The state’s new Board of Workers’ Compensation chairman is a former special assistant attorney general who represented the state in workers’ compensation claims.

Governor Nathan Deal on Feb. 4 named Stewart, Melvin & Frost partner Frank McKay to fill the vacancy left by former chairman Richard Thompson when he resigned. McKay’s appointment is effective March 1.

McKay, who lives in Gainesville, has practiced law before the Board of Workers’ Compensation for 22 years, according to the Governor’s Office. He earned his law degree from Mercer University and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1991.

The state’s new Board of Workers’ Compensation chairman is a former special assistant attorney general who represented the state in workers’ compensation claims.

Governor Nathan Deal on Feb. 4 named Stewart, Melvin & Frost partner Frank McKay to fill the vacancy left by former chairman Richard Thompson when he resigned. McKay’s appointment is effective March 1.

McKay, who lives in Gainesville, has practiced law before the Board of Workers’ Compensation for 22 years, according to the Governor’s Office. He earned his law degree from Mercer University and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1991.

A disbarred Cedartown attorney pleaded guilty  Tuesday to defrauding more than 50 of his workers’ compensation clients out of settlement funds they were owed, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia announced.

Disbarred lawyer Miles Lamar Gammage, 59 – who lost his bar license last year — entered the plea to one count of mail fraud in U.S. District Court in Rome, said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. Gammage had been a member of the State Bar of Georgia since June 1979, the U.S. Attorney said.  He was a graduate of Cumberland Law School in Alabama, according to the State Bar.

Gammage specialized in workers’ compensation cases, often representing people who were seriously injured, Yates said. “This former attorney has now admitted his blatant and extensive misuse of his clients’ money,” she said. “By his own admission, instead of helping his clients receive the compensation that they were owed and that they needed for the treatment of their injuries, he used their settlement money for his own selfish purposes – and hurt people who were already hurting.”

Gammage’s attorney, Christopher Twyman, could not be reached for comment.

Federal prosecutors said that for four years from January 2008 to January 2012, Gammage converted more than $2.5 million of settlement funds intended for his clients to pay for his own expenses, including his law firm’s payroll and operating costs. As part of the scheme, Gammage would settle claims on behalf of clients without their authorization, fail to notify them that he had received their settlement checks, forge their names  on settlement checks and deposit the funds into bank accounts he controlled, prosecutors said.

Gammage also commingled his clients’ funds with his own funds, refused to provide his clients with a full and accurate accounting of the disposition of their settlement money, and withheld settlement funds from clients for extended periods of time, prosecutors said.

If and when clients questioned Gammage about their cases, Gammage would blame what he claimed were settlement delays on others, prosecutors said. If clients insisted that they needed the money for medical bills and prescription drugs, Gammage would dole out partial payments which he labeled as cash advances or interest-free loans, prosecutors said.

In doing so, Gammage “lulled clients into a false sense of security” and prevented them from complaining to law enforcement authorities, prosecutors said.

Gammage voluntarily surrendered his law license last year after two complaints were filed against him by the State
Bar of Georgia alleging he had lied to clients, forged their signatures on settlement checks and used the money for himself.

Supporters of an overhaul to the state’s medical malpractice claim system are re-energizing for the upcoming session of the Georgia General Assembly.

A group of healthcare professionals known as Patients for Fair Compensation have teamed with conservative think tank Georgia Public Policy Foundation and an Emory University law professor and researcher to push for the establishment of a worker’s compensation-type system for evaluating and awarding medical malpractice claims.

“We don’t have access to justice under our current system,” Patients for Fair Compensation chairman Richard Jackson said during a press conference today inside the Capitol. “We have access to a business transaction between two attorneys.”

Jackson, who is also CEO of Jackson Healthcare in Alpharetta, began pitching last year his idea to replace the current system with a model based on the worker’s compensation board. He told the Daily Report in January that the state should create a board of physicians, hospital administrators and nurses appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House that would have access to medical records and depositions. The board would review claims and make award decisions. There would be no hearings, and insurance companies would not be involved in the review process.

“It would have no incentive to say yes or no to a claim,” he said.

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Attorney Howard Osofsky of Bexley & Osofsky is organizing an event in which actress/singer Sally Kellerman—”Margaret Houlihan” from the original movie “M*A*S*H”—will sing this Saturday at Jerry Farber’s Side Door, 3652 Roswell Rd., at 8 p.m. The event benefits Kids’ Chance of Georgia, which was started by Robert Clyatt, a workers’ compensation attorney from Valdosta.

Event organizers tell us that Clyatt founded the first Kids’ Chance organization in 1988. “Through his work, he had witnessed the life-shattering impact that a serious workplace injury had on the children of seriously or fatally injured workers, who were now faced with the difficulty of having to fund their own education,” organizers said.

“With the assistance of the Workers’ Compensation Section of the Georgia Bar, Bob Clyatt incorporated Kids’ Chance of Georgia and began raising money to fund educational scholarships for the children of injured Georgia workers, so that they could pursue their educational goals.

“Kids’ Chance of Georgia began reaching out to other states and encouraged and assisted them in establishing their own Kids’ Chance organizations. Thanks to their efforts, twenty-five states have organized Kids’ Chance programs that are actively providing need-based scholarships to the families of seriously injured workers, and new Kids’ Chance organizations are being formed each year.”

Tickets are $50 and available at www.xorbia.com

Kellerman will also perform Friday night at 8:30 p.m., Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. in special “unplugged” show. Plus, Sunday morning at 10:15 a.m., she will on hand in Midtown Landmark Art Cinema for screening of “M*A*S*H.”