Webinar Replay #101: Workers Compensation in the Transportation Industry

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Steve Kessler: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the INFINITI Fast Forward webinar series.

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Steve Kessler: My name is Steve Kessler, and I’m going to be the host of the program today. We have an interesting topic on hand for everybody today. You know, in this business, we talk an awful lot about insurance, but mostly about… about liability insurance, and

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Steve Kessler: the,

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Steve Kessler: issue of workers’ compensation is another big piece of that. So, what we’re going to talk about today is using workers’ compensation to impact safety culture.

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Steve Kessler: We have a couple of, of attorneys from Scopelitis, as you all probably know, one of the best, well-known,

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Steve Kessler: law firms that represent transportation in the country, so I’m sure you’re all familiar with them.

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Steve Kessler: But, before we get started here, let me,

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Steve Kessler: touch on a couple of housekeeping items. Number one, we can’t hear you, so if you want to make a comment or have a question, you can use the chat box or jump into the Q&A box and pose your question or your comments. So,

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Steve Kessler: that’s, how you can communicate with us, so why don’t you jump in the chat and, just let us know who you are, what company you’re with, where you are, so we know who’s out there. And while you all are doing that, I’m going to, introduce Mark Rhea.

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Steve Kessler: Mark is an industry veteran, he joins us for most all the webinars, does a lot of consulting work in the business these days, so, Mark,

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Steve Kessler: Got any comments about work comp from your standpoint?

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Mark Rhea: Oh, absolutely. Really looking forward to today’s discussion on,

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Mark Rhea: On workers’ comp, it can get very complicated. A lot of legal landmines out there, if you will, on workers’ comp. And of course, in today’s freight market.

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Mark Rhea: Every dollar counts, and there are absolutely dollars that can be, avoided, with understanding and implementing, a risk management

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Mark Rhea: program designed to help this workers’ comp, issue that we’ve all… it differs to state to state, and again, it can get very complicated, and I’m looking forward to it. And just as a sidebar,

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Mark Rhea: I think the… I think the INFINITI Learning Management System really is… supports, being able to produce either custom content or specialized content, directed at your, staff to avoid

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Mark Rhea: workers’ comp claims, and what to do once you have an accident, and somebody gets hurt. So, looking forward to that, and just as another reminder, fall is right around the corner, and with the weather changing, things get a little slippery out there, and

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Mark Rhea: I think the claims will certainly go up for our friends in the workers’ comp field. So, looking forward to today, and ready to get started.

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Steve Kessler: Very good, thanks, Mark.

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Steve Kessler: We’re having a little bit of an issue here, folks. I’m going to… I’m trying to get our guests connected up, so if you’d just bear with me here a second.

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Steve Kessler: Margaret, I don’t know if you can hear me, if you’ve been able to log in, but would you jump on the chat and let me know that you’re on here?

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Steve Kessler: Now I see you.

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Steve Kessler: There you are, Margaret!

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Margaret M. Krei: Sorta. Sorta. Sorta.

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Mark Rhea: Oh, we got a bit of an echo. You know, seeing a lot of familiar names on our chat box. My friends from Reese.

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Mark Rhea: Supply, I want to shout out to you guys over there. I know y’all have some challenges with workers’ comp.

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Margaret M. Krei: Let me show this belongings down.

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Steve Kessler: I can hear you and see you. Can you see my slides, Margaret?

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Margaret M. Krei: Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

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Steve Kessler: We gotta figure out something to do with this echo.

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Margaret M. Krei: Can you hear me okay?

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Steve Kessler: I hear an echo. Say again.

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Steve Kessler: Speak.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Margaret M. Krei: They’re not hearing us. Well…

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Steve Kessler: Bro, I hear you good now.

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Margaret M. Krei: Okay, you’re good now?

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, a while ago, I had a bad echo, but it went away, so we’re all good. I’m excited. I can move the slides for you, but let me do a proper introduction for you two first, okay?

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Steve Kessler: Very good. Folks, sorry for the little, technical glitch there, but, we’re all set to go now. As I said, we have two attorneys that are joining us from Scopolitis. I hope I say that right, Margaret.

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Margaret M. Krei: You are saying it right, thank you.

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Steve Kessler: Perfect. My, first introduction is Margaret Cry, I believe I’ve said that correctly.

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Steve Kessler: Margaret focuses her practice on workers’ compensation defense, including analysis of compensability of claims, negotiation of settlements, and communication with claims representatives.

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Steve Kessler: She also offers minimizing, avoiding workers’ compensation risk training sessions for the insurance industry, and self-insured employers who handle workers’ compensation claims.

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Steve Kessler: Margaret has experience representing clients in administrative law proceedings in Wisconsin.

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Steve Kessler: She has presented on topics including ethical dilemmas in workers’ compensation and best practices when dealing with workers’ compensation claims. Margaret regularly volunteers with the Milwaukee Eviction Defense Project, assisting low-income tenants who are facing eviction.

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Steve Kessler: Joining Margaret is Michael McFarlane.

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Steve Kessler: Michael provides strategic defenses and advice for self-insured employers facing workers’ compensation claims. His experience includes significant appellate litigation before the Labor and Industry Review Commission, Circuit Court, and Court of Appeals.

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Steve Kessler: Michael, counsels on high-value workers’ compensation cases involving complex flat… excuse me, facts and legal issues. Michael’s work includes investigations, preparing case analysis for clients.

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Steve Kessler: Assisting the team in managing the direction of litigation.

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Steve Kessler: Drafting global settlement agreements to help clients proactively avoid potential claims not covered by workers’ compensation, and guiding clients through subrogation opportunities to recover benefits paid.

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Steve Kessler: Okay, having said all that, I’m going to turn the program over, I guess, to Margaret first.

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Steve Kessler: So, I’m going to, move the slide and turn it over to you all. Thank you very much.

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Margaret M. Krei: Thank you so much, Steve. Appreciate the warm welcome and introduction, and thank you, everyone, for dealing with our technical problems. We tried to get fancy and use a conference room with a camera and a Polycom device, but we should just go the old-fashioned way with a little laptop screen in us.

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Margaret M. Krei: scratched up next to each other, and that works just fine. You can go ahead to the next slide, please, Steve.

