Don Scott didn’t grow up with everything being handed to him. For 16 years, Don drove a Dayton Daily News truck while in school in order to pay for law school. His goal from day one was to help people, and he does that by working as a Workers’ Compensation lawyer here at Hochman and Plunkett. He has been in practice since 1994, and in 1998 he became one of the first attorneys in Ohio to become certified as a specialist in Workers’ Compensation Law by the Ohio State Bar Association.
Don is very caring and believes that everyone has rights and they should get what they deserve in a case. He has a passion for Workers’ Compensation and said that he wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.
Don speaks about a case that he remembers most:
I was once contacted by a relatively young woman whose husband had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. She was convinced that the lung cancer resulted from her husband’s occupation as a printer’s helper. Her husband had one of his lungs removed, he was in very poor health and he was in a nursing home. I met her husband at the nursing home and spoke with him about his work. He described how many inks and chemicals he breathed all day working around large printing presses. He also described how he would blow his nose after coming home from work, and the color of the ink he was working with that day would come out on his handkerchief. I agreed to take the case. He died soon after that from lung cancer, and the case proceeded as a widow’s benefit case under Ohio workers’ compensation law.
I worked closely with another attorney in the office to prepare the case for trial. We shot video of the inside of the printing plant to show the working conditions. We went through a listing of the hundreds of inks and chemicals used in the printing plant to find those that could cause lung cancer. We found what we were looking for. I found a printing press expert who testified how the printing process resulted in a fine ink/chemical mist that workers were exposed to and breathed. A toxicologist testified that the chemicals and inks had carcinogenic properties. An occupational medicine doctor testified that the inks and chemicals used by the printing company caused the husband’s lung cancer. The husband’s cancer doctor also testified at the trial.
Finally, my client, the lady who had first contacted me months earlier, had her chance to testify. It was very emotional for her, but she did a great job. The verdict of the court was that her husband’s lung cancer resulted from his work as a printers’ helper. She would now receive a widow’s benefit for the rest of her life. The money she received was important to her, but I believe what was more important to her was that she had proved that her husband’s death need not have occurred. That was the most important thing for me too. The sincerity of her thanks to me at the conclusion of the case made everything worthwhile and is something I’ll always remember.
