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  • 2010
    • September
      • THE SUPREMES TAKE ON FURLOUGHS
        09/09/10
        Yesterday the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the legality of furloughs.

        According to reports from observers who were there, it seems likely that the court will rule that the furloughs are legal.

        The debate centered on issues as to whether the governor has impl

      • EAMS FOR ALL
        09/08/10
        Workers' Compensation Appeals Board court administrator Keven Star apparently has plans to require all attorneys become e-filers.

        That's the word in a piece written by Greg Griggs, an editor at Workcompcentral.com.

        Griggs quotes Star from a visit Star made to the Oxna

      • DOES CHINA OFFER STATE A MODEL FOR JOBS?
        09/05/10
        Does China offer California a model for jobs?

        That's the title to a piece by Dan Morain in the Sacramento Bee. Morain reflects on an interchange between Senator Barbara Boxer and challenger Carly Fiorina in last week's Moraga senatorial debate.

        In a world where, as Fi

      • SB 1254
        09/02/10
        Among the workers' comp measures headed to Governor Schwarzenegger's desk is SB 1254.

        Sponsored by Mark Leno of San Francisco, SB 1254 is a bill worthy of the Governor's signature.

        Anyone paying the least attention to workers' compensation over the last few

    • August
      • PROTECT CALIFORNIA JOBS
        08/29/10
        When California needs all the income tax revenues it can get, you'd think that the Governor would fight to keep every job here in California.

        Sounds logical.

        But that may not be the case.

        Last year Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation to require that UR re

      • INGMARLAND
        08/27/10
        I've just returned from Ingmarland.

        Years ago when I was in theological school (getting a master's as a Rockefeller Brothers fellow), I did a thesis on the philosophical underpinnings of Ingmar Bergman's films. For those of you who have never seen The Seventh Seal, Persona,

      • A THREAT?
        08/24/10
        Today's blog post by Joel Fox on "Fox and Hounds" is worth noting.

        Fox is publisher of "Fox and Hounds" and is the President of the Small Business Action Committee.

        Fox wistfully notes that pro-business forces had enough signatures to pursue a ballot in

      • BLOWUP?
        08/24/10
        In an astute article, savvy Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters notes
        the cycle that seems to prevail in California workers' comp.

        After reforms, some system stakeholders nurse their wounds. Pressure builds until there's another set of players demanding reform.

      • GUZMAN
        08/20/10
        In a victory for disabled workers, the California Court of Appeals 6th District has upheld the decision in the Guzman case (actually known as Milpitas Unified School District v. WCAB and Joyce Guzman).

        While not final/final, its starting to look like the Almaraz/Guzman II decision of the

      • SEPTEMBER 28
        08/18/10
        September 28.

        That's the day now scheduled for public hearings on the WCIRB's recommendation for a 30% workers' comp premium rate increase (actually the recommendation is for a 29.6% increase).

        Yesterday the WCIRB submitted its pure premium rate filing to the Cal

      • HURRICANE SEASON
        08/15/10
        Hurricane season is upon us.

        Unsettled weather brings tropical storms, some of which turn into hurricanes. Some hardly make a dent, like recent Hurricane Alex. Some look threatening, but fade into "tropical depressions", like recent Hurricane Bonnie.

        But others, (lik

      • DABBLERS
        08/09/10
        While attending a yearly meeting today in San Francisco for the Lexis Nexis California workers' comp editorial board, I got into a discussion with several attorneys about dabblers.

        Dabblers are attorneys who dabble in workers' comp.

        In the past, at the boards I'v

      • LOOKING AT THE AIG BAILOUT
        08/07/10
        The WCAB is facing another round of furloughs.

        We're not alone. Yesterday's New York Times had a piece on the creative ways states and municipalities are dealing with their budget shortfalls.

        Hawaii is imposing furloughs on its schools. There will be less class time.

      • WCIRB VIOLATES OPEN-ACCESS AGREEMENT WITH INSURANCE DEPT?
        08/03/10
        Is the WCIRB violating open-access agreements?

        That's the question posed in a report by the Workers' Comp Executive, a journal that covers important developments in the California workers' comp industry.

        The Workers' Comp Executive has filed a flash report c

      • TIDY-ING UP
        08/02/10
        From the it never hurts to toot your horn department of governmental affairs:

        The DWC has issued a bulletin noting that they have finally cleared their backlog of QME panel requests. Between April and June 2010 they processed about 41% of the number of QME panels they processed in 2009.
    • July
      • FURLOUGHS AGAIN
        07/29/10
        Just when the comp community thought furloughs were over, they're back again.

        The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear the legality of last year's furloughs. But that case will not be decided for some time.

        With efforts to reduce state worker pay to minimum wag

      • ANOTHER WORKERS' COMP REFORM COMING?
        07/27/10
        We're heading to mid-summer.

        Many of us have more interest in the ice cream flavors at the shop down the road than we do in what workers' comp cases are up on a writ or when that think tank is releasing another study.

        Gotta hand it to California. We are cutting edge

      • MONEY LOSER?
        07/21/10
        "Workers' comp insurance becomes money loser"......

        That's the title of a piece released today by Dan Walters, veteran political columnist of the Sacramento Bee.

        Walters is widely admired in Sacramento and other political circles for his decades of experienc

      • THE COMING DOCTOR SHORTAGE
        07/19/10
        Flash from the workerscompzone green eyeshades department, always seeking out future trends for your reading pressure,,,,er, pleasure.

        30% of California doctors are over 60 years old. That's well above the national average.

        Six out of nine California regions now have a pr

      • JULY 20
        07/15/10
        July 20.

        That's the deadline for comment on the latest version of the California physician fee schedule. An earlier version of of a revised physician fee schedule has been modified.

        The initial proposal was supposedly "budget neutral". With this new version, cost

      • OAKTOWN
        07/14/10
        Many of my Northern California readers know that all roads run through Oaktown.

        Not literally, of course, but Oakland, site of my Boxer & Gerson office, really is the heart of the Bay Area. It's where the burbs of CoCo County meet, where the North Bay begins to transition into th

      • THE 50TH
        07/12/10
        Last month I noted in a post "Nail Biters" that Assemblywoman Mary Salas had nudged out former Assemblyman Juan Vargas in a race for the Democratic nomination in the 50th Senate District.

        Not so. The margin between Salas and Vargas was not more than a few hundred votes. As some

      • DUELING LAWSUITS
        07/08/10
        Hey, it's not Aaron Burr versus Alexander Hamilton. No dueling pistols here.

        But we are in modern times. We have dueling lawsuits.

        This time it's Arnold Schwarzenegger versus State Controller John Chiang.

        Schwarzeneger has filed to get a court order to forc

      • TO TREAT OR NOT TO TREAT
        07/07/10
        As a blogger on California workers' comp issues, I sometimes get interesting calls.

        Yesterday's call? From doctor's group (to protect confidentiality, I'll mask any particularizing details).

        The medical practice is debating whether to join an MPN and whether

      • CLOSER TO REALITY?
        07/03/10
        State Controller John Chiang says he'll continue to resist Schwarzenegger's efforts to impose the minimum wage on state workers as long as there is no state budget.

        But Chiang now has to devise a legal strategy to deal with the California Court of Appeal 3rd District decision re

      • BREAK OUT THE VALIUM
        07/01/10
        Today Governor Schwarzenegger made good on this threat to cut state employee salaries if there's no state budget.

        Schwarzenegger has ordered most state worker pay cut to the federal minimum wage until there is a budget. That is likely to be after a long, hot summer.

        The Ad

    • June
      • GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT
        06/29/10
        In a recent post ("When Push Comes to Shove"), I discussed the New York Times report on the incident when Meg Whitman apparently shoved an eBay subordinate.

        Whitman has refused to give a full accounting of the incident or the ensuing out of court settlement with Young Mi Kim.
      • WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH THE JUNGLE, BE PREPARED
        06/27/10
        Your intrepid blogger has just returned from the 2010 CAAA summer convention, held in Monterey.

        For those in the trenches of comp practice, these are times of some ambiguity. It's an ambiguity that affects applicants and defendants, providing a fertile basis for settlement for creati

      • KEEP THE BUSINESS HERE
        06/24/10
        In these challenging economic times, you'd think that policymakers would want to keep as many jobs here in California as possible.

        Good, skilled jobs. Like jobs for physician UR reviewers.

        But currently utilization review docs don't have to be California licensed.
      • CLAIMS COSTS UP?
        06/22/10
        Your mind may well be on other things than comp.

        It's summer, and you're trying to squeeze into last year's Speedo. You're trying to figure out whether the recovery is just around the corner or whether its another bear market just lurking.

        You're debat

      • WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE
        06/17/10
        Undoubtedly many of us in the workers' comp and employment law world are reading with great interest the revelation that Governor candidate Meg Whitman was involved in an alleged shoving incident while serving as CEO of eBay.

        The story surfaced in the New York Times several days ago.

      • CLIMBING
        06/14/10
        In a recent post. "Lower Still", I wrote about the precipitous decline in written premium in California's workers' comp insurance industry:
        http://www.workerscompzone.com/index.ph

        I noted that comp premium has fallen to $6.9 billion from over $16 billion in 200

      • THOSE PUBLIC PENSIONS
        06/13/10
        All indications are that public employee pensions will be a major issue in the upcoming Whitman Vs. Brown race. Workers' comp is unlikely to be high on the radar, but the public pension issue is being pitched by both Schwarzenegger and Whitman.

        At a time of crushing budget shortfalls

      • ORANGUATANS ARE WE?
        06/11/10
        To the ramparts! All hands on deck!

        We're under attack again....from Nevada. Californians-and our legislature-are pictured as a group of Orangutans.

        Nevada? Things aren't going well there. With an unemployment rate of 13.6%, Nevada's jobless stats are worse tha

      • NAIL BITERS
        06/09/10
        In two key California Democratic primary contests yesterday, candidates backed by labor and environmental advocates won tight victories over "business Democrats".

        In Fremont, council member Bob Wieckowski eeked out a win over Garrett Yee. Yee, who had been a Republican several y

      • TUESDAY
        06/07/10
        This is a week of anticipation.

        Come June 10th, we'll finally see the Almaraz/Guzman case put to a test.

        That's the day the California Court of Appeal 6th District hears arguments on the petition for writ that was filed. Whatever the 6th District court does may not be

      • LOWER STILL
        06/04/10
        Workers' comp written premium continues to fall in California, as the industry continues to shrink.

        According to stats from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the California Department of Insurance, and the California Workers' Compensation Institute, 2009 was t

      • THE PAIR
        06/03/10
        The pair?

        Two en banc rulings from the WCAB today.

        One invalidates a section of QME regs which limited insurer access to QMEs where the claim is denied. The WCAB found Rule 30(d)(3) invalid. That's Mendoza vs. Huntington Hospital:
        www.dir.ca.gov/wcab/wcab_enbanc.htm

      • LOST AT SEA
        06/02/10
        Amid all the images of oil soaked marshes and gushing oil pipes in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, it's easy to forget that this catastrophe killed
        11 workers and injured at least 17 others.

        Many of those were lost at sea.

        America's tort system is villified by

    • May
      • LACK OF CONTROL
        05/30/10
        Americans like to think of ourselves as in control.

        That's one reason for a largely grumpy current public mood. Technology doesn't seem able to solve the nation's worst environmental disaster in Louisiana. Jobs that seemed secure have been outsourced or eliminated.
      • COST CONTAINMENT: OUR OWN LITTLE THEATER OF THE ABSURD
        05/27/10
        Workers' comp sometimes has a Theater of the Absurd quality.

        Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet or Samuel Beckett could have designed this one: a cost containment effort that becomes a major cost center problem itself.

        I'm referring to the increases in California workers'

      • VIOLENCE AT THE BOARD
        05/24/10
        The workers' comp world isn't immune from senseless violence.
        The latest reminder was the stabbing of a Southern California defense attorney, Joseph Rippinger, at a "lien fiesta" at the Los Angeles WCAB.

        Rippinger, an attorney with Graves and Bourassa, was atttack

      • THE SUPREMES
        05/21/10
        The Supremes have been busy.

        The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on the legality of Schwarzenegger's furloughs. The case had been brought by the union CASE, which argued that SCIF employees were exempt from furloughs.

        In a way the case may be academic. G

      • FROM THE MEDICAL UNIT
        05/19/10
        The DWC Medical Unit has been a great source of irritation in the comp community over the past few years.

        Whether you speak to adjusters, defense attorneys, applicant attorneys or even judges, there has been a sense of frustration with the Medical Unit's delay in processing QME panel

      • ON THE BENCH
        05/18/10
        For some years I've served as a judge pro-tem at the Oakland WCAB.
        Yesterday was my first experience as a pro-tem since the introduction of EAMS.

        It has always amazed me how little is in the WCAB paper files (the "legacy files"). Disputes on a case may have been raging

      • ANATOMY OF A BUDGET SHORTFALL
        05/16/10
        The problems with the state budget will suck all the air out of the Capitol this year. No one expects any significant workers' comp legislation this year.