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Margaret M. Krei: I’m thrilled to hear from Mark that it sounds like many of the people on this call are probably familiar with Scopelitis, which we appreciate, so you’re probably aware we can be found just about everywhere in the country that you might have transportation needs. Obviously, a holistic practice that covers

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Margaret M. Krei: everything transportation industry clients might need. Michael and I

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Margaret M. Krei: focus our practice specifically in workers’ compensation defense, but of course, Scopolitis handles the full gamut of transportation needs.

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Margaret M. Krei: You can go to the next slide.

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Margaret M. Krei: So, our plan today is to do a pretty brief background on the basics of a work injury, process of a work injury claim, the good and the bad of having a work injury.

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Margaret M. Krei: And then, the majority of our time, we want to spend on how to improve work safety. So, those first things are a little bit of a breeze through. As Steve mentioned, if anyone has questions while we’re going through the presentation, feel free to put them in the chat. We’ll try to pay attention to that.

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Margaret M. Krei: So that we can answer them, and we’ll make sure to work that into our presentation. If we don’t have time to get to any of your specific questions, our contact information will be on the last slide, and you’re certainly welcome to reach out to us with any questions. You can go to the next slide, Steve.

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Steve Kessler: Sure.

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Margaret M. Krei: Alright, so, I’m just going to start with the basics of work, of a work injury. This language here is Wisconsin terminology where we practice, but the concepts are pretty universal, for workers’ compensation, no matter the jurisdiction.

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Margaret M. Krei: Obviously, a work injury requires an injury. In our state, that’s defined as a physical or mental harm caused by either an accident or an occupational exposure.

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Margaret M. Krei: we, we see a lot of times that, accident and injury are used interchangeably. As we talk today, we’ll, we’ll try to, try to keep those words separately, because they do have, distinct meanings. Furthermore, jurisdiction, Part B there,

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Margaret M. Krei: jurisdiction can be in multiple states concurrently. That’s something to be aware of. So, a lot of times, a claim will take place where the injury happens, or maybe where the,

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Margaret M. Krei: employment contract was entered into, or maybe where the employer’s home base is. There’s a lot of things that can factor into it, and from state to state, the jurisdictional rules are not uniform. But it is important to know that you could have multiple jurisdictions.

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Margaret M. Krei: And if you’re dealing with litigation or a claim, you may want to just double-check and make sure that you’re, you’re, reaching a resolution in all the jurisdictions.

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Margaret M. Krei: Relevant to the case.

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Margaret M. Krei: Third…

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Margaret M. Krei: The injury needs to happen when the employee is working. In our state, that’s a very broad thing. Even when the employee’s not working, the employee can be working, especially when we’re talking about truck drivers.

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Margaret M. Krei: The traveling employee concept, I’m familiar that that’s in a lot of jurisdictions as well, but, in Wisconsin, once the truck driver heads out on the road, they are working the entire time they are out there until they come back and…

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, leave the terminal, or if they’re… or at home, or whatever. So, third is…

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Margaret M. Krei: the cause. Usually it’s a medical question, did the accident or the occupational exposure cause the injury?

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Margaret M. Krei: I hit on these just because we’re going to come back to them, and, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page.

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Margaret M. Krei: Again, this is Wisconsin terminology, it may not be exactly the same in the states you’re concerned about, but it should be familiar, at least.

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Margaret M. Krei: Next slide, please.

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Margaret M. Krei: Third, or sorry, next, the, the process of, claiming a work injury.

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Margaret M. Krei: Obviously, it starts with reporting the injury. Different jurisdictions have different rules on that. In our state, you can report an injury years.

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Margaret M. Krei: after it happens, and still have a viable claim. I’m a fan of the jurisdictions where you need to report it within a few days or a few weeks. It really makes the next point, investigation, a lot easier. And I’ll be talking a lot more about investigation. It’s one of my favorite topics.

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Margaret M. Krei: I have some ideas on how you can…

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Margaret M. Krei: Improve your investigations, concurrent with improving your safety culture,

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Margaret M. Krei: Second, there’s a lot of paperwork involved.

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Margaret M. Krei: if the injured worker is capable of doing something, if not their own job, there’s modified duty hassles that need to be addressed. A lot of times, you may be working with a third-party vendor that finds modified duty opportunities at nonprofits.

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Margaret M. Krei: and outside organizations.

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Margaret M. Krei: I know for a fact that a lot of work goes into, making that work as well.

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Margaret M. Krei: If the case goes on long enough, and if it’s, contentious enough, lawyers get involved, that’s, fun.

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Margaret M. Krei: Fun for us, maybe not fun for everybody else.

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Margaret M. Krei: And then, litigation obviously gets rolling there, and, again, depending on the jurisdiction, that can be, a different animal. Here in Wisconsin, it is not unusual for a case to take years to resolve.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, decades is feasible, although that is the exception.

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Margaret M. Krei: Likely a lot of these procedural steps will overlap, with the injured worker feeling symptoms.

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Margaret M. Krei: Or, or, or being disabled, obviously. And,

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Margaret M. Krei: I bring that up because, again, it’s, we’re going to come back to this, and it’s all going to fit together.

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Margaret M. Krei: Next slide, please.

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Mark Rhea: Michael had a quick question on reporting. Yes.

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Mark Rhea: Is… is a… is it a training opportunity for a company to train the co-workers to report, potential accidents? Is that… does that classify as a report, or is it the injured person that has to do the reporting?

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Margaret M. Krei: Well, reporting, reporting has a couple… a couple of meanings in workers’ compensation. You know, from the insurance standpoint, and maybe even from, from the employer’s standpoint, they may be thinking of reporting as, documents that need to be filed with the state, or, or,

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, the, the commission or whatever, whatever it’s called in each jurisdiction. I’m really referencing a report of injury, like you, you mentioned, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: generally, a coworker does not report another injury, should they?

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Margaret M. Krei: I don’t see a downside to it. At the end of the day, the claim needs to come from the injured worker, so…

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Margaret M. Krei: If a co-worker said, you know, hey, I just saw John, trip and fall, and now he’s limping,

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, I don’t think that’s a bad thing for an employee to bring that to the employer’s attention. You know, the employer may need to then go to John and say, John, what happened? Are you injured?

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Margaret M. Krei: there are… there are people in this world who don’t want to admit their injury, and you know, I guess maybe from… from an employer standpoint that…

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Margaret M. Krei: we should consider ourselves lucky when somebody doesn’t report their injury, but I think in reality, you should want to know, you should want to address it. You know, you don’t want an injured worker going out and trying to do their job injured.

