Speakers credit George E. Healy Jr. with helping to pull the workers' comp system out of the "total chaos" it was in in the early 1990s.

08:19 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 23, 2004

BY EDWARD FITZPATRICK
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The Senate yesterday confirmed George E. Healy Jr. as chief judge of the state Workers' Compensation Court.

Healy, 53, of East Greenwich, has been a workers' compensation judge for 13 years and he's been leading the court since December, when former Chief Judge Robert F. Arrigan retired.

Yesterday, seven people urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to support Healy, saying he played a key role in reforming Rhode Island's troubled workers' compensation system.

"For many years, the public considered workers' compensation courts the 'stepchild' of the rest of the judiciary," Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams said. "Today, in pertinent part because of [Healy's] hard work, the Rhode Island Workers' Compensation Court is widely recognized as a vital element of our judicial landscape."

Former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse told the committee, "I will speak briefly because I think this is a noncontroversial appointment -- and for very good reason."

Whitehouse, who was legal counsel to former Gov. Bruce G. Sundlun, noted Sundlun appointed Healy in 1991 "very shortly before the workers' compensation crisis bloomed and threatened to crash down upon Rhode Island." He said, "I think we are at a stage now in Rhode Island where the Workers' Compensation Court is an institution that we can be very, very proud of, and I think George Healy has an enormous amount to do with making that so."

George H. Nee, secretary-treasurer of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said he and Healy were on "opposite sides of the table" in 1990, when workers' compensation reform was becoming an issue, and Healy was a private attorney representing insurance companies.

But, Nee said, "I found him to be an absolutely honorable and worthy adversary." He said Healy was "extremely fair and had a complete commitment to the basic principle of the system, which was to provide justice to a worker who is injured in the course of their employment."

William G. Preston, a West Warwick insurance agent, said the workers' compensation system was in "total chaos" in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with insurance companies leaving the state and rates "going through the roof." In 1989, the system had a backlog of 15,000 cases and it took nine months to a year to get a hearing, but today the backlog is a couple-thousand cases and pretrial hearings are held in 21 days or less, he said, crediting Healy with helping to achieve that change.

Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence, noted Healy was affected when the Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline brought an ethics violation case against Arrigan, who was accused of soliciting money from lawyers for charitable and nonprofit groups and of having private meetings with insurance companies.

Healy said he was reprimanded for attending those meetings with Arrigan, but he said the commission later rescinded that reprimand. He said he viewed those meetings as educational efforts and not as prohibited communication with one side in a legal dispute.

Perry said she believes that experience enhanced Healy's "ability to be a public servant" because "this is a man who is sensitized to the good parts and the sometimes unfair parts of the court system."

Sen. Leonidas P. Raptakis, D-Coventry, asked whether Healy foresees more changes in the workers' compensation system. "Without a doubt," Healy replied. "If we want the system to fail, let it remain static."

Healy said, "The big issue which we have to face going forward: the uninsured employer." The state must make sure employers have insurance when required and prosecute scofflaws, he said. Also, the state must deal with employees who are victims of uninsured employers, he said.

The Judiciary Committee recommended Healy's confirmation, and immediately afterward, the full Senate voted 35-0 to confirm Healy. With the legislative session nearing an end, the Senate suspended rules requiring that calendar items be posted two days in advance.