        To understand the magnitude of the budget shortfall and how difficult the choices will be, check out "The Anatomy Of A Budge

      • UNHAPPY CAMPERS
        05/14/10
        After today's budget revisions are unveiled by Governor Schwarzenegger, there will be a lot of unhappy campers.

        California is back in the hole, big time. The deficit may be over $18 billion.

        We're back where we were a year ago.

        Consider the last year. In th

      • OVERSIGHT
        05/13/10
        The DWC was called on the carpet in legislative oversight hearings in Sacramento yesterday.

        Held by the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, hearings focused on the DWC's decision to ignore the statutory mandate to revise the 2005 PDRS (the permanent disability rating sch

      • THE TICKER
        05/12/10
        eMeg's campaign may be losing ground fast as Poizner tightens the race.
        Whitman has been spending money at a rate of 4 cents per second. That may just have to increase.

        The CWCI and DWC are out with studies on MPNs and medical treatment satisfaction. That will be fodder for comm

      • MOTHERS DAY
        05/09/10
        Happy Mothers day to my readers in cyberspace.

        I see many more mothers in my workers' comp practice than I did years ago when I began as an applicant attorney. Undoubtedly that's because women in so many families have gone to work in order for the family to make it economically.

      • BAGEL FRAUD
        05/06/10
        The continuing epidemic of employer workers' comp fraud continues.....

        But now it has infected your local bagel provider? Mon dieu! as Inspector Clouseau would have said.

        A purveyor of bagels in upscale Bay Area neighborhoods, Posh Bagel had previously been noted for vegan

      • THE NURSES BILL
        05/04/10
        Should there be a legal presumption that infectious diseases and neck and back injuries contracted by nurses are work related?

        That's the thesis of AB 1994, sponsored by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley). The bill would apply to more than 350,000 private employees.

      • AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION
        05/02/10
        My momma taught me that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

        Surely that's true for California.

        Occupational health and safety enforcement has been in free fall in California. In November 2009, Federal OSHA stats revealed that California issued the lowest rate

    • April
      • TOXIC HAIR
        04/29/10
        For many women (and some men) a trip to the hair salon is something to look forward to.

        It's a chance to maintain or upgrade their personal image, and may come with personal pampering perks.

        But are you and your hair stylist at risk?

        It appears so. During yester

      • GRAYING POPULATION, GRAYING WORKFORCE
        04/25/10
        Before the bursting of the internet bubble and the Bear Stearns/Lehman/housing bubble, I knew lots of baby boomers who were ready to "retire".

        Fast forward to the present. Many of those folks have decided to keep working. As 401ks shrunk, the housing equity piggybank broke, and

      • FOSTER'S FREEZE
        04/23/10
        It's been a slow period in California workers' comp.

        The State Fund attorneys may be unhappy because they are losing their cars.

        Greg Aghazarian has found a home at the Department of Food and Agriculture after failing to be confirmed by the legislature.

        Bu

      • UNPAID INTERNS
        04/20/10
        Opportunities have been in short supply for many young high school and college graduates, as companies freeze hiring.

        That's led to an uptick in grads seeking internships, even unpaid internships, as a bridge toward a career or graduate school.

        How does California law deal

      • CAN'T COMPETE AGAINST THIS
        04/18/10
        Next time you hear some company threaten to move overseas because of high labor costs, just remember this.....

        Capitulate.

        We shouldn't, can't and won't compete against this....:
        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article

        It's an amazing pi

      • NO WORKERS' COMP? THAT'S CRIMINAL
        04/15/10
        Those of you from other parts of the state have likely never had the pleasure of driving from Oakland to San Jose at rush hour.

        That's where I found myself this morning, headed to an appearance at the San Jose WCAB.

        It always amazes me that traffic can be so clogged in one

      • FLASH: WCIRB RELEASES 2009 RESULTS
        04/15/10
        The WCIRB (California's Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau) has just released its report on workers' comp through 12/31/09.

        These reports are always a treasure trove of information about how the industry is doing.

        I'll be sharing some reflections

      • THE MINE DISASTER
        04/13/10
        California workers' comp lawyers see very few mining injuries. Mining is a small sector in the California economy, and below the surface mining is negligible.

        Our hearts go out to the families of the injured and deceased miners in the recent West Virginia Upper Big Branch mine disast

      • THE PENSION SWAMP
        04/11/10
        There's growing focus on public employee pensions and concern that those liabilities are unsustainable.

        For example, today several California newspapers focus on budget horrors befalling California counties with large pension liabilities.

        The Fresno Bee's piece by

      • TRENDS
        04/09/10
        We're all living in a trend-driven society.

        If you don't know the latest trend, your bratty teen ager will tweet you with it. Or your social network friends who you never see and never talk to will show off their trend-driven lifestyle for your facebooking pleasure.

      • ALMS FOR JERRY
        04/07/10
        Clint Reilly is one of California's most distinguished political veterans.
        Reilly has managed and done PR for many of California's top politicians and a number of initiative campaigns.

        Reilly was hired in the Spring of 1994 to handle the gubernatorial campaign of Kathleen

      • SHAPING UP AND SORTING OUT
        04/06/10
        This year's California governor's race will have vast consequences for the workers' comp system and the comp community.

        The California Chamber of Commerce is already putting their foot down.
        The Chamber, very active on workers' comp issues during the Schwarzenegge

      • END OF THE LINE
        04/04/10
        This week was the end of the line for NUUMI, the Fremont, California joint venture of General Motors and Toyota.

        With NUMMI's closing, thousands of good blue collar jobs are gone. As they go, so the jobs of most of the suppliers and transport people who kept this huge plant going.
      • GO ELSEWHERE
        04/02/10
        "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere"....

        Check it out......The healthcare debate has turned into a healthcare pout on the part of some, including this Orlando, Florida urologist:
        http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/loc

        In a politically divide

      • WAYS TO SPEND YOUR DAY
        04/01/10
        If you are in the "comp community" you're not going to the WCAB tomorrow. The furloughs-declared illegal-are back on, for tomorrow at least. Or until the "stay" is lifted.

        What to do with your free time?

        You could take a minute to read about the Republi

    • March
      • IWTN
        03/31/10
        There's a Food Network. A Shopping channel. C-Span for political junkies. Fashion TV.

        Now there's IWTN.

        In my inbox yesterday was an announcement about IWTN, the Injured Workers Television Network. IWTN is the brainchild of injured worker Sam Gold. For several years S

      • WORKERS COMP AND OBAMACARE
        03/28/10
        The long slog is over.

        Obamacare is here.

        Legal attacks by attorney generals in various states focusing on the mandate for individuals to purchase insurance are likely to fail based on the Federal authority to regulate interstate commerce. Here's an interesting analysis by

      • COLAS FOR THE SUPREMES
        03/24/10
        The breaking news today is that the California Supreme Court has decided to hear the Duncan v. WCAB case, also known as the XYZZ case.

        Duncan/XYZZ is a case involving interpretation of the start date for computing cost of living increases (COLAs) in life pension cases (cases with permanen

      • TIME TO STICK A FORK IN HIM
        03/23/10
        "Poizner's done; it's time to stick a fork in him...."

        Thus sayeth Tony Quinn, a longtime California political commentator and observer of the Sacramento scene. You can read Quinn's piece in a blog post on Fox & Hounds titled "Poizner's Suicidal Miss

      • HAVE YOUR SAY
        03/22/10
        Workers' comp stakeholders may wish to take a close look at DWC rules which have now been posted for public comment.

        Physicians will want to look at the new Lewin Group study on how physicians are paid in workers' comp, "Adapting the RBVRS Methodology to the California Wo

      • ILLEGAL FURLOUGHS
        03/20/10
        Now it's official.

        The Governor's furloughs of SCIF personnel has been declared illegal. The California Court of Appeal has upheld a Superior Court order finding those illegal.

        Here's a pdf of the decision by a 3-0 vote of the California Court of Appeal, First Ap

      • THE ACLU WRITES JOHN DUNCAN AT THE DIR
        03/17/10
        Controversy has been brewing at DOSH, the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

        In apparent reaction to a former employee's unauthorized compensation for trainings in occupational safety and health while employed at DOSH,
        DOS

      • 1 in 3
        03/16/10
        A new UCLA study finds that 1 in 4 Californians under age 65 lacked health insurance in 2009.

        That's 8.2 million people in California alone.

        Among people aged 18 to 65, 1 in every 3 Californians was uninsured.

        That's a stunning statistic which undermines an

      • ELLIOTT UPHOLDS CERVANTES
        03/14/10
        In law it's never over til its over.

        A bad ruling may cause consternation, but subsequent cases may limit or disapprove of the bad ruling. Courts may change their mind. Subsequent appeals or other court cases give courts a chance to look at concepts in a different way.

        Law

      • JUST TOO WEIRD
        03/13/10
        Just too weird not to share with you.

        The Carly Fiorina Hindenboxer Ad. All ye folks who are fascinated by the Hindenberg disaster gather round....All ye Led Zepplin aficionados...

        Its time for another Zepplin...??????

        Carly's Zepplin ad.

        I try to st

      • RETURN TO WORK
        03/13/10
        Insurance Commish Steve ("the turtle will beat the hare") Poizner and
        eMeg Whitman are duking it out this weekend at the GOP Convention in Santa Clara.

        Whitman has finally started talking, after a disastrous phony town hall meeting in Orange County:
        http://www.youtub

      • WALKERLAND
        03/10/10
        San Francisco attorney Phil Walker is sponsoring a conference this week "Making Workers' Comp Work".

        Walker's conference should be interesting. Phil is a raconteur and a showman. In the runup to the conference, Walker, a veteran defense attorney, has posted some "

      • HAZARDOUS PUBLIC SECTOR WORK
        03/10/10
        The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released a report showing that state and local government workers have a significantly higher injury rate than public sector workers:
        http://www.bls.gov/news.release/osh2.nr0.htm

        Around half of those occurred in public sector service occupa

      • JOHN DUNCAN AT THE DWC CONFERENCE
        03/07/10
        The Director of California's Department of Industrial Relations, John Duncan, gave a headliner address in Los Angeles and Oakland recently at the Division of Workers' Compensation 17th annual conference.

        Duncan's comments are an important indicator of the remaining agenda f

      • VOTE COUNTING
        03/07/10
        If Congressional Democrats had the votes to pass the Senate-approved healthcare reform version through the House, they probably would have scheduled a vote yesterday.

        But how close are they to really having those votes? Much of the punditry on this is based on the political spin machines.

      • RULEMAKING TIME
        03/06/10
        On our weekends many of us in the "comp community" try to dig out from the mountain of e mails, reports and records that come our way.

        Just in case you've already done your homework, filled out your Oscars scorecard, and finished that glass of two buck Chuck, workerscompzon

      • TROUBLE IN THE QME PROCESS: 90 DAYS?
        03/03/10
        Some interesting statistics surfaced in the presentation on the QME process at this week's DWC conference.

        While the Medical Unit is getting QME panel requests issued in less than a month for unrepresented workers, panels in represented worker cases are currently not issued until aro

      • MEDICAL MARIJUANA COVERAGE?
        03/02/10
        We're getting past the era of Cheech and Chong getting stoned in the back room.

        Statewide Insurance Services, based in Rancho Cordova, has announced nationally based insurance coverage written specifically for the medical marijuana industry.

        Apparently the coverage will ca

      • MASADA
        03/01/10
        (workerscompzone has been traveling in Israel; this week he returns to cover the DWC Conference in Oakland; meanwhile, this is the last in a series of four postings on his Mideast wanderings)

        Masada.

        This ancient fortress, built on a desert mesa near the Dead Sea, is surely one

      • BETHLEHEM
        03/01/10
        (workerscompzone has been traveling in Israel...the blog will be returning to cover the California DWC annual conference in Oakland...so stay tuned...meanwhile, some insights on Middle East wanderings are offered)

        Bethlehem.

        It's about as far from Jerusalem as San Bruno is

    • February
      • JERUSALEM
        02/28/10
        (Workerscompzone has been traveling in Israel...the last post was from Tel Aviv....in a few days the blog will return to regular commentary on important events in California workers' comp....)

        Jerusalem....surely the most contested place on earth. Pretty much every inch of the old ci

      • TEL AVIV
        02/26/10
        (workerscompzone is traveling; today he is posting from Tel Aviv.....next week the blog will get back to the usual shenanigans in the California workers' comp world....)

        January 18, 1991.....

        I'll never forget that day. The California Applicants Attorneys Association

      • WRIT GRANTED IN GUZMAN
        02/24/10
        A writ has been granted in the Guzman case.

        For non-lawyers out there, it means that the California Court of Appeal, 6th District (based in San Jose) has agreed to hear the case. In Guzman II the WCAB indicated that it will allow physicians to use all aspects of the AMA guides themselves

      • DAN WALTERS: WORKERS' COMP BATTLE AWAITS NEXT GOVERNOR
        02/22/10
        Dan Walters is California's most seasoned journalist covering the scene at the state capitol. Over the years Walters again and again has shown his grasp of the politics and personalities that animate the legislative scene.

