If only these boobs had been from Butte; the headline for this piece would be perfect. Alas, they were not boobs from Butte, but rather miscreants from Missoula. No worries, they still give us much to ponder.
A Montana jury last week found a former janitor guilty of workers’ compensation fraud for faking a workplace injury with a floor buffer. The Montana Attorney General's Office had charged that he and two co-workers staged a workplace accident by placing a 200-pound floor buffer on his chest in an attempt to create a workplace injury. He allegedly collected $64,000 in benefits from Montana State Fund as a result of this activity.
His cohorts in crime, who earlier this year pled guilty for accountability to theft of workers’ compensation benefits, testified at his trial that they placed the buffer on top of [his] body and rocked the machine back and forth in an attempt to produce injury. When that seemingly failed, one of them punched him “repeatedly in the arm and leg to try to create bruising.”
Well, at least they had a fallback plan.
Let me review this one more time; they placed a large commercial device designed to polish floors onto a man's chest, hoping to injure him in some way. Maybe they should have dropped it from a higher level, say 30 or 40 feet. After all, if the buffer is rockin', don't come knockin'. Perhaps they could have just turned the damn thing on. Light buff, please. Don't bother to wax. If they had done that, they could have mopped the floor with him. Literally.
How did they report this, anyway? And whose bright idea was this? I mean, how many people out there have accidentally fallen under a 200 pound commercial floor buffer? It would seem a difficult thing to do, since it would probably have to climb its way onto your chest. Perhaps it was one of those newfangled “flying buffers” that no one has ever heard of because they do not exist – kind of like the guy's injuries.
Anyhoo, it is another segment in the “just when you thought you'd heard everything” saga of workers' comp. Another tale of when bad things happen to stupid people. Really. Stupid. People.
Our floor polishing wizard will be sentenced for his felony conviction in January. If he gets prison time, I sincerely hope they keep him away from floor maintenance as part of his jail time duties. He doesn't sound all that competent with big decisions involving heavy floor equipment. They should let him work instead in the wood shop. I'll bet he is a whiz with a commercial sander.