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Margaret M. Krei: They could be mentally distracted, they could be physically, you know, not 100%, and that’s a danger in itself.

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Margaret M. Krei: And, witness statements are something that we commonly ask for in the investigation stage of a claim, so certainly it can be… it’ll be helpful at some point. We always want to know, were there any witnesses to any accident?

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Margaret M. Krei: Okay, this next slide’s going to go real quick, because realistically, there really isn’t anything good about a work injury. No one’s going to get rich off of it. Some employees have this, I don’t know if it comes from the movies or just pie-in-the-sky idea that

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Margaret M. Krei: They’re going to claim a work injury and be set for life. You’re not. You’re never going to be better off with a work injury than you would have been if you had one.

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Margaret M. Krei: The only possible exception that Michael thought of to a good thing about a work injury is very, very, very rarely you could have an incidental finding during a medical evaluation. You didn’t know you had a giant tumor growing in your stomach until you went to get a…

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Margaret M. Krei: MRI for something, but, I mean, what are the odds of that? I had to strain myself for that one. Yes, realistically, there’s nothing good about a work injury. So you can go to the next slide, Steve.

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Margaret M. Krei: There is, however, a lot that’s bad about work injuries, as we all know. Even though it is our bread and butter, this is what we work in day in and day out, even we don’t want work injuries. We don’t like it when people are actually injured.

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Margaret M. Krei: So, no-brainer, the injury itself is not good. If an employee, if a truck driver has a broken arm, that truck driver cannot operate the rig, and they’re out of work for a while.

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Margaret M. Krei: The cost of disability payments.

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Margaret M. Krei: And having that employee out of work, needing to find an employee to replace that driver who can no longer drive, the stress of everything, not just on the worker, on their family, on their coworkers who maybe now have to pick up slack, if the claim ever ends up denied.

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Margaret M. Krei: That is…

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Margaret M. Krei: sometimes detrimental to the employee-employer relationship, and of course, a lot of times, it’s not actually the employer denying the claim, it’s the insurance company, or us. You can always blame the lawyers, if you need a scapegoat, we’re used to that.

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Margaret M. Krei: If a claim ends up in litigation, the costs, the time, that’s also bad. And like I mentioned before, it’s really inadequate compensation. There are statutory caps in Wisconsin, and I’m sure in most other jurisdictions, that no one’s going to get rich or set for life. If someone is 40 years old.

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Margaret M. Krei: Then they have some type of catastrophic work injury.

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Margaret M. Krei: they’re not going to have a great life for the second half, or hopefully longer, of their life. It’s really inadequate to have you live the kind of comfortable life you’d want to be living.

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Margaret M. Krei: And it’s really, a life-changing impact in all aspects of your life. Honestly, even a small injury, something as silly as you weren’t being careful, trying to release the fifth wheel on your truck, and so you ripped too hard and you tore your rotator cuff.

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Margaret M. Krei: you need surgery. Going under anesthesia and having surgery is a major life event. Maybe you’re only out of work for 3 months, so when we… it’s not one of these catastrophic cases that we’re talking about, but that’s still a detrimental impact to your family, to your coworkers. It really should be…

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Margaret M. Krei: Avoided at all costs.

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Margaret M. Krei: So, you can go to the next slide.

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Steve Kessler: Hey, Margaret, real quick, this is Steve. Is it not true that in the majority of workers’ compensation.

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Steve Kessler: claims that

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Steve Kessler: the indirect costs as a result of a work injury are often more than what the work comp insurance is going to pay. I think you just sort of touched on them. If you have to replace people, you have to train new people, that’s things that are not covered by work comp. Am I correct about that?

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Margaret M. Krei: I know the Department of Labor actually publishes some information that…

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Steve Kessler: Generally, if it’s a fairly large, injury claim.

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Steve Kessler: That the indirect costs are… are…

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Steve Kessler: more than what work comp insurance will pay. It just made me think of that when you were talking about stress and replacing people that have been injured and other costs that are associated with that.

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Margaret M. Krei: Yeah.

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Margaret M. Krei: Right, imagine you have an employee who’s been there for a decade, and has all this institutional knowledge.

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Steve Kessler: Exactly.

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Margaret M. Krei: And then now that employee, even if they’re just gone for 3 months while they’re getting surgery, you have other people filling in that role who don’t have anywhere near the institutional knowledge. They’re not going to work as effectively as that employee with a decade of institutional knowledge.

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Steve Kessler: Next slide.

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Margaret M. Krei: Please.

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Margaret M. Krei: So, with all of that background, I wanna, I wanna, hopefully prevent any fears that Mark put into your head. Workers’ compensation is extremely complicated, and we are going to try to avoid all of the complicated stuff today.

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Margaret M. Krei: We… we’re going to maybe reference the complicated stuff.

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Margaret M. Krei: But, but we’re not going to… we’re not going to dive into those details, I don’t think, I don’t think it makes for a very,

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Margaret M. Krei: lively discussion.

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Margaret M. Krei: So…

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Margaret M. Krei: The gist here of this presentation is to use what you know, what we know, what your teammates know about workers’ compensation, to…

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Margaret M. Krei: to… Educate your workforce about workers’ compensation, and really impart upon them the understanding that work injuries are bad.

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Margaret M. Krei: Like the last slide said. And they’re bad for them, more than anybody else.

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Margaret M. Krei: They… If they really understand how bad a work injury can get.

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Margaret M. Krei: And they don’t always get that way.

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Margaret M. Krei: I believe that you can raise their awareness.

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Margaret M. Krei: And… and because…

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Margaret M. Krei: they can’t not start recognizing safety risks all around them in life. You know, I speak from my own experience, I don’t work in a dangerous job.

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Margaret M. Krei: But, I…

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Margaret M. Krei: read and live workers’ compensation, you know, 5 days a week, and I don’t really stop work thinking about it on the weekends.

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Margaret M. Krei: I see danger and risks everywhere. I’m not a safety… you know, I’m not a safe… train safety manager or anything like that, but I see them everywhere. I drive my kids and my wife nuts pointing things out, but…

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Margaret M. Krei: we… we’re always thinking about it, and I think that…

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Margaret M. Krei: If you and your workforce are thinking about half as much as we are.

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Margaret M. Krei: work injuries can be prevented. And really, that’s the best…

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Margaret M. Krei: Policy for managing your workers’ compensation costs is to prevent injuries in the first place.