        So it's with interest that I note his piece in today

      • THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
        02/22/10
        Could it be that Anthem Blue Cross has given the gift that keeps on giving?

        Anthem Blue Cross recently announced rate hikes of as much as 39% for many of its 700,000 California customers. The company claims that troubled economy has caused many to drop coverage, leaving it with a sicker,

      • POLITICAL FISHWRAP
        02/20/10
        California is sure to have an interesting political season.

        It's a novel campaign strategy: hold your fire to the end of the campaign, then let em' have it....

        But that appears to be the Steve Poizner strategy against Meg Whitman:
        http://www.contracostatimes

      • FURLOUGHING FURLOUGHS
        02/18/10
        Ideas that seem good don't always work out well in practice.

        Today we see that the program to use Federal stimulus money to create jobs and save energy by weatherizing homes (at a $5 billion price tag) has bogged down. Instead of the projected 595,000 homes, less than 25,000 were wea

      • A LIMIT ON SURVEILLANCE?
        02/16/10
        It's always interesting to see what's going on in workers' comp in other states. I often follow comp developments in other states through e-mails from the Workers' Comp Executive and through news bits on Workcompcentral.com

        In Colorado there's a move to limit vide

      • AN UNPLEASANT 4:30 CALL
        02/14/10
        Friday 4:30.

        It could have been any Friday. On this occasion it was an irate spouse on the voicemail. Something has to be done.

        The spouse noted that pain meds prescribed for the worker were being denied at the pharmacy. The worker has been on a long list of medications for yea

      • A DANGER FOR WORKERS
        02/11/10
        One danger for workers is that a dispirited labor movement could decide to take a breather during the next election cycle.

        Union activists staffed phone banks and walked door to door for Democratic candidates during recent election cycles. The rank and file union household vote went Demo

      • HUMP DAY
        02/10/10
        It's Wednesday, hump day.

        Worker interests continue to get short shrift in Washington. While the President and Congress wrangle on a jobs bill to attack unemployment, the President's appointment to the National Labor Relations Board appears to be doomed.

        THe nominatio

      • THE COMMISH'S TROUBLE
        02/08/10
        It can't have been a good weekend for Insurance Commissioner Poizner.

        The Super Bowl airwaves were full of Meg Whitman ads. Whitman refuses to debate Poizner at the Republican convention, but she has no problem getting up on TV.

        Far behind in polling, Poizner has unleashed

      • THE LETTER
        02/05/10
        In a stinging challenge to the California Division of Workers' Compensation, the Democratic legislative leadership has demanded answers as to the DWC's intentions regarding revision of the permanent disability rating schedule.

        This story was revealed in a flash report late yeste

      • LIFE TUNE-UP
        02/03/10
        A few years ago I sat for dinner at a big birthday party with a group of friends. In the room there were a couple of psychologists.....an estate planning lawyer.....a doctor.... a real estate guy....a business consultant...

        Looking around the room, everyone had some sort of challenge.
      • MEG WHITMAN CAMPAIGN JUMPS THE SHARK
        02/01/10
        Meg Whitman's gubernatorial campaign appears to have jumped the shark.

        Whitman campaign advisor Mike Murphy has sent an e-mail to California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (Whitman's rival for the Republican gubernatorial nomination), threatening Poizner if he does not re

    • January
      • LAO QUESTIONS SOME SALARY CUTS
        01/31/10
        This week a report from the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) questions salary reductions of state personnel who are funded through targeted and user-funded mechanisms:
        http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2010/stad

        The Workers' Comp Appeals Board is "user funded" by assess

      • COLLAPSED SOUFFLE IN AN UNUSED KITCHEN IN BACK OF AN EMPTY HOUSE
        01/29/10
        A "collapsed souffle in an unused kitchen in the back of an empty house"....

        That sounds like a line from a writing of French surrealist Antonin Artaud, who wrote that "life is a costume grafted to a dead tree".

        But the souffle line is from Peggy Noonan. Noo

      • LABOR KILLS ITS OWN TOP PRIORITY
        01/26/10
        A top national priority of labor, the Employee Free Choice Act, appears to be a casualty of the the Massachusetts Senate election.

        With Democrats no longer in control of a filibuster-busting 60 seats, the EFCA is unlikely to move out of the Senate. And in any event, opposition from some D

      • THE GUV AND UNIONS
        01/25/10
        Governor Schwarzenegger's popularity is at an all-time low, but the Guv still has the urge to stick it to working people.

        A new Field poll found that 59% believes that California is in worse shape than before Schwarzenegger took office:
        http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline

      • THE PROBLEMS AT CAL-OSHA
        01/22/10
        Los Angeles public TV station KCET has done an excellent program on the poor performance of Cal-OSHA. You should take a look.

        The show, "Protected or Neglected?" can be seen via streaming video on the KCET website:
        http://kcet.org/socal/2010/01/protected

        Th

      • SALVAGING
        01/20/10
        I'm in the Palm Springs area for the CAAA winter conference.

        Where else can you go to dinner and see 70 and even 80 year olds jitterbugging to a live band? Oy Vey! You should see the bar action among the older crowd at Bing Crosby's in Rancho Mirage.

        These are folks w

      • HEALTHCARE IF SCOTT BROWN WINS
        01/18/10
        What happens to national healthcare reform if Republican Scott Brown surges to victory in blue state Massachusetts on Tuesday?

        That looks increasingly likely as polls show Brown with a small lead. Democratic candidate Martha Coakley has run a lackluster campaign, fulfilling stereotypes of

      • MAKING LEMONS FROM LEMONADE
        01/17/10
        There's a good essay in today's New York Times Magazine by Peggy Orenstein, a prominent writer and SF Bay Area resident.

        Orenstein muses on the current state of the California dream, a dream under siege. Her piece, "The Coast of Dystopia", chronicles the current state

      • SHIPWRECKED IN BOSTON?
        01/15/10
        Union support for healthcare reform is back on.

        The plan to tax "Cadillac plans" will be changed. Details are sketchy, but it appears that union plans will be exempted from the tax until 2018.
        That's an immediate relief for many middle class union folks who saw this as

      • A MORE SHREDDED NET
        01/13/10
        Watching images of the current travails of the Haitian people gives one a sense of perspective. This poor little island has now suffered the "Big One"
        that we in the Golden State have dreaded for years.

        Thousands there, if they survived, have no safety net.

        Here,

      • CAN'T BLAME THEM
        01/11/10
        You can't blame them for being upset.

        Dollars from their PACS helped finance Democratic House and Senate candidates around the country. Their members were foot soldiers in Obama's army of volunteers in the 2008 elections (can you remember back that far?)

        But now unio

      • PAY CUTS ON THE HORIZON FOR WCAB & DWC STAFF?
        01/08/10
        Governor Schwarzennegger's budget proposal was unveiled today.

        He's shifting his strategy from furloughs to proposed pay cuts.

        A recent ruling by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch found that many of the furloughs of state workers were illegal.
      • THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET
        01/06/10
        Just before the end of 2009, Susan Gard of the DWC announced that the administration would not observe the mandate to revise the permanent disability rating schedule by January 1, 2010.

        David DePaolo, founder and chief executive officer of WorkCompCentral.com, penned a trenchant response

      • THE TOP 10 EVENTS IN 2009 IN CALIFORNIA WORKERS COMP
        01/01/10
        Here in no particular order are my picks as the 2009 California workers' compensation "Top 10" events. I've included some brief commentary, along with links to posts I did during the year:

        1. POIZNER CONTINUES TO REJECT WCIRB RATE INCREASE RECOMMENDATIONS
        In t

  • 2009
    • December
      • 2 THINGS NOT HAPPENING
        12/29/09
        At the end of the year its becoming clearer that 2 things are NOT happening:

        The sale of SCIF (or a part of SCIF) is not happening. It's no big surprise that this has become tied up in court. I suspect that many legislators who voted for this sale knew that the proposed sale was a bi

      • THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
        12/26/09
        (Workerscompzone awoke from a dream after seeing "Nine", the Rob Marshall homage to the Italian cinema era of Fellini and Antonioni, featuring Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren etc etc; but workerscompzone's dream was more pedestrian.....a choir was singing "The Twelve D

      • DOCTORS NO ONE NEEDS
        12/24/09
        Some teaching hospitals have been pushing for the U.S. healthcare reform bills to include an expansion of monies to fund as many as 15% more doctor residency programs.

        Is America underserved with medical doctors? What kinds of doctors do we need? Will more doctors fuel more demand for pro

      • LABOR'S QUANDRY
        12/23/09
        You, dear reader, may have visions of sugar plums in your head as you wait for Dancer, Prancer, Comet and Cupid to alight on your roof on Christmas eve.

        But meanwhile, some folks are stewing, some are hi-fiving, and some are agonizing over the healthcare reform bill that's to be cons

      • FLASH: CAPLANE REAPPOINTED
        12/23/09
        Ending months of speculation about a coming vacancy on California's Workers Compensation Appeals Board, Governor Schwarzenegger has elected to reappoint Commissioner Ronnie Caplane.

        Many folks in the comp community had assumed that Caplane would not be reappointed. A Democrat, Caplan

      • MORE ON THE REFORM
        12/21/09
        There will be no filibuster on healthcare reform now.

        In putting together a "manager's amendment" that distributes goodies to Nebraska and a number of other rural states, Harry Reid has shown his tactical brilliance. I've noted before that I see Reid as a historic figu

      • REACHING 60
        12/19/09
        Harry Reid appears to have put it together.

        There's word this morning than Nebraska's Ben Nelson appears ready to vote for Reid's healthcare reform bill. So before Christmas we may see a vote sending it to House-Senate conference.

        Here is the "manager's

      • A LOT OF WHITE NOISE
        12/17/09
        The coming weeks will be interesting in California workers' comp.....

        We'll see what the Schwarzenegger administration does to fill the seat on the WCAB that is soon to be vacated by Commissioner Ronnie Caplane. Caplane is termed out unless reappointed.

        We'll see

      • KILL BILL
        12/15/09
        If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know I've been watching the national healthcare reform debate closely.

        The debate may be entering its final phase.

        I know that many readers think reform....any reform...is a terrible thing. I get e-mail from readers who

      • A SILVER LINING FOR THE LEFT?
        12/15/09
        More on the national healthcare debate, which ultimately will have important consequences for California's workers and even its comp system........

        POTUS is speaking to Democratic senators today. The message will be that it's the 11th hour for healthcare reform. If it doesn'

      • THE END OR THE BEGINNING?
        12/14/09
        Early last week it looked as though a deal might have been struck to get 60 votes for a healthcare reform bill in the Senate.

        Sure, it appears that most senators still don't have the details on a plan that emerged from talks among 10 key senators. And it's being kept under wraps

      • THE REPORT ON SELF-INSURANCE GROUPS
        12/10/09
        Now that you're thoroughly tired of reading about Tiger Woods, Adam Lambert and the debate over Climategate, you may be ready to spend a cold December eve by the fire reading some wonkish studies.

        Settle into your armchair. Put your feet up. We have a study for you, the CHSWC Report

      • A DEAL ON THE PUBLIC OPTION?
        12/08/09
        Tonight's New York Times website has an article by Robert Pear noting that Harry Reid claims a deal has been reached on healthcare reform's "public option" concept. If so, the details are not yet publicly confirmed.

        Reid has been convening a group of 10 Senators, 5 so

      • WHY DO POLLS SHOW LACK OF SUPPORT FOR OBAMACARE?
        12/06/09
        (As the year winds down, Workerscompzone will be giving lots of attention to the national healthcare reform debate; that debate, which could have tangential impact on the workers' comp system, is in its critical phase....)

        Recent polls have shown broad public support for elements of

      • NEVANS RESPONDS ON ASSESSMENTS
        12/04/09
        In a recent post I examined California's workers' comp user funding assessments:
        http://www.workerscompzone.com/index.ph

        Those assessments provide a dedicated revenue stream for operation of the WCAB and its programs. And they also provide a dedicated fund for
        s

      • THE NFL'S NEW POLICY
        12/03/09
        Yesterday the NFL announced a new policy on player concussion injuries.

        This comes after mounting evidence that there may be links between concussions and dementia in former players. It's an issue I blogged about
        earlier this fall:
        http://www.workerscompzone.com/index.ph

    • November
      • A SURPRISE IN THE COLA DECISION?
        11/30/09
        There's been a lot of speculation as to how the law of COLAS will develop.

        I'm not talking potential taxes on sugary drinks as part of a national healthcare reform bill.

        I'm talking about the cost of living increases under California Labor Code 4659(c). That COLA

      • ASSESSING ASSESSMENTS
        11/29/09
        With big budget shortfalls, there's a trend toward targeted funding for state programs.

        California employers pay for the system via "user funding" assessments.
        User funding in the comp system came under consideration during Jerry Brown's governorship in the early

      • A NEW NEW DEAL IN CALI?
        11/27/09
        My Bourbon Red (last post) will have to wait until another year.

