July 15, 2022 (update) The California Supreme Court has announced that it will address the questions posed by the Court of Appeal in Kuciemba. Specifically, the Court will provide an answer as to whether and how the derivative injury doctrine applies to cases when an employee is exposed to COVID-19 at work, and takes the illness home to other family members. Original Post Date: May 20, 2022 There is no question COVID-19 altered our existence as humans. Worldwide, the pandemic […]
News & Knowledge
Category: Flash Bulletins
June 1, 2022 There have been significant changes in workers’ compensation regulations and guidelines recently that have arguably increased the value of claims. In April 2021, The California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Workers’ Compensation’s (DWC) new medical-legal fee schedule went into effect. The new fee schedule drastically increases medical-legal costs and may prompt defendants to consider whether early settlement may be more cost-effective. Additionally, earlier this year, version 3.5 of CMS’ Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set Aside Reference Guide […]
June 1, 2022 Ever since utilization review (UR) became a mandatory requirement for all medical treatment requests, there have been numerous attempts to challenge not only individual UR determinations and the timeframes in which they have to be made, but the entire UR framework itself. Usually, these challenges came in the context of UR denials; however, very few if any cases have explored the idea of utilization review deferral. Deferral of utilization review pursuant to Labor Code §4610(l) and California […]
February 22, 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant challenge in California. As of December 2021, California experienced the fastest increase in COVID-19 cases during the entire pandemic with 18.3 new cases per 100,000 people per day, and case rates increasing nine-fold within two months. At that time, the Delta variant was the most common variant causing those infections, but as of January 2022, the Omicron variant surpassed the Delta variant, accounting for more than 99.5 percent of new infections […]
December 6, 2021 The 2021 Summer CAAA Convention took place virtually, and while we always anticipate permanent disability will be a hot topic, this year’s Convention “zoomed” straight to strategies on achieving higher permanent disability awards. The Convention focused on using vocational evidence to achieve a 100% award. This unsurprisingly coincides with the seeming reemergence of applicant attorneys using vocational evidence to significantly increase permanent disability that we are already seeing in 2021. Several foundational cases have laid the groundwork […]
July 15 2021 On July 13, 2021, the California Assembly Committee on Insurance held its first hearing on SB 335. The bill was amended significantly by the committee, but ultimately failed to garner enough votes to pass, with several committee members opposing the amended bill. The amendments would maintain the current timeframes for making a liability decision – 45-days for presumptive injuries and 90-days for all other claims. During the delay period, the medical expense cap would remain at $10,000. […]
July 13, 2021 One of the hallmarks of legislation passed during the pandemic, has been an emphasis on moving claims quickly from the initial investigatory phase to either acceptance or denial of the claim at the administrative level. Presumptively industrial COVID-19 claims were subject to a shortened investigation timeframe: either 45-days or in some cases 30-days, after which time, if no decision had been made, were presumed industrial. A new bill making its way through the legislature would see that […]
June 21, 2021 In what seems to be an endless bombardment of new information and policy in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Governor Newsom signed EXECUTIVE ORDER N-09-21 on June 17, 2021. The Governor accepted the recommendations of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board – bypassing the usual 10 day review period for approval by the Office of Administrative Law. To add some clarity in this sea of confusion and to lessen prior restrictions, the Emergency Temporary Standards ordered […]
June 9, 2021 The Sixth District Court of Appeal recently issued its decision in the matter of Applied Materials v. WCAB. The decision was initially issued as unpublished and the California Workers’ Compensation Institute obtained an order of publication. The decision was certified for publication on June 1, 2021 and may now be cited as binding precedent in future cases. In its lengthy decision, the Court addressed multiple issues raised by the parties. The two issues most likely to have […]
California’s Revised Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards Send Mixed Signals to Employers
June 7, 2021 Following the lead of the National Institute of Health (NIH), Cal/OSHA has promulgated new and modified emergency temporary standards for employers in response to the COVID-19 crisis. On June 3, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board readopted Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 prevention emergency temporary standards and adopted revised standards. The revised standards reflect the easing of employer restrictions. These updated standards are expected to go into effect on June 15, 2021 if approved by the Office of Administrative […]