seem to care – in the end the burden of proof would have ultimately been up to us and until this mediation they had been very cavalier about the whole thing arrogantly thinking we had nothing – they were so wrong.

We ended up being very lucky with the Judge we happened to draw for that initial mediation as the courts only allocated a half an hour of time to hear both of the sides. Our employer initially took the lead as the first words out of the Judge’s mouth to us were how frivolous our claim appeared to be with no apparent merit. Jim and I looked at each other in near panic and despair. WTF?

Thank heavens we had legal representation not to mention that Jim managed to quickly pick up on the fact that their lawyer had been presenting this matter as some sort of landlord tenant issue when in fact it was nothing of the sort. When it dawned on Jim what they were doing he instinctively blurted out his disgust and after we all recovered from our initial shock, you could actually see the Judge’s whole demeanour completely change. By the end of those thirty minutes, he had been completely won over to our side – mostly because we had a very legitimate and valid complaint against our employer. Whew!

Even after their legal representative was duly chastised by the Judge for his and the company’s appalling behaviour in light of the seriousness of our injuries while performing our normal job duties, he was incapable of making a counter offer to us that day. We had been prepared to settle for half of our original claim if we could wrap it up then and there. The Judge gave 30 days for their response to our offer and strongly suggested that the matter should really be settled then and there as if we proceeded to court, he felt they didn’t have a hope of winning even if we failed to come up with an ounce of proof of our claim. He said we’d win on the sympathy vote alone! Of course, they managed to wait the full thirty days before they responded to our offer.

We still haven’t received payment yet although we signed the paperwork 12 days ago – I guess they have 14 days to issue the cheque from that date. We never imagined we were going to get it any earlier than this anyway – certainly not based on their previous treatment! Still, it will be nice to have that bit of extra money as we enter the Christmas season that’s for sure, so regardless of when it arrives, I’ll certainly be happy!

peace, love and happiness…

P.S. I am now down to a daily dose of 22mg methadone. How cool is that? No ill effects either!

A Pain That I’m Used To Is Almost Done

Just over two years ago I posted A Pain That I’m Used To concerning an uncomfortable situation that had developed with my employer a couple of months after our attack and Jim’s stabbing. After all of this time though, we are still dealing with its aftermath although I am hopeful that this will all come to an end fairly shortly. Now, unfortunately, having to go to Small Claims Court to reach some sort of settlement has to occur. This part of the whole ordeal is something I’d like nothing more to avoid, but no such luck. A number of months ago we finally retained a lawyer to help us out, she’s been briefed with all details of our situation, all necessary papers have been filed with the court and all necessary statements of defense from our employer have also been filed. Nothing else left to do but show up for court bright and early Friday morning. GULP.

For the short version, we are basically suing our employer for approximately $7500 because they disposed into a large dumpster in front of our apartment building, about twenty or so of our personal possessions and furniture without notifying us in advance. When we attempted to confront them about this matter, we continually received their cold shoulder. They refused to offer us any sort of explanation or apology for their actions against us. We didn’t pursue it at the time for a number of reasons. It was so soon after the attack that fear was the overriding emotion driving pretty much every aspect of our lives. We didn’t realize that we could actually do something about it. We couldn’t afford legal representation for this matter two years ago. And so on…Two years on, our situation has changed on all fronts so once we discovered that we could, indeed, pursue them to attempt to recover our costs for this debacle, we decided we’d be fools for not moving forward. Although we did have to give our lawyer a $2000 retainer, if we are successful then all costs will have to be paid for by our employer.

For the long version, the following is the text of the original entry from August 2008:

Some things stay the same; some things never seem to change. As the months pass by since Jim’s attack and its savagery seems to fade from some people’s minds, the more difficult it seems to become for us regarding our work situation. Immediately after it happened, everyone from the office staff here in London right up through to the VP of Operations in Toronto couldn’t get to us fast enough with promises for our physical, emotional and financial security. Now that three months have passed since this incident almost all of their promises seemed to have fallen by the wayside. The only thing that I am not really worried about – yet – is our physical safety. We still have a beautiful roof over our head which we do not have to pay for as well as having all of our utilities looked after. Right now that is all that we seem to have. This fact is disturbing to say the least.