        If you've been out scurrying around for Black Friday deals, perhaps you're ready to take a respite and contemplate California's challenges......

        Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to keep fund

      • CRAVING A BOURBON RED
        11/26/09
        Someday I'm gonna try a Bourbon Red.

        In case you're wondering, it's not a stash of Humboldt County weed (like Bill Clinton, that's never been my thing). And no, the New Riders of the Purple Sage never sang the praises of Bourbon Red.

        While I'm at it, I&

      • SINKING
        11/23/09
        Many a California injured worker finds him or herself depending on unemployment at some point after the injury. Frequently this occurs when a worker is laid off after an injury. The worker may be unable to prove that the layoff was discriminatory (under Labor Code 132a or FEHA), and draws unemployme

      • SCUFFLING INSIDE A.I.G.
        11/23/09
        New York Magazine has a fascinating article ("Show Me the Money" by Gabriel Sherman) on the tug-of-war at A.I.G. over executive pay caps:

        You can find it here:
        http://nymag.com/news/business/62259/

        Stay tuned.

        Julius Young
        www.boxerlaw.com

      • REVERSING FIELD
        11/22/09
        Political junkies love ads that highlight the machinations of politicians who reverse field.

        You know, the " I was against it before I was for it before I decided to oppose it" variety.

        Sometimes the politician has truly seen the light in a thoughtful way. But somet

      • HARRY'S BABY
        11/20/09
        This will be Harry's baby.

        Harry Reid, former boxer, denizen of the tiny town of Searchlight, Nevada.
        Now the Senate majority leader, it falls on Reid to corral the votes to get a healthcare package to the Senate floor.

        With a vote scheduled tomorrow (Saturday) evenin

      • THE GAO REPORT
        11/19/09
        Could it be that work injuries are under-reported rather than overreported?

        It seems so.

        Writing in The California Progress Report, Los Angeles attorney Adam Dombchik notes that tens of thousands of California work injuries go unreported:
        http://www.californiaprogressr

      • THANKSGIVING
        11/17/09
        Workerscompzone received an early Thanksgiving present in the last few days.

        LexisNexis and Larson's National Workers' Compensation Advisory Board has named Workerscompzone as the nation's top workers' comp blog in 2009:
        http://law.lexisnexis.com/practiceareas<

      • HAVE A NICE APOCALYPSE
        11/15/09
        "Have a nice apocalypse".

        Huh?

        Perhaps an appropriate greeting from a friend who knew you are headed to see the new it film "2012"? Or someone in your book club who just finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", or a Euro cinema buff who pulled

      • UN-ACCOMMODATING
        11/12/09
        Workers' comp and employment law sometimes intersect in fascinating ways. Those of us representing workers need to keep in mind the panoply of remedies available to workers.

        A good example is the recent case of A.M. v. Albertsons, a case that arose out of a sad incident at the Alber

      • WHAC- A -MOLE
        11/09/09
        I love arcade games.

        Show me a skeeball machine and I'm a happy camper. It's worth the drive to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk just for that.

        Pac Man? Say no more. A good pinball machine is heaven. Table shuffleboard? Spent many hours playing at a local Oakland watering hol

      • ON TO THE SENATE
        11/07/09
        Today is a historic day. The House of Representatives has voted tonight to move forward with a healthcare reform package.

        The bill, which comes in at over 1500 pages, will not be the final version. Indeed, a number of House yes votes were cast specifically to advance the bill in hopes tha

      • FLASH: CHSWC RELEASES LABOR/EMPLOYER NEGOTIATION DOCUMENTS
        11/05/09
        CHSWC has now released documents detailing negotiations between certain employers (including Sean McNally of Grimmway Farms, a CHSWC member) and some labor advocates, including Angie Wei of the California Labor Federation, a CHSWC member).

        These documents have been promised since a recent

      • SIGNED
        11/04/09
        Governor Schwarzenegger has now signed SB 313, a bill which increases penalties for failure to provide workers' comp coverage.

        Sponsored by State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, SB 313 will allow penalties of double the monies that would have been paid as premiums by the employer.

      • TODAY'S ELECTION RESULTS
        11/03/09
        We're in a blue state, aren't we?

        What's the fuss over Republican resurgence in Virginia and New Jersey?

        Today's election results won't have any direct impact on the workers and various "stakeholders" we call the workers' comp community.

      • NO ORDINARY RALPH KRAMDEN
        11/01/09
        When the baby boomers among us think of bus drivers, we often think of Ralph Kramden.

        Kramden was the bus driver portrayed by Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners. Big hearted but blustering, Kramden was the epitome of
        the 1950s working class, living in a small apartment, hobnobbing w

    • October
      • ANOTHER LOOK AT A.I.G.
        10/30/09
        A.I.G.'s financial practices are under attack in a Los Angeles County lawsuit that could have repercussions for A.I.G. and its business model.

        The L.A. lawsuit is not focused on A.I.G. workers' comp practices. But it does target the apparent A.I.G. modus operandi of A.I.G.'

      • A NON-PUBLIC PUBLIC OPTION?
        10/29/09
        House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this morning unveiled the current version of the House healthcare reform bill. It would expand coverage to include up to 36 million people.

        Medicaid would be expanded and there would be increased subsidies for the low income to buy insurance from either a privat

      • HE'S BAAAAAK!
        10/26/09
        He's baaaaak!

        Not that he really ever left.....

        That's Maurice Greenberg, who as chairman of A.I.G. presided over the rise of an insurance behemoth.

        A.I.G. is everywhere. Several months ago while walking in Shanghai on the banks of the Huangpu River, by &

      • SHEDDING ON THE REBOUND?
        10/25/09
        Could it be that we're in an economic recovery cycle that sheds jobs on the rebound?

        A weak dollar, a weak housing market, and a gloomy jobs picture are all significant pieces of the conundrum we're in.

        8 million jobs....yes, Eight Million.....have been lost in the ec

      • UNCLOAKING
        10/22/09
        In recent months there was a flap over discussions held between a handful of CHSWC members and some comp system stakeholders.

        Those discussions, memorialized in a draft on CHSWC letterhead, came to light in the workers' comp press and on an Assembly Republican site. Efforts to achiev

      • THE WONKS AND THE PLAYAS
        10/21/09
        Where can you always find the workers comp wonks and some of the "playas" who move and shake the system?

        As Cheez Whiz, of course. The Commission on Health and Safety and Workers Compensation.

        Tomorrow will be no exception. There's a public meeting at the State B

      • ANOTHER GOOD BILL: SB 313
        10/19/09
        One thing many comp stakeholders can agree on is that far too many employers are skirting the legal requirement that they be covered for workers comp.

        Employer fraud by scofflaw employers who seek to avoid paying comp premiums has been a growing problem. Those employers gain an unfair com

      • ALOHA
        10/17/09
        A state where employers are required to provide insurance to employees who work over 20 hours per week....

        A state whose healthcare premiums are (along with North Dakota) the
        lowest in the nation......

        A state whose Medicare costs per beneficiary are the lowest per Medicar

      • 11 IDEAS WORTH FIGHTING FOR
        10/14/09
        Every injured worker and every reader of this blog has a lot at stake in the national healthcare debate. Failure of reform may destroy-for years- any chance of bettering the system.

        Two ideas are colliding. The House appears to favor a public option. The Senate Finance Committee has cobbl

      • FLASH: ARNOLD SIGNS LOWENTHAL BILL
        10/12/09
        The Governor has signed AB 361.

        AB 361, carried by Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), prohibits an employer from refusing to pay for medical treatment if the employer authorized it before the service was rendered. Authorized treatments must be paid, even if the treater is not an MPN member.

      • FLASH: GOVERNOR SIGNS PREDESIGNATION BILL
        10/12/09
        In what will be a surprise to the conventional wisdom, Governor Schwarzenegger has signed SB 186, a bill which extends the right to predesignate a physician for workers' comp treatment.

        Under the 2004 SB 899 reforms, the right to predesignate was scheduled to sunset at the end of 200

      • FLASH: GOVERNOR SIGNS BILL TO BROADEN 4850 COVERAGE
        10/12/09
        It's rare to see Governor Schwarzenegger sign a bill that will give enhanced worker's compensation benefits.

        But that's what AB 1227 does. Schwarzenegger signed the bill yesterday.
        In 2008, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that had many similarities, AB 419.

        Aut

      • FLASH: GOVERNOR SIGNS TANEKA'S LAW
        10/11/09
        Taneka's Law has now ben signed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

        The bill, AB 1093, will prohibit a "personal connection" defense to a workers' comp claim where the aggressor/assailant acts on the basis of beliefs regarding race, religious creed, color, national origin, ag

      • FLASH:GUV SIGNS BILL REQUIRING ONLINE COVERAGE INFO
        10/11/09
        Despite the threat to veto all bills unless a water deal emerges, the Governor's office announced on Sunday afternoon that 89 bills have been signed. The fate of others remains unknown.

        Among the bills signed so far is AB 483, authored by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, a Contra Costa c

      • POLITICAL EXTORTION?
        10/09/09
        Unless a water policy deal is struck within the next few days, several workers' comp bills may fail at the stoke of Governor Schwarzenegger's veto pen.

        Then again, those bills may be vetoed anyway.

        Is it political extortion for the Governor to threaten to veto all the

      • HOW ARE WE DOING?
        10/08/09
        In coming months we'll probably be seeing attempts to control growth of treatment costs in California's workers comp system.

        Some of this may be on the regulatory front. An agenda item for the October 22 CHSWC meeting at the auditorium at Oakland's State Building is &quo

      • COMPREHENSIVE INCREMENTALISM
        10/07/09
        Comprehensive incrementalism?

        That's where national healthcare reform seems to be headed. Today's Congressional Budget Office Report gives a bright signal to the compromise approach that's been developed by the Baucus Committee.
        According to the CBO, the Baucus committ

      • A STRANGE WORLD
        10/06/09
        It's a strange world.

        Our President is holding meeting after meeting this week to fix an AfPak
        strategy. Today it was Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle.
        There'll be sessions focusing on Pakistan later in the week. And one on Afghanistan.

        But

      • IS CALIFORNIA A FAILED STATE?
        10/05/09
        "Failed State".....

        That's a term most of us associate with disintegrating, lawless places like
        Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan's Northwest Territories or, quite possibly, Afghanistan.

        But it's always interesting to see how those abroad see us. Here'

      • IT DIDN'T FLY
        10/04/09
        It didn't fly.

        24-hour care, that is.

        Advocates of 24-hour care would like to merge workers comp medical care and regular health insurance, perhaps adding in medical coverage under auto insurance. It's an idea that has been discussed for years.

        Senator Jay

      • WANNA GO DUTCH?
        10/01/09
        Going Dutch.....

        Is that where we're headed? I'm not talking about that ritual which occurs as two friends fight for the check at dinner. And though my office is a block from Oakland's "Oaksterdam University" , where there are classes on how to grow better marijua

      • A FOLLOWUP
        10/01/09
        Recently I did a post on the controversial "regulations study" recently unveiled by the Governor's "Small Business Advocate":
        http://workerscompzone.com/index.php?en

        Today there's a fascinating article by John Howard in the Capitol Weekly on the back

    • September
      • COMES WITH THE TERRITORY?
        09/29/09
        There's mounting evidence showing that football players are at increased risk for dementia.

        Today comes word in the New York Times that the University of Michigan's Institute for Social research has completed a study of former NFL players.
        Further studies will be undertaken

      • POIZNER'S DIRECTIVE BEARS FRUIT
        09/28/09
        One large problem in California workers' comp has been the inability of the WCIRB to accurately assess workers' comp cost trends.

        The WCIRB (Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau) collects data from insurers and makes recommendations on rates to California's Insuranc

      • A GREAT BOOK
        09/27/09
        Back to more workers' comp meat and potatoes this week.. but first a few items lingering around the drawer....

        Coming back from my Croatia vacation last week, I picked up a book I've been meaning to read.

        It's "The Shadow Factory", by James Bamford. Bam

      • THE REGULATIONS STUDY
        09/23/09
        Is California unduly burdened by too many regulations? Are we "economically unfree"? Are our laws and tax policies driving away business and investment?

        That's the argument made in a study unveiled by the Governor's "Small Business Advocate". It's a stud

      • THE PEARL
        09/21/09
        (Workerscompzone has been traveling; this is the last in a series from Croatia before returning to more meat and potato issues on workers' comp and employee rights.....)

        Dubrovnik.....A study in survival....

        Some refer to Dubrovnik as the pearl of the Adriatic. An
        anc

      • A GOOD TIME TO BE GONE
        09/17/09
        Korcula,Croatia.....

        It seems like a good time to be out of the country.

        From this little medieval town of Korcula on a small island, purportedly the home of Marco Polo (Venice and Genoa had a whopper of a sea battle near here on September 9, 1298), the antics of modern day Am

      • MAKING HEALTHCARE REFORM WORK
        09/14/09
        It's looking grim for "the public option" in healthcare reform.

        Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, is a key potential swing vote in the Senate on healthcare reform. Snowe today said there is "no way" a healthcare reform with a public option can pass out of the Senate:
      • WI-FYING
        09/13/09
        I love the internet.

        I can be here in Hvar, Croatia, on holiday, with an espresso in one hand and gelato in the other, meanwhile reading the latest newsworthy bits about California. Cafe wi-fi is sweet.

        Yachts pull up and depart, as a steady stream of Italians and Croats from

      • OPEN TO MAKING A DEAL?
        09/10/09
        Recently I did a post on reports that surfaced of backroom talks between CHSWC members on a "grand bargain" comp reform. Those talks were leaked on Workcompcentral.com and in an e-blast from CSIMs, and perhaps other places.

        CHSWC executive director Christine Baker was quoted as

      • THE SPEECH
        09/10/09
        In case you missed President Obama's healthcare speech tonight, here's the link for you:
        http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_off

        The President's plan seems eminently reasonable. His address did a good job of summarizing the need for reform. Listening to it, I could

      • LESS SPOCKY, MORE ROCKY?
        09/09/09
        Less Spocky, more Rocky?

        That's New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's prescription for rehabilitating the Obama presidency. Dowd writes that it's time for more Stallone and less of the Vulcan treatment. Vulcans, like Mr. Spock, are cool and show no emotion. Stallone'

      • PREDESIGNATION BILL HEADS TO THE GUV
        09/07/09
        A bill to extend the right to predesignate a physician is headed to Governor Schwarzenegger's desk.

        The bill SB 186, carried by State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, would extend the right to predesignate, which otherwise sunsets at the end of 2009.
        A copy of the bill can be seen here:

      • TIME TO HONOR WORKERS
        09/05/09
        It's Labor Day weekend, a time for honoring workers.

        What better way for Gov. Schwarzenegger to honor workers this Labor Day than by signing "Taneka's Law", AB 1093?

        Taneka Talley was a 26 year old mom of an 8 year old boy when she was stabbed to death in 20

      • FLASH: ALMARAZ AND OGILVIE ARE HERE
        09/03/09
        Today the WCAB issued revised en banc decisions in the Almaraz/Guzman cases and in Ogilvie.

        In a nutshell, the WCAB has substantially trimmed its prior expansive opinion in Almaraz/Guzman. Doctors will now not be free to go beyond the AMA guides. But they will be able to analogize and use

      • LOW WAGE WORKERS GET CHEATED
        09/02/09
        An important new UCLA study presented today documents a disturbing pattern of abuse of low age workers.

        The study, done by the UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (in conjunction with the National Employment Law Project), was funded by a number of foundations. Just

    • August
      • SURFACING
        08/30/09
        In an otherwise sleepy legislative session for workers' comp issues, there's an end of session drama unfolding.

        The issue was scooped last Friday by Workcompcentral.com, in an article by Workcompcentral reporter Jim Sams. Workcompcentrtal has obtained a copy of a document (writt

      • FURLOUGHS TAKING THEIR TOLL
        08/29/09
        Whether you are a worker, a lien claimant, an attorney or an adjuster, you rely on that part of the workers' comp community that works at the WCAB district offices.

        These are the people who find the files, process the mail (or interface with
        EAMS), take the phone calls, transcr

      • POIZNER TO ARNOLD: I'LL SUE TO BLOCK SCIF SALE
        08/27/09
        Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has announced that tomorrow he'll be filing a lawsuit to block the sale of State Compensation Insurance Fund assets.

        Here's Poizner's press release:
        http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0

        Politically, this is an inter

      • COMBATING BILLING FRAUD
        08/25/09
        Suppose your doctor decided to bill for procedures you never had?
        Therapy you were never given?

        Suppose your doctor used billing codes for items that were never provided to you? How would you know? Would you know if in billing the doctor upgraded different procedure codes to generate

      • TUMBLIN' TUMBLEWEEDS
        08/24/09
        Thank God someone's standing up for California.

        Those Winnemuccans and the folks from The Strip have been attacking us:
        http://workerscompzone.com/index.php?en

        But we don't have to take it.

        Assemblyman Jose Solorio (a Santa Ana Democrat) is fighting

      • THE VINEYARD
        08/23/09
        I'm envious. The President is in Martha's Vineyard.

        It's not the Amalfi Coast, or the French Riviera. But it's still one of the great places to be, and in its own way is as wonderful as those storied Mediterranean retreats. The Vineyard has unspoilt vistas and small pi

      • SACRAMENTO BEE: SCIF ASSET SALE LIKELY TO FAIL
        08/21/09
        Yesterday's piece by Kevin Yamamura in the Sacramento Bee details the many reasons why a SCIF asset sale, part of the state budget deal, is likely to fail.

        In case you missed it, here it is:
        http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifor

        Sale of SCIF's assets, even i

      • AMATEUR HOUR AT THE WHITE HOUSE?
        08/20/09
        Amateur hour at the White House? Has the Obama Administration misread the politics of getting a healthcare bill done?

        That's the thesis of commentator Jay Cost, who (literally) maps out his theory:
        http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horser

        Stay tuned.

        Jul

      • ON THE RIGHT TRACK
        08/20/09
        Kudos to Insurance Commish Steve Poizner's department for their insurance fraud arrest yesterday.

        The arrest of a Diamond Bar man highlights the growing problem of employer fraud. Joseph Baiden, dba Nurse Connection Inc., was charged
        with falsifying payroll records to lower his

      • TAKE YOUR SURVEY
        08/18/09
        If you're in the comp community, please complete the EAMS opinion survey.

        EAMS was initially unpopular with most folks in the comp community with whom I spoke. Since the 2008 rollout, many of us have become more familiar with the system, as it's become a more routine part of our

      • THE BRITS FIGHT BACK
        08/15/09
        On occasional hot, smoggy days, Bay Area mass transit is free. It's part of the air pollution district's Spare the Air strategy.

        I recall riding BART from Oakland to San Francisco last year on a free day.
        There were many more riders than I was accustomed to seeing. Any many

      • POIZNER TO WCIRB: I'LL SCRUTINIZE YA
        08/14/09
        I'll scrutinize ya, says Poizner.

        Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner released a statement reacting to the WCIRB's decision, announced this week, to file for a comp rate increase. Poizner can't set comp rates, since carriers are free to price workers comp as they see fit.

      • FLASH: WCIRB AGAIN RECOMMENDS LARGE RATE INCREASE
        08/12/09
        Like those ghouls in Night of the Living dead, they're baaack.......... And they won't take no for an answer....

        it's California's WCIRB, the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau. The WCIRB is charged by law with collecting data and advising California's i

      • LEBANON
        08/11/09
        Perhaps you spent your whole day seething.

        The country's going to hell in a handbasket, you thought to yourself. As you quaff another summertime brew in your "Don't Tread on Me" plastic cups, you muse over whether Obamacare will mean that the plug gets pulled on dear

      • CALIFORNIA UNDER ATTACK
        08/09/09
        California under attack......

        From Nevada, that is.

        Nevada, with it's real estate and gaming industries hit hard by the recession, is fighting back. California business is being targeted in an ad campaign designed to lure business to a supposedly more business friendly cli

      • FURLOUGH FRIDAY
        08/07/09
        It's another furlough Friday . Another day that the court of justice, the WCAB, is closed.

        Today there were workers waiting for a hearing on their case who had their hearing date bumped. Today there were employers seeking resolution to claims (claims that affect experience rating) wh

      • A DANGEROUS GAME
        08/05/09
        We're starting to learn more about the deal that the Obama White House struck with the pharmaceutical industry to win their cooperation in healthcare reform.

        Apparently a back-room agreement was made to limit the drug manufacturers contribution to reform to $80 billion. That's a

      • RE-ENTERING
        08/04/09
        Workers who lose their jobs due to a disability share something in common with workers who are laid off. Their long term earnings are often severely diminished.

        Much ado has been made about wage loss studies in the California workers' comp system. The RAND Corporation performed a ser

      • WHAT'S SO GOOD ABOUT PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE?
        08/03/09
        Guess which state is 46th among the states in the percentage of folks having no health insurance?

        California. It's right there scraping the bottom with Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.

        in 2006, 21.3% of Californians had no health insurance. The number has probably deteriorat

      • FLASH:THE SEIU STRIKE VOTE
        08/01/09
        74% of SEIU 1000 members have voted to authorize a strike of state employees. This would include many WCAB/DWC employees.

        This does not mean that a strike has or will be called. But it is a step in that direction.

        Here's the breaking news on it from the San Francisco Chron

    • July
      • IS AIG A HOUSE OF CARDS?
        07/30/09
        Is A.I.G. a house of cards?

        A.I.G., a major player in the California workers' comp industry, has been under intense scrutiny after its' corporate parent was rescued by the U.S. taxpayer last fall. The immediate factor leading to the crisis at A.I.G. was the company's involv

      • PELOSI: CARRIERS ARE THE VILLAINS
        07/30/09
        Harry and Louise are back. Mud's starting to fly in Washington and on your local TV channel.

        It makes one wonder what some of the comp insurers are doing under the radar to avert healthcare reform consequences that may be of concern.

        Her poll numbers may be worse than Sara

      • HE'S GOT TO CHOOSE
        07/29/09
        In between blogs on the comp scene, I've been covering the national healthcare reform debate for months.

        A recurring theme has been the perception that Obama has let the debate drift. Perhaps it comes from his natural instinct to be a conciliator, seeking to find common ground among

      • WHAT'S NEW IN UI?
        07/28/09
        What's new at the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board?

        Big delays, that's what. The volume of unemployment claims and the impact of UI judge and staff furloughs is creating a monstrous backlog there.

        Check out Mark Lifsher's piece in today's L.A

      • SIX
        07/27/09
        It there's to be national healthcare reform, it's likely to emerge from a roomful of six senators.

        At a time when much of the healthcare debate coverage seems to be based on smoke and mirrors, the Robert Pear piece in the New York Times is a window on how a bill may emerge:
      • JUST HOW LIKELY IS A STATE WORKER STRIKE?
        07/27/09
        Just how likely is a state worker strike?

        State worker SEIU members are taking a strike vote. There's lots of unhappiness among state workers about their severe wage cuts as a result of the three furlough days. With many experts projecting that the state budget will remain out of bal

      • CBO #2
        07/26/09
        More on the national healthcare debate (a continuation from the last post)....

        More fireworks yesterday in Washington on the healthcare issue.......

        Yesterday the CBO issued another report. That's the Congressional Budget Office, the bipartisan Congressional analyst office

      • A DOG IN THIS HUNT
        07/25/09
        To use one of my old North Carolina sayings, the workers' comp community has a dog in this hunt.

        The hunt for healthcare reform. The eventual shape of any reform could have profound secondary consequences for comp.

        I've had some interesting conversations with various

      • SEIU AND CIGA
        07/24/09
        It was a Sacramento late nighter. The California Senate has voted in favor of the budget compromise and as of early morning Assembly approval looks imminent.

        Here's a good summary of what's in the budget:
        http://www.californiaprogressreport.com

        The Senate vers

      • NO SHORT TERM RELIEF FOR STATE WORKERS IN BUDGET DEAL
        07/20/09
        No short term relief for state workers in the budget deal?

        That's what appears to be shaping up:
        http://www.californiaprogressreport.com

        Stay tuned.

        Julius Young
        www.boxerlaw.com

      • THE COMING STRIKE VOTE
        07/18/09
        More on the possibility of an SEIU strike that could affect personnel at the WCAB boards:
        http://www.californiaprogressreport.com

        From the Sacramento Bee:
        http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifor

        A strike of clerical personnel at the WCAB could bring activity at

      • CARD CHECK
        07/16/09
        A major priority for unions has been the so called "card check".

        That's the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have required employers to immediately recognize a union when a majority of workers sign a card indicating that they want to join a union. This has been touted

      • RATIONING
        07/15/09
        Sometime over the next month we'll see a definitive health reform package emerging from Congress.

        Congressional committees in the House have advanced a plan; various Senate committees are working on a plan. High earning doctors and lawyers may be surtaxed. Or those high earners may

      • BIG MONEY
        07/15/09
        Mid July.

        The Big Five may have a budget deal within 24 hours. We'll see government shrinking. Schwarzenegger's governorship will be further defined as his term begins to sunset.

        So it's interesting to see Meg Whitman up the ante. She's tossed in $15 million

      • STRIKE OR POSTURING?
        07/14/09
        As the budget impasse continues in Sacramento, various interest groups await a deal that may affect their constituency. The workers' comp community is no different.

        TV ad wars on the cuts have begun.

        What leverage do state workers generally (and WCAB employees specifically

      • ZERO
        07/09/09
        If you were Steve Poizner, yesterday was a great day.

        Insurance carriers have recently been announcing large planned workers' comp price increases. Employers Direct filed for a 33.9% rate hike and then announced plans to leave the California market. SCIF, the largest insurer, filed f

      • 20%???
        07/09/09
        A 20% cut?

