Fire chief’s widow appeals Workers’ Comp denial

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The widow of Canfield Fire Chief Robert J. Tieche Sr. has appealed the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s denial of death benefits to the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court after the Ohio Industrial Commission refused to hear the case.

“As a result of responding to three fire emergencies, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. Said death occurred while in the course and scope of his employment,” according to the lawsuit filed last week by Atty. Louis Schiavoni of Austintown on behalf of Debra Tieche of Canfield.

A BWC hearing officer cited Tieche’s death certificate, which said the fire chief died of cardiac arrest due to gastrointestinal bleeding due to the spreading of his kidney cancer.

“The applicant has provided insufficient evidence to establish by a preponderance that the decedent’s death resulted from an occupational disease,” the hearing officer wrote.

The suit, which demands a jury trial, was filed against BWC and the Cardinal Joint Fire District, of which Tieche was chief when he died May 28, 2011, at age 63.

Tieche had been the district’s chief since 1981.

“The [fire district] board of trustees has consistently taken the position that Chief Tieche’s death occurred as a result of his employment duties,” said Atty. David Comstock Jr., the Youngstown lawyer for the district, which includes the city and township of Canfield.

Ohio law requires that the employer be named as a defendant in the appeal, Comstock said.

The case is assigned to Judge John M. Durkin.