A wrongful death lawsuit against Stanville Social Security attorney Eric C. Conn has been dismissed.
Emma Burchett, widow of Leroy Burchett, sued Conn last month, following her husband’s suicide.
Burchett was one of over 900 eastern Kentucky residents represented by the controversial Floyd county attorney whose benefits were frozen pending a review by the Social Security Administration.
http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html
The SSA sent out letters notifying recipients represented by Conn’s office between 2009 and 2011, announcing a review to determine whether the individual in question was actually disabled. The complaint states that Burchett sought Conn as counsel after he suffered significant physical injuries around six years ago.
LEX 18 obtained a copy of the letter sent to Burchett. The letter read in part, “Under the Social Security Act, SSA must redetermine an individual’s disability case when there is reason to believe that fraud or similar fault was involved in the individual’s application for benefits. The law requires that the SSA disregard any evidence obtained from one of the medical providers identified above when the information was submitted by representative Eric C. Conn or other representatives with Mr. Conn’s law office. One or more of these sources provided evidence in your case, and we used that evidence to find you disabled.”
According to a Facebook post from Burchett’s lawyer, Ned Pillersdorf, Burchett fell into a depression after receiving the letter and was unable to afford his medication, “Leroy Burchett after receiving his SSA suspension letter lapsed into a deep dark depression. He ceased taking his medications for economic reasons.” The court documents state that those prescribed medications included anti-depressants.
Floyd Circuit Judge Tom Smith dismissed this afternoon. In his ruling, Smith said suicide “breaks the chain of causation.” He said Conn could not have foreseen Leroy Burchett’s suicide, as even his widow had not foreseen it.
