many ways, offers a greater protection than Maryland Workers’ Compensation. The class of claimants is broader, there is no dependency requirement, and in- clusion of strokes as a health condition covered by the presumption – to name a few. And so this article ends as it began – with words of caution about its limita-
Service construes the seemingly self- evidence term “income” can attest, there is a sizeable difference between the lexi- con of common parlance and statutory/ regulation definitions. In other words, before rushing out and filing a PSOB claim, the practitioner truly “worth his (or her) salt,” would be well served to read the statutes and regulations care-
For those within the PSOB claimant class, the Hometown Heroes Survivors’ Benefits Act of 2003 is a remedy that, in many ways, offers a greater protection than Maryland Workers’ Compensation.
tion. It is a nutshell of the basic elements of a PSOB death claim – a summary of more than one hundred and twenty pages of single- spaced statutes and regulations, available for download from the Federal Government’s web site.
www.ojp.usdoj. gov/BJA/grant/psob/PSOB_Act_and
_Regulations_2007_rev.html. As any- one who has had the unfortunate chore of analyzing the volumes of authority discussing how the Internal Revenue
fully and the “Attorney General’s Guide to the Hometown Heroes and Survivors’ Benefits Act”. Not only does the Attorney General’s Guide supply telephone num- bers of Department personnel available to answer questions, but it refers readers to various organizations who advocate on behalf of groups of public safety of- ficers, i.e. the “National Fall Firefighters Foundation.” Another note of caution to those
hoping for a speedy or easy remedy: ac- cording to a press release from Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin, “[i] has now been four years since the Hometown Heroes bill became a law and the DOJ has approved only 12 claims, denied 50, and has another 240 applicants pending. This is unconscionable.” Cardin http://
somd.com/news/headlines/2007/6622. shtml October 2007. n
About the Author
James MacAlister, a trial attorney with Saiontz, Kirk & Miles, received his JD from the University of Baltimore Law School. He was judicial clerk to the Honorable William H. Adkins, II, Court of Special Appeals. From 1985-1990, he was an insurance defense counsel. Since 1990, he has represented plaintiffs in personal injury, workers’ compensation, DWI and criminal cases. He is a mem- ber of the MTLA Board of Governors, Vice Chair of the Amicus Committee and Workers’ Compensation Section. He is also a member of the Legislative Committee.
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