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Margaret M. Krei: I also think that, you know, injuries are going to happen, and if you have alert, safety-conscious employees, they can, mitigate their injuries. They hopefully won’t be as bad, when they occur.

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Margaret M. Krei: And then, another sort of, philosophy I have, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, I don’t have any science to back it up, but I think that if you talk to employees about workers’ compensation, injuries, the process, how it… how it might go, hypothetical situations, maybe not even hypothetical situations, maybe if you can,

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, find somebody who’s had, somebody in your company who’s had a work injury, a former employee, a current employee, and they’re willing to talk about their experience. I think it can be really impactful. And when people know what’s coming.

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Margaret M. Krei: That mental preparedness, I think, can be beneficial as well, in terms of

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Margaret M. Krei: Making sure that they’re cooperative in the process, they’re motivated to get better, they’re motivated to get the right treatment, and they’re not focused on, you know, maximizing the payday or the payout, like a lot of injured workers that we see.

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Margaret M. Krei: So… I’ve kind of covered all these bullet points in a general overview, but…

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, I think, really, the bottom line is, is that you kind of want to scare your employees into caring a little bit more, and it’s a bit of a downer to focus on

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Margaret M. Krei: on all of the bad of a workers’ compensation case. So I don’t necessarily, suggest you make this the core, the core thrust of your safety program. And we can frame it a little better, too. So we… something we encourage and counsel employers a lot

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Margaret M. Krei: is to promote a positive safety culture. So, I would be surprised if each of you on this call doesn’t reference your safety culture. And everyone thinks of that, you know, cartoon…

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Margaret M. Krei: placard up saying, you know, zero days since our last incident or accident. That’s what we want. But really, if you are…

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Margaret M. Krei: Focusing on a positive safety culture.

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Margaret M. Krei: accidents will still happen, but that would be a way to frame it in a positive light, but like Michael says, people need to know the bad parts of a worker’s compensation injury so that they are aware.

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Margaret M. Krei: That it’s not a quick ticket to retirement. Certainly not one that they would want to pursue.

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Margaret M. Krei: And I think… I think these ideas that we’re going to discuss… that we’re discussing today can be folded into your existing program. It’s just a matter of…

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, your, your, your educators, whoever’s doing, teaching at the safety meetings, you know, has, has their, their anecdotes or their.

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, there are 2 or 3 workers’ compensation points that they want to add… tack on to the safety training. I was looking at a safety training checklist the other day.

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Margaret M. Krei: And and I bring this one up a lot because I see it a lot. The three points of contact as drivers are entering and exiting their semi-tractors, and I think, I think there’s a pretty universal standard on how that’s supposed to go.

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Margaret M. Krei: But…

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Margaret M. Krei: when I read the… when I read the safety documents, it just tells you how to do it. And, you know, I imagine some employers are probably adding and elaborating on that, and some aren’t. Because I see… I see different safety cultures, you know, with different employers that I work with.

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Margaret M. Krei: But we see people get injured all the time, exiting their truck, and exiting their truck the right way.

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Margaret M. Krei: Usually, it comes down to… they come down maybe a little too hard onto their leg. They… instead of sort of setting their foot down carefully, maybe, like, they’re testing, you know, if the ice is thick enough.

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Margaret M. Krei: They’re just… they’re just letting gravity bring them down on the ground. Well, you do that enough times, and if you’re, you know, a really big person, or you’re an older person with, you know, degenerative knees.

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Margaret M. Krei: That impact can be enough to, to, to…

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, pop your meniscus, or, or just strain a ligament. And, the…

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Margaret M. Krei: as I’m sure Margaret will probably elaborate on this, you know, little things can blow up into big things. So even if that’s what it looks like to begin with, they can turn into, sort of, massive, huge problems, for everybody involved. So…

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Margaret M. Krei: Like I’m saying.

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Margaret M. Krei: maybe, in addition to telling people how to do the three points of contact and entering and exiting their truck, talk about how, you know, be really gentle, setting your foot down. It feels… it sounds silly, it maybe even looks a little silly, you know.

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Margaret M. Krei: Logically, it’ll probably take you an extra second, but that extra time and that extra care, is totally worth it, if it means that you didn’t blow out your knee.

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Margaret M. Krei: And you’re going to be out of work for, 6 months or 3 months, for a meniscus injury, and then, you know, a little bit down the line, you’re going to be out of work for another 6 months to a year because of a knee replacement.

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Margaret M. Krei: If you’re ever getting back to work after that, I don’t know.

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Margaret M. Krei: But simple things that we kind of take for granted in our daily life, or maybe the drivers do.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, taking that extra minute to think about how can…

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Margaret M. Krei: How can these things that are automatic for us turn into injuries? I think having those discussions, can really open a lot of eyes.

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Margaret M. Krei: I think that taking the time and care is something that Michael and I really want to emphasize as well. We know that all of your businesses have needs. Everyone wants to work as efficiently as possible.

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Margaret M. Krei: And, of course, managers are going to be passing that down to the people underneath them. And so, this culture kind of forms of, we have to do as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and whether that’s loading a truck.

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Margaret M. Krei: quickly, because if we get on the road 5 minutes earlier, it saves us X amount of dollars. Or if we take a shortcut, and we don’t have to make this stop, then we can save X amount of dollars.

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Margaret M. Krei: That’s a really slippery slope, and you can get into some really serious injuries trying to cut corners, so if it comes from the top down, that we don’t want you cutting corners, we don’t want you to try to save 2 minutes by

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Margaret M. Krei: stacking an extra pallet, and then using the forklift for that, rather than doing it one less pallet and making two trips. That’s really important to emphasize to your workers, because

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Margaret M. Krei: If they are injured.

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Margaret M. Krei: because they were trying to hurry, then they might be out of work for months, whereas if they had just taken a couple extra minutes, it really would not have slowed down the process that more. And so, I think that’s…

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, a stress point for employees. There are a lot of employers out there who just want them to do the most as quickly as possible, but we know just by being on this call.

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Margaret M. Krei: you care about your employer… employees, and of course, you want everything to be as profitable as possible, but you… you care about your employees. You don’t want them to be hurt. It’s going to save you money in the long run if they don’t get hurt. And I mentioned the… I mentioned the tough guy.