        That's part of the Governor's budget plan that would affect public workers.
        That includes staff at the WCAB district offices (judges and clerical staff)
        and Division of Workers Compensation personnel.

        Three furlough days per month (which amounts t

      • SULTANS OF SWAT
        07/08/09
        With more sophisticated "sports medicine" and rigorous training regimes, you'd think injuries would be down in professional baseball.

        Wrong.

        Injuries seem to be up. Exactly why is a complicated question. Steroid
        use? Reduced amphetamine use? Manipulation of

      • STIMULATED YET?
        07/07/09
        I'm starting to see them. Are you?

        I'm talking about laid off folks who look rather desperate. Today my client, a bright young twentysomething, tells me he is one of 17 laid off at the non-profit where he was working. The program is radically downsizing in hopes it can survive t

      • DEEP THROAT WOULD HAVE GAGGED
        07/06/09
        Deep Throat would have gagged if he'd lived long enough to see the current shenanigans at The Washington Post.

        Once upon a time The Post was widely respected for its investigative journalism. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman played the intrepid reporters Woodard and Bernstein.

      • THE SHIFT
        07/03/09
        Immigration reform is one of the most contentious issues facing the country. Perhaps that's one reason that it seems to have been put on the
        second-tier agenda by President Obama.

        Better to spend political capital on healthcare reform, climate change legislation, and national s

      • THINK BEFORE YOU SWALLOW
        07/01/09
        There's word today that an advisory panel to the FDA has recommended a ban on Percocet and Vicodin, both of which are extremely popular painkillers.

        Both of these drugs are frequently prescribed for injured workers.

        It's a cautionary note for workers. Even if you doct

    • June
      • THE LAKE
        06/28/09
        Folks in Sacramento call it The Lake. You may know it as Tahoe.

        The nation's second deepest lake, the summer Tahoe features a handful of snowy peaks and mahogany Gar Wood and Carlo Riva "woodie" runabout boats as well as gorgeous hiking and biking trails and classic wateri

      • A THIRD FURLOUGH DAY?
        06/26/09
        There's word today that Governor Schwarzenegger is threatening a third state employee furlough day.

        Despite "user funding", only some SCIF employees are currently exempted from the
        current two day furlough.

        A three day furlough would further slow business at

      • HOW CALIFORNIA BECAME UNGOVERNABLE
        06/25/09
        Is California fatally dysfunctional?

        If so, is the problem that we have too many people with too many needs that are too reliant on the state for help? That we've ramped up too many programs that we can't pay for?

        Or that we haven't developed a workable revenue s

      • SOLD OUT
        06/23/09
        The sale of part of SCIF may really be on. That's the word today.

        Times are bad for the state budget. But dismembering-or crippling-SCIF is a terrible idea, even if it's in the laudatory service of saving some other worthy state programs.

        Kudos to J. Dale Debber for u

      • BUZZING
        06/21/09
        PETA is upset.

        That's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They're upset because Obama swatted a fly with gusto during an interview with journalist John Harwood. I must say his assertive swatting looked pretty good to me. The bigger question, it seems, is whether Oba

      • ANOTHER TRIP TO INTENSIVE CARE
        06/18/09
        As I sit to write this, I'm aware that a lot of the recent columns are about death.

        A requiem for the bill to increase permanent disability monies. An obit for California's vocational rehab.

        And today, the apparent death of Wilkinson. Wilkinson?

        Wilkinson w

      • CONSOLIDATE?
        06/16/09
        Standard and Poors has placed California's credit rating on a watch list. Vendors may have to be paid with IOUs. The knives are out in Sacramento. Who and what get axed, and what remains? A union throws a Hail Mary pass, running ads for higher taxes.

        Every group demands space in the

      • SAYONARA
        06/11/09
        Sayonara to voc rehab.

        Workers injured before 1/1/04 who still hoped to avail themselves of vocational retraining, or who had hopes to collect voc rehab maintenance allowance money for times when voc rehab was disputed are out of luck.

        Today the WCAB issued a unanimous en banc

      • STILL ALIVE?
        06/11/09
        Still alive?

        The possibility of sale of part of SCIF or sale of some of it's "book of business"? A sale transfer of "loss reserves"?

        Floated by Schwarzenegger, it's now been mentioned by Darrell Steinberg as something Senate Democrats may support a

      • DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH
        06/08/09
        Don't hold your breath.

        Words of wisdom from the WCAB.

        From the Al-Ron show. Al Moresi and Ronnie Caplane to be exact.

        Those 2 WCAB commissioners were doing a roadshow presentation at the Shell Beach seminar sponsored by the State Bar Workers' Comp section.

      • LIVE
        06/08/09
        Today at 1 p.m. Insurance Commissioner Poizner is holding a hearing on medical costs in workers' compensation.

        Thanks to the folks at Workers' Comp Executive, you can tune in for live coverage if you aren't able to make the actual hearings in Sacramento.

        Go to ww

      • SLO
        06/05/09
        Workerscompzone is in Shell Beach. Here the State Bar Workers' Comp Executive Committee is meeting. And down the street the California Conference of Workers' Comp Judges is having a confab.

        Amidst all the recent gloom about the precarious position of the California Dream, it

      • WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
        06/02/09
        There's plenty to digest in this news cycle.

        In a major faux pas, the United States published online a secret inventory of U.S. nuclear material storage sites:
        http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/us/03nuke.html?hp

        Oops. For sure that will wind up on www.cryptome.org

    • May
      • REQUIEM
        05/31/09
        A quiet burial was held this week.

        The decedent? The bill to increase permanent disability benefits, SB 773
        (Florez). Similar bills had passed the California legislature for 3 straight years, only to be vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. In 2008, it was SB 1717 (Perata) which was kil

      • A SOTOMAYOR SAMPLER
        05/27/09
        The public vetting of Sonia Sotomayor has begun.

        Unless unexpected information emerges, it's unlikely that her nomination will be sunk by verbal brickbats from Mssrs. Gingrich, and Limbaugh or others who worry about identity group-think.

        Hordes of pundits and interest grou

      • THE ETHICS OF LAYOFFS
        05/26/09
        Unless you've been living as a hermit on a remote mountaintop, chances are you've run into friends and family who've been laid off this year.

        Even friends who were living high on the hog in recent years.

        Workers' comp claim frequency has been plunging in Cal

      • THE KILLERS
        05/24/09
        I've got to start doing something else first thing on Sunday mornings.

        Perhaps I should take up Yoga. Read those P.G. Wodehouse novels I always promised myself. Learn to make a better beignet. Make coffee, put on ambient music and sit by the window looking at a book of Richard Dieben

      • DEAR SANTA
        05/21/09
        (Governor Schwazenegger, clad solely in jockey shorts, kneels on the rug in his Pacific Palisades bedroom, looking out the window). Muttering to himself, his consciousness streams and riffs with his heaving chest....

        "Santa, Dear Santa, I need you now. Need my stocking filled with so

      • SCIF SALE?
        05/17/09
        Could SCIF be for sale?

        That's one idea that's been mentioned by Governor Schwarzenegger as he announced possible budget solutions to the current crisis, particularly if the Tuesday vote goes as predicted, with Props 1A, B, C, and D being rejected by the voters.

        SCIF

      • IT WON'T FLY
        05/16/09
        While some of you use a warm Saturday morning to clean out the garage
        or get ready for Little League games, others may be getting their Bay to Breakers race costumes ready.

        But for those of you in the comp community who prefer a cup of coffee and political ephemera, note that next ye

      • WHY CMS WILL BE WATCHING YOU
        05/12/09
        If you ever wondered about why Medicare has had an increasing interest in workers' comp settlements, wonder no more.

        Medicare is going broke. 2017 is the projected demise of Medicare unless adjustments are made. Painful adjustments will have to be made, probably including some means-

      • SMITH IS HERE
        05/11/09
        Long awaited, the California Supreme Court decision in Smith v. WCAB and Amar v. WCAB has been rendered. A link to the decision is included at the bottom of this post.

        Though not a surprise to most observers, the decision will have negative ramifications for many workers. More on that in

      • FORTHCOMING
        05/10/09
        One generation's world is not another's.

        Consider Wallace Atwood. A leading geographer of his time (the 1920s and 30s) , President of Clark University, and designer of a series of popular pull down maps many of us remember in school.

        I picked up an Atwood pull-down m

      • SCIF REDUX
        05/07/09
        The last few years have been rough for SCIF, California's State Compensation Insurance Fund.

        A quasi-public entity, SCIF is California's statutory insurer of last resort. Just a few years ago, it's market share had ballooned. Recently that market share has fallen by over ha

      • WHO'S SCHOOLING HER?
        05/06/09
        In recent posts, I've covered some of the moves that gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner has made in the workers' comp arena.

        But what of his nemesis for the GOP nomination, ex-EBay CEO Meg Whitman?

        It's early in the campaign, but apparently the buzz among some

      • POIZNER FILES
        05/04/09
        Radio is dying. So they say. No one advertises on it anymore. And everyone's on their iPod.

        But it makes a helluva companion for a comp lawyer making that road trip to one of the Central Valley boards....in my case, today, Stockton. It's where I covered my first WCAB case years

      • AN ORANGE COUNTY WHOPPER
        05/03/09
        There's been a growing awareness that employer premium fraud is a major problem for California's workers' comp system.

        Last week, out of Orange County, comes a primo example of the problem. Michael Petronella ran several roofing companies that vastly underreported payroll.<

    • April
      • OVER WHEN IT'S OVER
        04/30/09
        I've just returned from an event sponsored by the Bay Area's Asian Law Caucus. The event honored Fred Korematsu (who died in 2006) and the legal teams that helped him in the 1940s and 1980s.

        Korematsu was a principled man who contested the right of the U.S. Government to send Ja

      • NOT TAKING THE BAIT
        04/28/09
        Today was Steve Poizner's day in the limelight.

        As California's Insurance Commissioner, Poizner presided over the CDI hearing on the recommendation of California's Workers' Compensation Rating Bureau (WCIRB) that the "pure premium rate" for comp coverage be r

      • RATE HEARING
        04/27/09
        Tuesday (tomorrow) April 28 the Department of Insurance holds a hearing on workers' comp rates.

        Injured workers and labor activists are welcome to attend the meeting.

        The hearing, slated to start at 10 am in the 22nd Floor Department of Insurance hearing room at 45 Fremon

      • Beijing
        04/25/09
        Beijing, China

        (workerscompzone has been traveling in Asia; this is the fifth and last installment of this journey....)

        On to Beijing. From Hangzhou, the high speed rail to Shanghai is a breeze.
        The train is filled with road warriors. Practically everyone has a laptop and

      • YAO MING AT THE GOLDEN ARCHES
        04/23/09
        Hangzhou, China.......

        (workerscompzone is traveling in Asia and blogging on some items of interest he encounters........)

        It's 1 p.m. Tired of lotus root stuffed with sticky rice, stinky tofu and Hainan drunken chicken, workerscompzone dreams of Western food.

      • FEET OF CLAY
        04/21/09
        Xian, China

        (workerscompzone is traveling in Asia and offers you some insights as he travels)...........

        Xian, Shaanxi Province.....In many ways it's the cradle of Chinese culture. To the North lies China's accident ridden coal mining belt, Shanxi Province (what a dif

      • CRANES EVERYWHERE
        04/17/09
        Shanghai, China.......

        Workerscompzone is traveling in Asia and will share some insights with you as I go......

        Here by the side of the Huangpu River, in Shanghai's Pudong financial district, there's a stunning view from the observation deck of world's second tal

      • SEOUL BROTHER
        04/11/09
        Greetings from Seoul. To be exact, the airport lounge at Incheon, South Korea's beautiful new airport, probably one of the world's nicest.

        Workerscompzone is on the first leg of an Asian trip. I'm not here to do investigative journalism, but I'll blog (when I can) abou

      • FLASH: WCAB GRANTS RECON IN ALMARAZ/GUZMAN & OGILVIE
        04/06/09
        The WCAB has granted reconsideration in the Almaraz, Guzman and Ogilvie cases (see a link below post to today's en banc decisions).

        In doing so, the WCAB has adopted a briefing schedule for the parties in each case to submit additional arguments.

        Moreover, the WCAB announc

      • DEAR JOHN
        04/03/09
        A recent letter has generated lots of controversy in the California workers' comp community.

        The March 26, 2009 letter from John Duncan, Director of California's Department of Industrial Relations was directed to the Commissioners of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Boar

      • MEATBALL JUSTICE
        04/01/09
        "Meatball justice". A "MASH unit". A "subbasement of the legal world".

        "Forget about personal. They don't think of you as a person. They think of you as a file with a dollar sign on it. They don't care if you can't put food on the table or

    • March
      • FLASH: SUPREME COURT GRANTS WRIT
        03/31/09
        The California Supreme Court will be hearing another workers' comp case.
        On the Court's website is a note from its conference of 3/25/05 that the Petition for Review was granted in Hertz Corporation vs WCAB (Aguilar).

        To se an earlier post I did on the Aguilar case, click h

      • THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY?
        03/25/09
        "The Fight of the Century"?

