Injured Candidate Wants to Remove Employer from His Resume

Question from Candidate:
I was working for a hvac company back in july of 2004. After being there 4 months i had a back injury a serious one,(2 herniated disc in lower back). At the time of the injury the employer went out of their way to keep me from collecting workers comp, so i obtained a lawyer.the lawyer got workers comp rolling. 10 months later i was told by the insurance company’s dr i could return to work. i spoke with my lawyer since i obtained my lawyer the employer hasnt so much as even called to see how i was. I felt there was going to be a big problem returning to the same company as there was alot of tension. this happened in july 2005 that i was released to go back to work. Anyhow every since i was released to go back to work , i havent had any job opportunities. I’ve applied to a few hundred companies since that time and have only had 2 interviews in that 8-9 month period. Both interviews went well or so i thought, but i was turned down for both jobs. Granted im trying to switch careers from hvac to office environment, because my back problems are still there. Anyhow i do believe the company i collected workers comp is giving me a bad reference, as honestly i do believe the company figureheads arent very professional, i dont see it being far fetched they give me a bad reference.I dont know what to do im 26 years old and went to school for hvac , im passionate about working with people and especially computers as im a computer nerd in my spare time. ive focused on customer service as the main position i apply for. Though on my resume it appears i dont have customer service experience, but i do have experience its just my last customer based job was yrs ago and not even mentioned on resume as it was 7-10 yrs ago. I wish i could just remove that company from my resume but if i did id lose a year off my job history as i was still technically employed with the company til the dr returned me to work then at that time i decided not to return after they had tried to trick me into not filing workers comp.