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Margaret M. Krei: That… that maybe doesn’t immediately report their injury because they think it’s… it’s minor and it’ll feel better after I walk it off.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, those…

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Margaret M. Krei: those are the people I think you really need to watch out for and speak very explicitly to the, you know, to that part of your workforce.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, explain to them that when we say, if the fifth wheel release is stuck or frozen, we don’t want you to just keep

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Margaret M. Krei: forcing it, forcing it, forcing it, until it releases. We really want you to contact maintenance, or whoever the person is to contact, to have the equipment looked at, because maybe it’s defective, maybe it’s broken, maybe it needs, you know, some care.

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Margaret M. Krei: I think it’s really easy to sort of get in the mind of those people who are like, you know, oh, if I just… if I just give it a little bit more oomph, it’ll release, and then I can get on with my day.

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Margaret M. Krei: They, you know, again, they’re trying to save… they’re trying to save a little bit of time, get out there, get their deliveries going, or whatever, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: And it ends up turning into a, you know, a rotator cuff tear that’s going to keep them from doing deliveries for a lot longer.

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Margaret M. Krei: And, you know, we hope that our workforce uses… You know.

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Margaret M. Krei: impeccable judgment in these situations, but, they’re human, and sometimes they think they know better, and it’s important to sort of anticipate these things before they happen, so that when they confront it, they don’t have to… they don’t have to be tempted by a bad judgment. They’ve been told.

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Margaret M. Krei: explicitly, clearly, multiple times, don’t do it. And they’ve been given good reasons why they shouldn’t do it.

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Margaret M. Krei: And I think that’s another big one, is, is, you know.

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Margaret M. Krei: making sure that people understand the reasons behind the safety rules. You know, they’re…

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Margaret M. Krei: It may seem obvious, but, you know, not everybody, not everybody sees the things that we see, and everybody’s got a different perspective on it.

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Margaret M. Krei: And another thing along the lines of safety culture that we’ve found employers really benefit from is

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Margaret M. Krei: a degree of uniformity in applying your safety culture, no matter what the injury is. So, like Michael talked about, that, you know, tough guy persona who doesn’t want to report an injury, if you have it

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Margaret M. Krei: as a mandatory… we just… there’s no questions about it. You are filling out an accident form, whether you…

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Margaret M. Krei: cut your finger and just needed a band-aid, or something very serious happened and you needed to go to the hospital. If it’s just a mandatory of, like, hey, no matter what it is, we just fill out this form, we document it, we don’t have to make a big deal out of it.

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Margaret M. Krei: If you apply your policies and procedures uniformly to every employee and every injury, then there should never be any question of someone saying, oh, I don’t want to, report that because I don’t want to seem like a baby. No, no, you’re going to report that, and there are many, you know, it’s really investigation reasons down the line, but

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Margaret M. Krei: Now, it’s this even playing ground, and it’s just, this is what we do as a company. As soon as there’s an injury or an accident, we tell someone, and then, of course, everyone always has those lines on their safety forms, how could this have been prevented in the future? So then that’s what you, the managers, would look into. And I’ll add that I know that there are a lot of companies that, as a matter of policy, immediate reporting is required.

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Margaret M. Krei: required.

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Margaret M. Krei: And I think that’s great.

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Margaret M. Krei: It needs to be reconciled sometimes with the law, where the law says, an injured worker has more, more than just, you know, that…

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Margaret M. Krei: that instant moment to report an injury. In Wisconsin, again, you can report an injury years late, and it’s still a valid claim. But,

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Margaret M. Krei: Even though an injured worker technically, legally, might have that extra time to report an injury,

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, it’s important to, again, explain why they shouldn’t take that extra time. It’s not to their benefit to take that extra time. It’s not to the company’s benefit, and to benefit the company is to benefit the workforce. It’s, you know, you’re all on the same team.

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Margaret M. Krei: And, you know, when the injured worker

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Margaret M. Krei: has that trust, you know, that, you know, reporting an injury is the right thing to do, my company tells me it’s the right thing to do, I understand why it’s the right thing to do, because my company told me about it. I’m going to do it, I’m going to follow the policies.

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Margaret M. Krei: It… it… you know, you do it… do it with enough policies, and now you have… you have really good buy-in from your workforce, because

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, now they just blindly trust you, which is… I mean, they don’t need to blindly trust you, but, you know, they’re less suspicious, they’re less, you know, I know better than them in their attitude.

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Margaret M. Krei: I don’t need to be that safe. You don’t want… you don’t want those people in your company, and I think you can… can train it out of them.

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Margaret M. Krei: So, speaking of trust, we had a question pop up from Dominic that sounds like at least one person out there, and I’m quite sure it’s many more of you, may be having some trust issues with the workforce. Dominic said that…

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Margaret M. Krei: Work injury seems like it’s becoming a trend now, even if trucks are in the parking lot next to each other, and a truck at the dock is driving 2 miles an hour, and there’s a damage to the side view mirror, so obviously a very minor thing.

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Margaret M. Krei: They automatically get a lawyer and report being injured.

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Margaret M. Krei: he said it’s getting more and more that very minor incidents are having injuries reported, and they see so many ads on the highways for injury attorneys, he said it’s like giving them more ideas of chasing after easy money. So that’s a really good point, Dominic, and Michael and I have talked about this a bit with

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, does it make sense to…

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Margaret M. Krei: put these kind of horror stories in your employee’s mind, will that just give them, ideas of how to claim a work injury? And that’s kind of our point, is by telling them all of the bad things, is dispelling that myth out there. So…

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Margaret M. Krei: Personal injury law is very different from workers’ compensation law in Wisconsin and many other states. There are statutory caps to workers’ compensation law. You cannot have these million-dollar verdicts in workers’ compensation laws in Wisconsin like you can in

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Margaret M. Krei: personal injury cases. And most other states, that’s kind of the whole purpose of work comp. It’s this bargain of, okay, we’re going to make it a little easier to make your claim, but we’re going to raise the… lower down the ceiling on exactly how much money you can get. So…

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Margaret M. Krei: That is really frustrating when you are have… seeing an increase in these very, very minor incidents. And, you know, we… we see that…

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Margaret M. Krei: I wouldn’t say all the time, you know, a lot of the cases we’re dealing with are…

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Margaret M. Krei: your doctor says you’re this percentage injured, my doctor says you’re this percentage injured, let’s fight about it. But there certainly are those employees out there who are untruthful and trying to scam the system. So, I think our advice, on that front would be to,

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Margaret M. Krei: Share these stories about how you’re not really going to benefit, and you’re going to harm the workforce.