        We're not talking The Thrilla in Manila... Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Basilio..Marciano vs. Jersey Joe Walcott... Duran vs. Leonard...Foreman vs. Lyle... Hagler vs. Hearns... or Emile Griffith vs. Benny Paret.

        Those were some bouts. Ah, th

      • LIKE COCKROACHES, IMPOSSIBLE TO KILL
        03/23/09
        According to the San Jose Merc, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is said to have likened workers' comp issues to cockroaches, noting that they are impossible to kill.

        Every half decade the system goes from broken to fixed to broken again.

        The issue de jour? Fast rising workers'

      • THE NEXT AIG SCANDAL?
        03/21/09
        I recently attended a panel at the on the current California workers' comp insurance market at the DWC's annual conference in Oakland. As the panel wrapped up and took a few questions, I asked whether-given the turmoil at AIG's parent company-they had concerns about AIG's workers

      • INSIDE POIZNER'S HEAD
        03/18/09
        (The scene: Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner's office; the Commish is at his desk, leaning back in a big leather chair, musing on matters great and small..........)

        I didn't need this. Not now. Not ever.

        These folks at the WCIRB have really put a turd in my pocket

      • OVERDUE: THE TIMES THEY ARE A ' CHANGIN
        03/16/09
        A recurring problem in workers' comp is tardy QME or AME reports.

        Some doctors are habitually slow in sending out QME/AME reports. This may be due to a variety of reasons. Some QMEs are simply chronically overbooked. The doctor may have fallen behind years ago and never, ever manages

      • YET MORE (AGAIN) ON AIG
        03/15/09
        A flood of info now coming on AIG's activities.

        Yes, the scandalous losses and risks gone wrong were not from AIG workers comp subsidiaries per se. But the insurer's parent is mired in a weird dance with the U.S. taxpayer and other leading investment banks and retail banks.
      • AIG AGAIN AT THE TROUGH
        03/15/09
        After gargantuan taxpayer cash infusions, you'd think there would be a way to control AIG's behavior.

        Apparently not. Even Obama and Geithner are not able to prevent large bonuses being given to AIG execs, many of who were responsible for the credit default swap debacle that thr

      • MORE ON THE RETURN TO WORK PROGRAM
        03/10/09
        In a post within the last several weeks I noted that CHSWC (the California Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation) had heard a report on unimpressive results in the Return-To-Work Program that was established in Labor Code 139.48.

        Out of $500,000 available for distrib

      • YIKES! IT'S COMING!
        03/09/09
        Yikes! It's coming.

        No, it's not a rampaging Creature from the Black Lagoon or some unknown asteroid intersecting with our path. Nothing that big.

        But it is coming.....MMSEA.

        The federal Medicare, Medicaid SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 is coming to California

      • ANOTHER WEEK THAT WAS
        03/08/09
        Sometimes it's hard to know which end is up. The unexpected is, well.......unexpected.

        It's time for our weekly feature, the Week That Was.

        In the bigger world, our President is considering making overtures to segments of the Taliban. Let's isolate the really rea

      • THE WEBINAR
        03/04/09
        Want to reach lots of folks in the "comp community"? Hold a webinar.

        That's the theory at least. Today's streaming web session was hosted by Christopher Brigham & Leslie Dilbeck of Brigham & Associates (now Impairment Resources).

        Part pushback (attac

      • MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER
        03/03/09
        "Mother needs something today to calm her down
        And though she's not really ill
        There's a little yellow pill
        She goes running for the shelter of a little mother's helper
        And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day...."
        -The Ro

      • THROWING MORE MONEY AT THE AIG PROBLEM
        03/01/09
        Word tonight that the Obama administration will offer $30 billion more in taxpayer money to prop up AIG.

        This is on top of the approximate $150 billion in taxpayer funds already invested in AIG.

        Last week I noted that AIG might post the largest loss in U.S. corporate history, e

      • ANOTHER WEEK THAT WAS
        03/01/09
        Walking through parts of San Francisco's Mission District last night, one saw a series of contrasts that mirror our current climate.

        Middle aged Hispanic men, wheeling shopping carts filled to the brim with their life's possessions. Bars filled with twentysomethings sipping $12

    • February
      • SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT OF DOUGH MAKING
        02/25/09
        Daddy, how was your day at work?

        Great day at the bagel shop, son. I got promoted today. Now I'm the Senior VP of dough making!

        Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. But it's not.

        That's an example of what has been going on in a scam some have devise

      • COLLAPSING MEDIA
        02/24/09
        I've always thought the San Francisco Chronicle was an underrated paper.

        True, on workers' comp and labor issues the paper has never been a leading investigatory force. But overall the paper has many strengths. Other than the Sacramento Bee and the LA Times, it has the best cove

      • FLASH: AIG TO POST LARGEST LOSS IN CORPORATE HISTORY
        02/23/09
        Nothing surprises us anymore.

        Special ops forces training and operating in Pakistan? Yes. A nuclear Iran this year? Quite possibly. GM and Chrysler need billions to keep going through the spring? Yup.

        Stress testing? No, it's not for your heart, dummy. It's for your

      • 3
        02/20/09
        Three.

        Workerscompzone recently celebrated its third birthday.

        Doing the blog has been a fun ride for this Tar Heel turned Californian.

        In 2007, when I started blogging, I knew that California already had a number of excellent subscriber-based resources on workers�

      • A CYNICAL VIEW
        02/18/09
        Workers' comp generates a lot of public cynicism.

        Studies showing billions of dollars lost to employer premium and classification fraud fall mostly on deaf ears.

        Taxpayer TARP bailouts for the corporate parents of California comp insurers are in public focus, but not tied

      • EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE, ROUND 2
        02/16/09
        Here in California we have some experience with "evidence based medicine".

        After all, that was the premise for adoption of medical treatment standards in the California workers' comp system. The initial standards adopted were the "ACOEM guidelines". Those are stil

      • HAPPY AND SAD: THE WEEK THAT WAS
        02/14/09
        The happy and the sad. It was that kind of week.

        It's time for the blog's weekly feature, the week that was.

        If you were an older male voter in Mexico City, you were probably happy this week. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was giving out Viagra to men over 60, hoping to get a l

      • IT'S ABOUT TIME
        02/11/09
        Labor standards violations have been rampant in California over the past
        few years.

        Scofflaw employers fail to observe labor laws. And many of these either misclassify their employees or don't carry workers comp insurance.

        It's a problem that costs the Californi

      • FLASH: BENSON CASE IS WIN FOR EMPLOYERS & CARRIERS
        02/10/09
        The California First District Court of Appeal released its decision today in Benson v. WCAB (a link to a pdf of the decision is at the bottom of this post).

        Benson is a loss for disabled workers and a big win for employers and carriers.

        The Court of Appeal has affirmed the deci

      • THE STIMULUS AND HEALTHCARE REFORM
        02/10/09
        If you've been reading the blog for some time, you know that I'm monitoring healthcare reform issues. Since so many disabled workers lose their health coverage, comprehensive health reform is a paramount concern for many.

        Washington is consumed with negotiations over the "s

      • ALMARAZ AND THE AMA GUIDES
        02/08/09
        California workers' comp has recently experienced an earthquake-type event, the Almaraz decision.

        Very few observers saw this coming. What is it, and what's the fuss?

        Here's a synopsis that may be helpful for injured workers and individuals interested in workers&

      • KEYNESIAN, LIKE IT OR NOT
        02/07/09
        It's now the week that was.

        Like it or not, come the expected Monday passage of the "stimulus", we're all going to be engaged in a great Keynesian experiment. Whether you think it's larded with pork or an Evel Knievel-style ramp which will boost us over the sloug

      • ALL A -TWITTER
        02/04/09
        The comp community was all a-twitter today.

        The big buzz? Yesterday's en banc decisions in Olgilvie and Almaraz and Guzman (see yesterday's post)

        A sample of comments from sources (applicant attorneys, defense attorneys and judges) I spoke with today:

        ....

      • FLASH: WCAB EN BANC DECISIONS ON REBUTTING 2005 PD SCHEDULE
        02/03/09
        For some time I've been expecting that the WCAB would issue a decision clarifying its position on rebutting the 2005 permanent disability rating schedule.

        In Scott Boughner vs. CompUSA the WCAB had upheld the validity of the 2005 PD schedule (Boughner's counsel has requested the

      • SHREDDING, PART 2
        02/03/09
        More on shredding of the "safety net":

        Cash strapped counties are having problems meeting their safety net obligations......Backlogs in the welfare system that may affect some who run out of unemployment, state disability or workers' comp and are unable to find employment i

      • SHREDDING
        02/02/09
        In life, there's good shredding. Eddie Van Halen on guitar. Some of the licks from The Scorpions or one of your favorite metal bands.

        And there's bad shredding. As in when the societal "safety net" starts to weaken.

        In California the latter seems to be happe

    • January
      • QUANTUM OF SOLACE
        01/29/09
        The week isn't yet over, but you may be feeling a bit cranky.

        You wouldn't have wanted a $35,000 antique commode with legs, but it galls you to see that former Merrill Lynch chief John Thain spent over a million redecorating his office at a firm bailed out by taxpayers. You

      • POIZNER CUTS FEES
        01/28/09
        Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced yesterday a 6% reduction in license fees that are paid by California insurance agents and brokers.

        Poizner is also reducing the special assessment paid by insurers that is targeted for fighting fraud.

        How's that for pandering

      • HOLD THAT CAMERA?
        01/25/09
        The applicants attorneys conference in San Diego drew to a close today.

        In some coming posts I'll be commenting on some of the nuggets from the CAAA confab.

        Hold that video?

        That's the upshot of today's interesting presentation by Los Angeles attorney

      • EXPOSED TO SOLVENT, WORKER FACES HURDLES
        01/24/09
        When most people think of workers' comp, they think of accidents at work.

        Occupational diseases due to workplace chemicals and other hazards get less attention. Under the recently departed Bush administration, there was little progress in addressing the hazards of workplace chemicals

      • LIVE BLOGGING FROM CAAA SAN DIEGO
        01/23/09
        I'm at the winter Applicants Attorney Conference in San Diego.

        Here's a live blog on "The Most Important Cases". I'm paraphrasing some comments as they go along (caution: the following are a selection of the opinions of various panelists and may or may not be accu

      • FLASH: GUV MAKES WCAB APPOINTMENT
        01/21/09
        The long wait is over.

        Governor Schwarzenegger has filled the last open slot on the California Workers Compensation Appeals Board. The appointment went to a fellow Republican, Greg Aghazarian. Aghazarian represented an area encompassing San Joaquin County as an elected member of the Calif

      • LABOR UNDER THE BUSH PRESIDENCY
        01/16/09
        You're ready to look ahead. I can understand that.

        But as the transition from Bush to Obama occurs along the Potomac, it's time to take a last look at how labor fared under the Bush Presidency.

        Workers' compensation is not a federal law, so Bush had no direct ef

      • DOLLAR TREE SETTLES
        01/12/09
        One of the more embarrassing recent episodes in California workers' comp has come to a close.

        Dollar Tree Stores has agreed to pay the death claim in the case of Taneka Talley. Talley was murdered in 2006 while working as a salesclerk in Fairfield. A customer who Talley did not know

      • CALLING ALL SOOTHSAYERS! TAKE THE QUIZ!
        01/07/09
        What's ahead in the comp world for 2009 and beyond?

        It's time for soothsayers among us to crawl out of the post-holiday haze. Rev up your futurescope and take the quiz:

        1. Regarding the vacant WCAB commissioner spot, in 2009 Gov. Schwarzenegger will a) continue to lea

  • 2008
    • December
      • TOP 10 2008 DEVELOPMENTS IN CALIFORNIA WORKERS' COMP
        12/30/08
        As always, the huge California workers' comp industry continues to be an area of great controversy. In 2008 the 2003 and 2004 reforms continued to settle in, but there were important new developments.

        There are many possible items for a Top 10 list for California workers' comp

      • WHAT SANTA BROUGHT
        12/27/08
        Santa brought stuff I needed and stuff I didn't need. Sometimes the latter stuff is the fun stuff.

        This year, it was a box of "Corporate Flashcards".
        They are billed as "the perfect gift for the unemployed or the overemployed".

        I feel my understa

      • AN "AGUILAR FACTOR"?
        12/23/08
        iPhones, iPods and social networking sites aren't the only newfangled things coming out of Silicon Valley......

        Now we have "Aguilar", courtesy of the San Jose-based 6th Appellate District of the Court of Appeal. A link to the text of Aguilar (Hertz Corporation vs WCAB and

      • A RACE TO THE BOTTOM?
        12/23/08
        Lots of stuff is getting destroyed these days.

        In a deflationary environment, there is "demand destruction". Oil prices go to $50 a barrel. Prices for recycled paper, copper and other materials have fallen off a cliff. Across a wide range of the economy, there are no buyers, onl

      • DETROIT, THE UAW & OBAMA:THE FUTURE OF UNIONS
        12/22/08
        Being a chief executive in government is a difficult thing. You have to deal with your own party, your own base.

