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Army lawyer slams disability retirement system
The Army disability retirement system stacks the deck against injured soldiers by forcing them to prove they have post-traumatic stress disorder, demanding physical evidence for traumatic brain injuries, and restricting access to rules and regulations they need to make their cases, said an Army lawyer who helps soldiers appeal their claims. "I think the problems are systemic," said Steven Engle, head legal counsel for soldiers going through the disability physical evaluation system at Fort Lewis, Wash. "The rules are inequitable." In some cases, he said, they may even be illegal. And the cases that are coming to define the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and musculoskeletal injuries — are the ones most affected by unfair or unclear rules coming from the service's top-level Physical Disability Agency, Engle said.
Former chief of Building Inspection gets damages
Amy Lee, the former head of San Francisco's Building Inspection Department, has gotten the last laugh in that dustup at her confirmation hearing over whether she was suffering from "pregnancy brain." The city has agreed to fork over $156,000 in damages and attorney's fees to Lee so she won't sue the city for sexual harassment -- and, under California law, pregnancy harassment -- over a public meeting at which her critics belittled her and city officials did nothing to stop them. Lee also said she had felt pressure from her bosses to keep working soon after she had her baby. The settlement, which the Board of Supervisors approved April 17, calls for Lee to receive a cash payout of $21,693 for her suffering, 20 weeks of reinstated paid maternity leave valued at $67,540, and $66,800 in attorney fees.
A jury's stand against racism reflects hope for change
LINDEN, Texas -- This wisp of a town in the piney woods of east Texas is the birthplace of music greats T-Bone Walker and Scott Joplin -- a bit of historical fortune local officials hope one day will draw music-loving tourists here.
Today, however, Linden is wrestling with another identity: as the home of four white men involved in attacking a mentally disabled black man in 2003 and dumping him, unconscious and bleeding, along a country road in the middle of the night.
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