Honestly, I haven't asked him about a civil suit yet. I wanted to take care of the current issue at hand.

Why don't I have any repercussions against my employer? It's ok for them to not bring me back to work when there was space available that met my restrictions - yet the decided to hire from the outside to fill these spots? That's not an example of retaliation for filing a claim for comp? It's ok for them to make their employees go through heck to try to get something paid for? I could understand if they were fighting claims that were questionable, but my injuries were legitimate and witnessed. There was no horse-play or antics surrounding the injuries....just plain legitimate.

You mentioned the time between the injury in 1997 as being too long (or so I am interpreting)....it can't be used to show a pattern of their treatment?

What about getting the other employees together that have been treated the same way?