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Margaret M. Krei: I don’t think… I don’t think workers’ compensation, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: Let me back up. When I was a younger attorney, there was a wizened judge in our state that would, as a matter of sort of their scripted speech.

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Margaret M. Krei: Tell injured workers when they met with them that, no matter how the case ends up, if they win every, you know, every point on the case, they are still not going to get paid enough for their injury.

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Margaret M. Krei: And he was just very upfront about it. This was not a judge we liked having, this was a judge that paid a lot of claims, but he was… he was very upfront with the injured workers and said, you know.

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Margaret M. Krei: know right now, like, lower your expectations. This is… this is not a… you’re never going to get a windfall in workers’ compensation, and, you know, if you’re injured bad enough, no amount of money is going to make up for the pain and suffering that you’re going to feel, because workers’ compensation doesn’t pay pain and suffering.

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Margaret M. Krei: It’s just never enough in workers’ compensation, and I think that’s, an important point to repeat to your workers.

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Margaret M. Krei: Because…

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Margaret M. Krei: your injured workers, I mean, some of them know, you know, the frequent flyers or whatever, but there are a lot of workers who really just don’t have any idea about workers’ compensation. We know this because we see them on our cases, whether they’re represented by an attorney or not represented by an attorney.

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Margaret M. Krei: They… they… they’re just… they’re flying blind, and,

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Margaret M. Krei: They’re… workers’ compensation, unfortunately, is one of those… one of those areas of law where kind of everybody, at the end of the day, when a case is resolved.

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Margaret M. Krei: More often than not, both parties are disappointed, unlike in other areas of law, where both parties can walk away with a win-win.

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Margaret M. Krei: a couple things that jogged my memory when Margaret was talking is, again, little things that blow up into big things, and maybe we should jump into some horror stories. Sure. To sort of illustrate the point.

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Margaret M. Krei: But, also kind of relating to workers.

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, just automatically getting an attorney and just claiming they’re injured. I think…

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Margaret M. Krei: you’re always going to have those people. You know, the marketing out there for the personal injury attorneys is…

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Margaret M. Krei: I mean, it’s… it’s flood in the zone, I think is the term that people are using these days, but it’s just everywhere, and it’s constant. So that’s going to get into people’s head, and they’re going to… they’re going to have dreams of what that could mean for them.

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Margaret M. Krei: There was a commercial the other day where the testimonial said, I’m always going to trust Gruber.

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Margaret M. Krei: And I’m like, how many times are you planning on getting injured that you always need to trust them? Like, one should be… one time should be enough in a lifetime.

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Margaret M. Krei: In any event, with the approach we’re talking about, and, you know, obviously with just an A-plus safety program, I think your employees can really start to feel that their employer cares about them.

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Margaret M. Krei: Not as assets, you know, not as human resources, but as people.

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Margaret M. Krei: And you care about them and their physical well-being, their mental well-being, their family well-being, it’s all connected into this workers’ compensation scheme. And when an employee knows that their employer cares.

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Margaret M. Krei: They’re just far less inclined to take advantage of their employer. You know, you’re never going to reach perfection in that instance. There’s always going to be exceptions, but…

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, we’re looking for optimal, at least.

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Margaret M. Krei: We have a question that came in from Alan, asking when their driver’s in another state, is it still covered by the state they’re based out of?

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Margaret M. Krei: That… so in Wisconsin, and I think most jurisdictions are like this, there are multiple jurisdictions that

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Margaret M. Krei: could have jurisdiction over the claim, so if a, driver started a route from a terminal that’s based in Indianapolis, and they were making a delivery in Wisconsin, and the,

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Margaret M. Krei: injury happened in either one of those or anywhere along the way, Wisconsin could have jurisdiction, or Indiana could have jurisdiction. An employee can never claim benefits in both states, but to the extent

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Margaret M. Krei: one state has better benefits than the other. If they already claimed benefits in the state with worse benefits, they might be able to kind of, like, get the cleanup in the second state, but it’s only ever going to be one state at a time where they can’t double dip and get benefits in multiple states. But to answer your question.

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Margaret M. Krei: multiple states can have jurisdiction. And again, Wisconsin, it’s where it originates, where the business is domiciled, where they traveled through the actual site of the accident. And in practicality, the way it plays out a lot of times is the… the,

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Margaret M. Krei: The claim handler will make a judgment call on which state to handle the claim in.

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Margaret M. Krei: But that may not be set in stone. So, I’ve had a lot of situations where, you know, the claim handler’s handling it in another state, and then we get a Wisconsin hearing application. Well, now suddenly it’s a Wisconsin claim.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, we work to… we work to resolve those claims in both jurisdictions, but it does get a little messy in those situations because you’re, you’re dealing with two sets of law, two sets of, calculations.

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Margaret M. Krei: And…

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Margaret M. Krei: Yeah, I mean, those are situations where it’s good to talk to a lawyer, initially, and, you know, obviously once it gets to litigation, but,

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Margaret M. Krei: Jurisdiction, fortunately, does not

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Margaret M. Krei: come up all the time in your line of business, so I bet it comes up, inordinately more than anybody else’s.

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Margaret M. Krei: Along those same lines, Alan had kind of a follow-up question, and this is something we see frequently. If an accident or injury happens on someone else’s property when unloading, is it someone’s responsibility of that location where they were unloading? We see this.

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Margaret M. Krei: All the time. And it totally depends on the… or largely depends on the contracts that you have with that,

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Margaret M. Krei: distributor, the location, anyone… anywhere you’re going to be dropping off product, you have some sort of agreement with them, who’s in charge. Is your employee an employee? Is it an independent contractor? And that varies a lot by jurisdiction. So there are a lot of specifics that

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Margaret M. Krei: Go into the answer to that question.

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Margaret M. Krei: I mean, a lot of times that’s a foreseen risk, and your business contracts will address who’s responsible in those situations.

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Margaret M. Krei: I mean, theoretically, if nobody addressed in advance the location’s owner, there could be liability there. Practically, though, now you’re, you know, the injured worker’s employer is asking themselves, do we want to jeopardize this business relationship?

