My good friend Rich Erb’s mom died earlier this year.  As hard as that is he’s now also tangling with the state of New York over his mom’s death benefits.  You can read about it at a blog he set up to document the dispute.

As Rich points out the issue isn’t the amount of money involved.  The issue is the fact that his mom took great pride in the work she did for the state, the sacrifice she made in terms of pay because of the benefits, and the fact that she told Rich she didn’t want the family to have to pay for her funeral, that’s what the death benefit was for.  Until New York didn’t hold up their end of the deal.

If this dispute was a horse race my money would be on Rich.