January 30, 2026 When the employer or insurer requests the deposition of a represented injured employee, applicant’s counsel is statutorily entitled to a reasonable allowance for attorney’s fees, payable by the employer or insurer. These are sometimes known as “5710 fees” as the statutory basis is Labor Code Section 5710(b)(4). Currently, fee determinations are guided by district-level local policies and memoranda established by presiding judges. In recent years, the applicant’s bar has been arguing that the ten to fifteen-year-old memoranda […]
News & Knowledge
Monthly Archives: January 2026
December 2025 Over the years, the “Going and Coming Rule” has often been defined more by its exceptions than by the rule itself. The rule states that an injury occurring off the employer’s premises during an employee’s normal commute to or from work is not compensable. However, there are many exceptions to this general rule which have developed since the rule was established by the California Supreme Court in the 1916 case of Ocean Accident and Guarantee Co. v. IAC […]
December 2025 The Division of Workers’ Compensation has announced the 2026 rate increases for the minimum and maximum rates of temporary total disability. For 2026, the minimum weekly rate will increase from $252.03 to $264.61, and the maximum will increase from $1,680.29 to $1,764.11. The minimum and maximum rates are increasing by 4.9%, which is in line with the percentage increase in the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) as mandated by Labor Code Section 4453(a)(10). This is significantly higher than […]
December 2025 Many of you are likely familiar with the existing, traditional concepts of subrogation and credit rights in California’s workers compensation system as set forth in Labor Code section 3852 et seq. It’s bad enough when an employee is unfortunate enough to sustain a significant industrial injury – but when that injury is caused by a negligent third party, it’s all the more frustrating. The silver lining in these cases involving third party defendants, of course, is that the […]