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Margaret M. Krei: by going after one of our customers, to pay for our worker’s, you know, work injury claim. So, there’s business considerations that go into it besides legal and contractual

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Margaret M. Krei: factors. Yeah, and one thing that you definitely always want to work with those locations on is the investigation part. We see a lot, if it’s a loading and unloading claim, that, they… maybe the drive cam didn’t capture what happened, but the location actually has camera footage, so again, that’s a…

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Margaret M. Krei: Business decision of, do we want to entangle this,

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Margaret M. Krei: partner of ours, in this, but it, you know, can’t hurt to ask for the footage so you can investigate and see what happened, even though it’s not your site. Yeah, and, you know, as is the theme of this discussion, you know, of this presentation, you know, talking about it with the stakeholders in advance, goes a long way.

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Margaret M. Krei: Towards, you know, avoiding…

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, the messiness of not being prepared, really. And, you know, if you have a plan in place, it should work like clockwork, and it should be drama-free, and you can get the best results, the best investigation.

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Margaret M. Krei: And again, just, people, people thinking about it are, are, you know, by definition, thinking about safety.

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Margaret M. Krei: So we’ve talked a little bit about the… if you think about a carrot and a stick, we’ve talked about the stick portion of, safety culture, but I want to talk a little bit, too, about the carrot portion of it, of encouraging your employees to be safety conscious, and maybe think…

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Margaret M. Krei: if it makes sense in your safety program to reward employees when they point out something that’s unsafe. If they come in and tell their manager, hey, there’s a huge pothole right after this stair in the parking lot, and I think someone might trip on it.

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Margaret M. Krei: Whatever your reward system is, if that’s…

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Margaret M. Krei: I don’t know, an extra hour lunch break, or, you know, a pizza lunch, or whatever, whatever size reward is appropriate for that. Some people just feel rewarded being recognized.

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Margaret M. Krei: for being a good employee. Recognition, yes, but just encouraging people to say when they see unsafe things.

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Margaret M. Krei: Again, here in the airport all the time, if you see something, say something. We’re not talking about tattling on people doing unsafe things, because we don’t want to necessarily encourage that type of culture, but if you just have this really encouraging environment of, tell us, we don’t… we’re not trying to…

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Margaret M. Krei: hide anything, like, we want to know so we can fix it. If they do see a driver doing something really unsafe, like.

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Margaret M. Krei: Hopping, you know, face first.

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Margaret M. Krei: from their seat onto the, ground. You know, they don’t have to go confront that driver, but it would be great if they came and told you so that the safety manager could then go talk to that driver and say, I really don’t want you to get hurt.

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Margaret M. Krei: please turn around and use the 3-point turn every single time you’re dismounting from your cab. And I have a… I have a concrete example, it’s sort of a Frankenstein of a couple cases, but…

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Margaret M. Krei: I had a case where this worker had, sort of, like, metal-grade steps to exit the semi-tractor, and

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Margaret M. Krei: Something about the grate, maybe a piece of metal was bent, you know, so that one of the openings was too big, but it kept grabbing onto the treads in his work boots, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: As he was trying to exit the cab, you know, he’d try to pick up his foot, and, you know, he’d have to sort of force it out, and he’d lose balance, and he ended up sort of losing his grip, and

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Margaret M. Krei: maybe held on a little too long with one of his arms and really wrenched his arm.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, and again, might be conflating a couple different cases, but in one instance, he reported it to the,

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Margaret M. Krei: to the employer and said, you know, hey, this is a problem, I need somebody to fix it, and the employer kind of just blew them off.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, in another instance, he didn’t report it at all, and he just kept

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, screwing around with this safety risk until he…

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Margaret M. Krei: Tell… he screwed around one too many times, and ended up injured. So, I mean, you can imagine either scenario, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: neither is a good one. So… so… You want… you want…

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Margaret M. Krei: the workers to report it, and then the reporters are probably going to expect some action if they report a safety risk. You know, if they say, hey, the sidewalk’s getting a little uneven outside the terminal.

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, that… that should be…

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Margaret M. Krei: dealt with, you know, I know it’s a cost, but that should be dealt with, in a reasonable period of time, or a yellow piece of, you know, a yellow line should be painted there, or a little sign, watch your step. I mean, there’s things that can be done, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: You know, if you have workers reporting safety risks, and they don’t see,

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Margaret M. Krei: see any mitigation, they’re going to… they’re going to lose faith in… in sort of the… the idea of, of…

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Margaret M. Krei: Of reporting the safety risks in the first place.

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Margaret M. Krei: Something to, keep impressing on your, employees about how these small.

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Margaret M. Krei: injuries, you know, these things really matter. The smallest thing can blow up into a really big injury, and it seems crazy, but we’ve had multiple injuries of these. I don’t know if everyone’s familiar with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, CRPS, it’s a…

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Margaret M. Krei: Kind of a nerve disorder, where it’s not muscular, it’s not bone, it’s something in your nerves that,

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Margaret M. Krei: Happens most often with crush injuries, and it’s apparently just excruciating pain that you can’t really get rid of. There are some medicines, and they’ll try, like, burning the nerves to get rid of them, but we’ve had a couple cases where people have the seemingly most minor injury.

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Margaret M. Krei: Like a broken… like, I mean, like a… like a bruised finger. Yep, like, they could, maybe shut their finger in the door, or, roll over their pinky toe with a wheelchair or a dolly.

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Margaret M. Krei: Broken toe. No big deal, right? Like, you wouldn’t even miss work for that. But…

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Margaret M. Krei: it just… for whatever reason, whether it’s their personal condition, their mental health, and in Wisconsin, we have to take an employee as they are. If they have all these problems, you know, mental health-wise, that maybe made them more susceptible to it, that doesn’t matter, it’s still our problem.

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Margaret M. Krei: And it can blow up into a permanent total disability claim. We truly have multiple claims like that that started with a smashed finger or a smashed toe.

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Margaret M. Krei: So, the most… I mean, you learned in kindergarten, right? Keep your fingers and toes away from hazards, and if your employees are constantly rolling dollies with product from the truck to the location, it’s easy to kind of zone out and not pay attention to what you’re doing, but reminding them that

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Margaret M. Krei: This tiny, running over your toe with a dolly with a case of soda on it.

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Margaret M. Krei: could leave you permanently, totally disabled. Again, not trying to instill fear in them, but the seriousness of even these minor safety issues. CRPS is a good condition to use to sort of,

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Margaret M. Krei: As an example of how bad things can get, because it’s… first, it’s a condition that a lot of people don’t know about.