All of our forms were to have been filed and completed, etc. for a Workman’s Compensation claim for what happened to Jim and any forms that we were responsible for have been submitted. When I last spoke to the head of Human Resources of the company about a week ago, she mentioned that the company would no longer be paying us but that WSIB would be taking over from now on. Now when I spoke to WSIB earlier today, they advised us that our claim had been rejected because our employer had not submitted a series of forms. Fit to be tied at the moment mostly because I wasn’t able to actually speak to someone at WSIB but had to leave messages on two separate answering machines there. GRRRR. Of course when I called through to Toronto, I could only reach voice mail in the HR department. Oh how very, very typical.

I wouldn’t be quite so insane about all of this if something awful hadn’t happened here in London with my Regional Manager almost three weeks ago. Shortly after Jim’s attack, we moved into our current apartment because no one in my family was feeling terribly secure living on the ground floor of the apt building. Now since Jim was still recovering from near life threatening injuries, he obviously was unable to move any of our furniture or stuff up here. Naturally, one of my daughters managed to break her arm barely a week after Jim’s attack so she was also unable to offer much help or assistance. That left just me and Sara who barely weighs a 100 pounds on a good day! Naturally, it was tough carrying some of the heavier stuff for us so a few items were left behind in our old unit. I advised the office of this and apparently it wasn’t much of an issue until the time came when they needed our old unit.

The weekend after I was notified that they were going to need our old unit, I moved everything except for one couch out of it. This left behind couch was a monster to move so I had to leave it. When I talked to my boss she said that was no problem that she would get some of the maintenance guys to help. I waited for a number of days and no one came to help. One day Sara’s boyfriend was over and we managed to get it upstairs and into the hall of the fourth floor. Could not get it into our unit no matter what I tried. Finally the head of maintenance showed up to help me but no matter what he couldn’t get it in either. This couch just also happened to be near brand new. We had had it only a month. Looked like we were going to have to trash it which was a darn shame. Because I had been waiting to get this couch inside before I moved a few more of our other articles in, I stashed some of our stuff in an empty unit which just happened to be located directly beside our current one. This is also standard practice if you happen to be a Building Manager of an apt building – you tend to take advantage of empty units and store stuff in them on a regular basis. This is done by near everyone and is not remotely unusual.

I had mentioned to the office about this furniture being there in the empty unit also but for some reason my Regional Manager decided to take it upon herself to have the contents of this unit emptied into the dumpster out front of our building. There was a lot of stuff of value there also. Why she didn’t mention that she was going to do this so we had a chance to move it into our unit or get rid of it ourselves, is a mystery to us. Even after talking to her about it, she had nothing to say regarding her reasoning. I am so sick of everyone telling me that whenever I need help while Jim is recovering to just let them know and then when the actual time arrives, nothing at all. It is beyond insulting. What is really terrible about the whole thing is that when we went to check the dumpster not all of our stuff made it there. Any of our electronic equipment seemed to be missing. When we asked about this, we initially got a whole bunch of different answers until someone obviously started to feel a little bit guilty cause somehow some of this stuff was located – sitting in the paralegals office getting ready for her to take home!

Excuse me? How awful is this? You’re stealing from someone not only that you work with, but also from someone who has already had a series of horrific stuff happen to them, someone who’s interests that you in your position should be guarding. Insane. I wasn’t going to get the police involved but on our last visit to the specialists we mentioned what had happened and one of the doctor’s took it upon herself to call the police. I guess that she is a fairly good friend of the detective handling the attack. The police feel we have a fairly strong case for theft, etc. So far I have given a statement but I haven’t had them approach anyone in the office yet regarding this although after today, I plan on giving the go ahead. I’ve also given everyone enough time to return all of our electronics and even though I’ve received assurance that we’ll get them back, we still have not.

Following is a list of the items that we ended up losing – that I can remember so far because I know that there is more but probably won’t know something is missing until I go to get it.

• antique sewing table w/antique Singer sewing machine
  
• walnut dresser w/five dresser drawers
  
• all components to construct our bed frame i.e. slats/foot board
  
• Sklar Pepplar arm chair
  
• creme coloured leather love seat
  
• creme coloured leather arm chair
  
• 20″ tv set
  
• 17″ flat screen computer monitor
  
• 17″ computer monitor
  
• dvd player
  
• large collection of various types of cables for use with computers
  
• digital camera w/case
  
• laptop computer w/leather case
  
• collection of electric helicopters plus their accessories
  
• all of our winter coats – four individuals for a total of eight coats
  
• six fabric laundry sacks of clothing primarily Jim’s winter clothes
  
• all of Sara’s bed linens including comforter, three double sized blankets, set of curtains, sheets, pillows
  
