The barrel-of-bricks letter: the Workers' Comp claim that made him an insurance legend

pivotal · 27 Mar YDPAH

• When: accident 27 March YDPAH; claim letter dated 21 June; forwarded inside State Farm 26 June YDPAH.
• What: A State Farm adjuster forwards colleagues "my def. of a bad day": page one of the claim letter of Dwayne R. Glynn, bricklayer, of 176 N. Faneuil Blvd., Stoneham. The letter deadpans the physics — alone on a six-story roof with 900 kg of leftover brick, he lowers the barrel by pulley while weighing 75 kg himself; jerked skyward, he meets the barrel at the third floor, jams two knuckles into the pulley, then (the barrel's bottom having burst on the ground) plummets past it coming back up, lands on the brick pile, and, losing his presence of mind a second time, lets go of the rope. The adjuster's memo notes witnesses established the claimant Impaired and an ER blood-alcohol over .3, clearing State Farm's liability. The letter never claims or admits fraud; the "scam" is the House's later gloss — "some horrendous Workers Comp. scam gone awry" (scene 095), a "Workers Comp scam gone rye" (scene 105) — and the resulting insurance-fraud record shadows the whole arc (events 10-11). The letter-author identification is assembled across scenes, not co-stated in one passage (see Dating notes).