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Margaret M. Krei: And then second, I mean, it’s really horribly bad. In addition to just having your hand or your foot feel like it’s on fire, it’s also, in a lot of cases, progressive, so it doesn’t just stay there. It creeps

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Margaret M. Krei: down your arm, towards your body, sometimes into your trunk. Sometimes you can injure one hand, and your brain somehow starts

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Margaret M. Krei: giving CRPS to the opposite limb. The brain and the nervous system is a funny thing, but…

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Margaret M. Krei: It is… it is an absolutely horrid condition, and it is also a condition that is almost always going to be disputed, because it’s… it’s… you can’t see it, you can’t… You can’t objectively test for it. You can’t objectively test for it. It is… even…

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Margaret M. Krei: Every person who has it, they’re almost always going to have that claim disputed, because it’s just… it’s one of those cases that’s hard to believe.

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Margaret M. Krei: Unless… unless you go through all the steps to prove it, really. And by all the steps, I mean, you know, lawyer up and really put your money where your mouth is, sort of… sort of prove it.

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Margaret M. Krei: So that’s… I mean, that’s a really good one to just sort of scare people off, because it’s a horrible one to have, and it’s… it’s…

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Margaret M. Krei: it’s going to be sort of the worst litigation process experience for them as well. Margaret also mentioned, surgery’s gone wrong. Surgeries are, you know, people go under surgery all the time, and nothing happens, and you feel better afterwards.

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Margaret M. Krei: that’s not always the case. There are a lot of examples of complications from surgery. Sometimes it’s because you don’t have a good doctor. Sometimes it’s just…

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Margaret M. Krei: bad luck. You’re, you know, you hit the lottery and you have the bad result. Sometimes it’s because of things that the injured worker does. We see a lot of… well, I shouldn’t say a lot. We see the occasional failed spine surgery, because the injured worker didn’t quit smoking like they were supposed to. They told their…

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Margaret M. Krei: Doctor, they quit smoking, and then they went ahead and kept smoking.

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Margaret M. Krei: you know, spinal fusion won’t heal, or a hip replacement, the hardware won’t heal to the bone effectively if you’re a heavy smoker. Add on top of it, if you’re a diabetic or you have other comorbidities, there’s a lot of things

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Margaret M. Krei: That can… that can cause a surgery to go bad, and…

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Margaret M. Krei: the doctors will warn them of these risks, but they warn everybody of the risks, so it’s hard for the injured workers to say, I’m the one that really has to worry in this situation.

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Margaret M. Krei: I know we’re getting down to kind of our last minute, so I’ll let Steve go to the last slide that has our contact information on it. If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out at any time. Again, this was kind of just a general, some tips about improving your safety,

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Margaret M. Krei: So that you don’t ever have to call us?

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Margaret M. Krei: But we know it happens, no matter what you do. We hope you can pass some of this information along to your safety team and put it into practice. And again, we’re happy to help in any way that you can. Just let us know.

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Steve Kessler: Great.

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Margaret M. Krei: Thanks for listening, everybody.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, can y’all hear me? Thank y’all very much. It’s great information. I think it’s a good thing to kind of talk about workers’ compensation as it relates to the culture of safety in your company. It’s something we talk about a lot. As all of you out there know.

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Steve Kessler: Our thing is about, safety training. We operate a learning management system where safety messaging can be assigned to the drivers and other employees.

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Steve Kessler: to cover topics like this. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of content about various types of injuries that can happen as a truck driver that might result in a work comp claim.

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Steve Kessler: So, I’m actually going to pop a poll question up here on the screen. If you’d like to know a little bit more about our system and how we might be able to help you

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Steve Kessler: create that safety culture with proper training and doing it in the right intervals, to actually have an impact on people’s behavior. We’re certainly anxious to talk to you about that. And also, those of you out there that are certified directors of safety under the NATME program.

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Steve Kessler: We can, provide you with an attendance certificate so you can claim your recertification.

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Steve Kessler: Points, for having attended the webinar.

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Steve Kessler: So while y’all are responding to the poll, one question that I have for y’all before we, adjourn

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Steve Kessler: is, the example I thought of, if a driver is injured, and a work comp claim is underway.

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Steve Kessler: Is there anything, then, that would prevent that person from bringing in a plaintiff’s lawyer and suing for personal injury? If the work complaint is underway, does that somehow stop?

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Steve Kessler: A personal injury claim, or can they sue you regardless?

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Margaret M. Krei: Go ahead. In workers… in Wisconsin, workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy, so if you are hurt in the course and scope of your employment, you cannot also make a personal injury claim.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Margaret M. Krei: There are third-party cases. If there is something like a car accident, you’re driving for work, you can’t recover more from the employer, but maybe if someone else hit you, you could get increased compensation that way. And this… and this concept is… is…

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Margaret M. Krei: I’m not going to say in every single jurisdiction, but I think it’s pretty universal, where the third-party claim can exist alongside the workers’ compensation claim.

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Margaret M. Krei: And most workers’ compensation defense attorneys know how to navigate those situations. A lot of times, or I shouldn’t say a lot of times, but there are times where maybe the personal injury case is in a different state than the workers’ compensation claim.

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Margaret M. Krei: And, and you may need to coordinate, counsel in both, both jurisdictions to… to make sure that you, you handle that, the appropriate way.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Margaret M. Krei: And in those situations, the workers’ compensation carrier should have some subrogation rights. You know, either to get a piece of the settlement or the award in the third-party claim.

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Margaret M. Krei: In our state, there’s a statutory formula, it’s not a dollar for dollar, but there may be a more generous subrogation opportunity in other states.

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Steve Kessler: Very good.

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Steve Kessler: Very good. Margaret, Michael, thank you very much. I think we’ve kind of run out of time, and I know people.

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Margaret M. Krei: Thank you for having us.

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Steve Kessler: Bailout to go on with the rest of their days, but…

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Steve Kessler: Thank you very much for joining us. It’s great information. I think it, if nothing else, it… it just reinforces the need to have a viable, proper safety program in your company to create that culture of safety where people are going to do all the right things.

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Steve Kessler: Even when nobody’s looking, so to speak. So, when you get there, I think you’ve been successful, so…

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Steve Kessler: Margaret, Michael, thank you very much, and appreciate your time, and thanks to everybody that joined us today, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the next webinar.

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Steve Kessler: Thank you, Margaret. Thank you, Michael. Thank you.

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Mark Rhea: y’all.

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Steve Kessler: Bye now.