• two extra-large Rubbermaid storage containers w/hinged lids w/contents removed
  
• misc. hand held tools
  
• two basic desk chairs
  

MAN ADMITS TO STABBING

The following article appeared in our local newspaper less than a week ago. The article provides a bit more info concerning the attack on us and the stabbing of Jim from a year and a half ago. In preparation for his sentencing hearing scheduled for the beginning of February, 2010, I’ve started to work on my Victim Impact Statement so that I can read it to the court on that day. Jim is also going to prepare and read one, as are both of our daughters – both of them came to me and asked if they would be able to do this as well, so of course, I agreed. This was very much a surprise as I had never intended to ask either one of them to go through this for us. Obviously, we are touched that they want to do this for us – our intentions originally had been motivated so that we could attempt to keep our babies shielded and separated from all of this ugliness. Have always said that they are made of strong stuff indeed.

The recent article is accurate except for one detail. It states that he had a 15-centimeter cut to his arm. This 15cm injury/scar actually appears on his chest, and was a direct result of the emergency surgery he had to have when the doctors cut him open to repair both his liver and lung. Anyway, if you are at all interested, you should be able to check out the original article for a few weeks RIGHT HERE. In case it expires, the following was printed:

By JANE SIMS, THE LONDON FREE PRESS
Last Updated: 10th December 2009, 11:07am

The noise coming from the sixth-floor apartment was too loud for the neighbours. That’s all the superintendent wanted to tell the people inside the Wonderland Rd. apartment in London when he knocked on the door on May 12, 2008, at about 5 p.m.

What would happen next would threaten his life and leave him with lingering injuries. Three men ran out of the apartment, pushed the superintendent to the floor and began punching, kicking and stabbing him.

P****** F*******, 25, pleaded guilty in a London court to aggravated assault for the stab wounds that punctured the man’s lung, lacerated his liver, and left him critically injured.

F******* is one of three men charged for the attack. He, along with his brother L*******, 24, and M*******, 22, had already begun a preliminary hearing in October. F******* has been in custody since his arrest in downtown London after the attack.

Assistant Crown attorney Gary Fowler told Justice Deborah Livingstone the victim and F******* did not know each other. Several people in the building, including the victim’s spouse, saw the attack. Along with the internal injuries, the victim suffered gashes to his arm and head and needed a 61/2-hour surgery. He needed 10 staples to close the gash in his head and had a 15-centimetre cut to his arm. Fowler said the victim needed a second surgery later. Livingstone noted that from the testimony heard earlier, the victim’s ongoing issues from the attack are “significant.”

F*******‘s lawyer, K******* M*******, said her client admitted to causing the injuries from the stabbing and was involved in some of the kicking and punching. A pre-sentence report was ordered and F******* is to be sentenced Feb 3.

The preliminary hearing for the other two men is slated to continue Jan. 11.

COMMENTS:

CAROL ANNE SPIVAK

December 10th 2009, 3:12pm

A PERSON AS VICIOUS AS HE IS DOES NOT BELONG AMOUNGST THE REST OF THE HUMAN RACE, HIS FRIENDS AS WELL. HOPE IT WON’T BE ANOTHER SLAP ON THE WRIST, HE NEEDS LOCKING UP FOR A VERY LONG TIME. I’M VERY ANXIOUS TO SEE WHAT THE PUNISHMENT WILL BE.

Don

December 10th 2009, 1:41pm

I hope they give this piece of human trash a double digit pen bit. He damn near killed an innocent man for knocking on a door….? The community is a better place without him. A SEVERE punishment is the only way to go on this case. Him reforming himself should be concidered a distant 2nd priority

Ouch

December 10th 2009, 11:44am

That hurts !

Just Can’t Get Enough

Well, it looks as if Jim and I will be going ahead and hiring a lawyer in order to represent our interests against those of our current employer. This is exactly the last thing that Jim and I really wanted to do, but it has now reached a point where it is obvious that we will need help fighting for our rights. Jim’s father is going to be footing the bill as this is certainly an expense that we are unable to undertake at the moment – Mr A has extremely deep pockets and is prepared to go the distance so we’ll be well looked after in this regard. The lawyer that we met with on Friday feels that we have an extremely solid case or complaint against them and feels strongly that well proceed.

In the past two and a half weeks, our benefits have been discontinued as well as our cable being cut off – both of these items are part of our “compensation” package so the company is not at all within their rights denying us either one of these two things. Just a few more things to become frustrated and concerned about at a time when I really shouldn’t have to deal with these kind of stresses.

MUCH MORE LATER!!!