        Gov. Schwarzenegger continues to have problems in that department. We now know he'd like to run for President (he can't). But acting erratically during last week'

      • MEDICAL NETWORK USE EXPANDS
        12/21/08
        As we head toward the end of the year, Sacramento appears stuck in gridlock over the state's deepening fiscal crisis.

        Many state workers are facing forced furloughs which could amount to a 10% pay cut. With California unemployment at 8.4%, hundreds of infrastructure projects are bein

      • SCHWARZENEGGER: RELAX LABOR LAWS
        12/19/08
        I've noted before that Republican demands on a budget deal might include
        a relaxation of California's wage and hour laws.

        Schwarzenegger has rejected the Democratic budget gambit I mentioned in yesterday's post. In doing so, he raised the labor law issue.

        He

      • ARE SACRAMENTO'S REPUBLICANS IRRELEVANT?
        12/18/08
        User funding or not, every workers comp stakeholder has a "dog in the hunt" in the state budget crisis.

        Hundreds of construction and infrastructure projects were put on hold yesterday due to the effects of the crisis. With the state running out of money by sometime in February,

      • DAVID DePAOLO: A PARADIGM SHIFT IN WORKERS' COMP?
        12/16/08
        Is there a paradigm shift on the horizon for workers' comp? Is the century-old theoretical foundation on which workers' comp systems were founded starting to fade? From a policy standpoint, has the time for workers' comp as we know it come and gone?

        These are issues I'

      • BLANK CHECK FOR BANKS, PINK SLIPS FOR DETROIT
        12/14/08
        Last week was quite a week.

        Cognitive dissonance is easily found these days.

        I could barely wipe the sleep from my eyes when I grasped the channel changer. There were talking heads debating speculating that there might be a "Truth Commission" on alleged U.S. Human ri

      • UNIONS IN RETREAT?
        12/11/08
        Unions have had a lot to celebrate recently.

        A significant factor in recent Democratic victories was union financial muscle and an army of volunteers for campaigns. Unions look forward to a friendly administration in Washington.

        Hopes are high for enactment of legislation that

      • FLASH: WCIRB RELEASES COMP RESULTS
        12/09/08
        Today the WCIRB posted its report on the results of California's comp insurers through September 20,2008.

        As always, it makes interesting reading. I'll be doing a more detailed analysis later, but recommend that you look at the report yourself.
        The graphs are always particu

      • WE'LL MUDDLE THROUGH, WON'T WE?
        12/08/08
        Tomorrow could be an important day for workers' comp.

        Why? The First District Court of Appeals holds oral argument in the Benson case. In Benson, the WCAB cited 2004 SB 899 reforms in rejecting the Wilkinson doctrine. At issue is whether each separate injury must be rated separately

      • NUNEZ AND THE REVOLVING DOOR
        12/04/08
        Zenith Insurance, an important player in the California workers' comp market, has a new director on its board.

        This director isn't just your usual insurance veteran or financial services executive. It's the termed-out Speaker of the California Assembly, Fabian Nunez.
        <

      • A HATE CRIME DEFENSE?
        12/02/08
        It's rare to see California workers' comp in the national media spotlight.

        But it's happening now, as the media focuses on the "hate-crime defense" being mounted in a death case involving the murder of Taneka Talley, a salesclerk at the Dollar Tree Store in Fairfi

    • November
      • NOVEMBER HODGEPODGE
        11/30/08
        Whether you've been fearlessly hunting Black Friday bargains or hunkered down by the TV trying to understand what terror group was behind Mumbai's spectacular, workerscompzone has continued to follow some stories of interest.

        Don Perata's reign at the California Senate is o

      • THANKSGIVING THOUGHTS
        11/27/08
        Happy Thanksgiving to my readers. Here's hoping you are having time with loved ones or things that bring you joy.

        For many folks-even affluent ones- it's been a stressful year. We've witnessed the unraveling of our economy in a way that may take years to get back on track.

      • THE BREAKUP OF THE USA?
        11/25/08
        Want your chance to formulate a NATIONAL workers' comp law?

        According to the screaming headline on today's Drudge Report, you may get your chance.

        Since the mid 1800s some Northern Californians and Southern Oregonians have pushed the idea of a state, to be named eith

      • THEY MADE FORDS IN MILPITAS
        11/22/08
        As a kid I had a fascination with auto marques (and a helluva Dinky toy collection). I swooned over the Avanti. As a college student, my girlfriend's father treated me to rides in his Alvis.

        The DeSotos, Edsels and Oldsmobile are long gone. American car culture became quaint.
      • THE FORMERLY MIDDLE CLASS
        11/18/08
        I'm in transit from Taipei to California. I'll be missing the dumpling and noodle shops, but the California comp world beckons.

        In the meanwhile, I commend to you thw following article by David Brooks, New York Times columnist and NPR contributor. Brooks writes about the middle

      • THE PAGODA ON THE MOUNTAIN
        11/16/08
        (Note: workerscompzone is in Taiwan for a few more days; later next week I'll resume commentary on California workers' comp topics. But while I'm with my wife on her Far East business trip, I'll look at the bigger picture.)

        Undoubtedly you've seen it pictured in C

      • THE BEAUTIFUL ISLE
        11/13/08
        Workerscompzone is in Formosa this week. The beautiful isle. You probably know it as Taiwan.

        I'm not here on law business. But why not use some of the time to reflect on some of the issues facing workers here?

        Taiwan-like Korea and Singapore-is one of Asia's small tig

      • $2.40 IN COSTS TO DELIVER $1 OF BENEFITS: SDI SUBSIDIZES COMP
        11/10/08
        Is California's State Disability Insurance system subsidizing California workers' comp? Are California workers partially funding the the comp system?

        Yes, according to an important report unveiled this week by CHSWC (the California Commission on Health, Safety and Workers'

      • FLASH:AIG TO GET EVEN MORE BAILOUT MONEY
        11/10/08
        AIG will be getting even more taxpayer money, and under different terms.

        When all is said and done, AIG will be getting an investment of $150 billion.

        That is the largest government investment in any private enterprise.

        Repeat: the largest government investment in an

      • LOST IN THE NEWS CYCLE
        11/07/08
        The blockbuster news coming out of Sacramento yesterday?

        Gov. Schwarzenegger has decided to violate that holy writ of conservatives and Republicans. He proposes to raise taxes. Sales taxes in particular.

        It's a bitter pill at a time when auto dealerships and mall stores ar

      • WINNERS AND LOSERS
        11/05/08
        Who are the winners and losers in yesterday's California voting?

        It's a question those who care about California workers' comp should be asking. After all, workers' comp exists in a political petri dish. A proverbial political football over the years, workers' com

      • AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY: WHAT WOULD IT MEAN FOR CALI WORKERS COMP?
        11/02/08
        Polls can be wrong.

        But even as the popular vote appears likely to be tightening, the electoral college math appears to favor an Obama victory in Tuesday's election. (disclosure: I am an Obama contributor; my son, a paralegal at Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy in Burlingame, is at the

    • October
      • HALLOWEEN
        10/31/08
        King Kong. Jack the Ripper. Atilla the Hun. The Mummy.

        Those were not AIG and The Hartford stockholders, looking for extra morsels of food. No, it was just some kids, dressed as pretty scary ghouls at my door tonight, in quest of a candy fix.

        Next year perhaps we'll see so

      • IT'S GOOD TO HAVE A SUGAR DADDY
        10/29/08
        It's good to have a sugar daddy. Someone to pay the bills.

        Sarah Palin had the Republican National Commmitee, treating her to shopping binges at Barney's and Nieman Marcus.

        CNA insurance, hemorraging millions in the 2008 economic crisis, turned to its corporate parent

      • VOCATIONAL REHAB SUNSET
        10/27/08
        At the bottom of this post there is a link to a DWC newsline issued today.

        The DWC advises that the right to vocational rehabilitation sunsets at the end of 2008 for those workers injured before 2004 who might otherwise be eligible.

        A benefit that had no dollar limits before 19

      • PAULSON WEIGHING U.S. BUYING STAKES IN INSURERS
        10/24/08
        It's been an eventful Fall.

        First, investment bank failures and the bailut of AIG, with the U.S taking a large stake. Then focus turned to big banks that were teetering, and the credit freeze.

        Today it appears hedge fund failures may be the next big wave (see the Schwab li

      • LATER, ALLIGATOR
        10/21/08
        Later, alligator.

        That's the message Acting Administrative Director Carrie Nevans delivered to future injured workers in her talk to a Sacramento workers' compensation conference yesterday.

        Earlier this year the DWC had floated a proposal for a revision of the 2005

      • THAT WACKY AIG
        10/18/08
        AIG is a pretty wacky company.

        AIG has just been "saved" by the U.S. taxpayers, who now hold an 80% stake in the company while AIG attempts to reorganize and sell off some of its component businesses (AIG may or may not sell off some of its insurance subsidiaries who write Calif

      • YET AGAIN
        10/16/08
        Some things just seem destined to shuffle.

        Madonna looks for a marriage that will stick.

        The San Francisco Forty Niners look for a quarterback who can provide some offense and reclaim the glory days of Montana and Young.

        The Federal Reserve and the Treasury look for

      • WHAT BILLS DID ARNOLD SIGN?
        10/13/08
        A couple weeks ago I did a post on Gov. Schwarzenegger's veto of most of the workers' comp bills that made it to his desk.

        Exactly what insurance-related bills did he sign?

        In the workers' comp arena, the only bills of significance that he signed had to do with g

      • THE END OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM?
        10/10/08
        As we sit on the economic precipice, It appears that for lack of better alternatives we're headed toward a different model of capitalism.

        Today's Washington Post piece by Anthony Faiola poses the question: the end of American capitalism?
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

      • AIG CANCELS THE RITZ
        10/09/08
        If you've never visited the Ritz-Carlton at Half Moon Bay on the San Mateo coast, you've missed a beautiful spot. Perched on a serene bluff over the Pacific, the resort reeks of privilege, pampering, and calm.

        Got to give them credit where it's due. Those AIG executives hav

      • MASSAGES AFTER THE HAPPY ENDING
        10/07/08
        When the going gets tough, the tough get themselves to the spa.

        A couple of weeks seems like an eternity. Remember back to mid September, when AIG was failing and the government stepped in with guarantees to prevent bankruptcy?

        That near-death experience didn't seem to det

      • A SLURPEE
        10/06/08
        Injured workers and the "comp community" should be rejoicing that-so far, at least-the economic crisis of 2008 hasn't been reflected in the California workers' comp world.

        Whether that will remain the case isn't yet clear.

        The Hartford Insurance is havi

      • FLASH: SCHWARZENEGGER TELLS PAULSON CALIFORNIA NEEDS LOAN
        10/03/08
        California is running out of money to pay its bills.

        The state can't get loan funding to float its operations. Yesterday Governor Schwarzenegger advised Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that California may need a $7 billion loan within the coming weeks.

        It seems likely tha

      • AN INSURANCE COMPANY ON THE EDGE OF BANKRUPTCY?
        10/02/08
        We are in a wilderness of mirrors.

        It's hard to separate perception from reality.

        $700 million bailout or not, our economy sails amongst a sea of icebergs.
        The remaining leading investments banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, may still be in mortal danger.
        <

      • FLASH: GOVERNOR VETOS COMP BILLS
        10/01/08
        Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed several workers' comp bills yesterday.
        It was the last day he had to act on the bills.

        At the bottom of this post I have links to the Governor's veto messages on the bills.

        SB 1515 was vetoed. This bill, carried by Senator Carole Mi

    • September
      • CONGRATULATIONS TO THE DISTINGUISHED
        09/28/08
        The Workers' Compensation Section of the California State Bar honored four distinguished workers compensation veterans in ceremonies in Monterey on Friday.

        The award for distinguished lifetime achievement was given to Dennis Hannigan, deputy commissioner of the Workers' Compensa

      • SCHWARZENEGGER VETOS FUNDING FOR UC LABOR CENTERS
        09/26/08
        Within the next few days it's likely that Governor Schwarzenegger will be exercising his veto on workers' comp bills on his desk.

        Bills he will probably veto deal with a permanent disability increase, requirements that utilization review doctors be licensed in California, and p

      • FLASH: TERMS OF AIG BAILOUT REVEALED BY TREASURY
        09/24/08
        Word came late Tuesday that the FBI is investigating possible fraud at AIG {as well as at Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

        And late Tuesday AIG announced that it has signed a deal with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The terms give the U.S. taxpayer preferred shares in

      • DOES AIG DEBACLE BOOST MOVE TO FEDERALIZE INSURANCE REGULATION?
        09/23/08
        If you waded through the September 23rd Wall Street Journal coverage of the credit crisis and proposed bailout, your eye might have come to an interesting heading.

        "Insurance Companies Need a Federal Regulator".

        The authors? A bipartisan group of four from Congress.
      • GOING FISHING WITH HENRY WAXMAN
        09/19/08
        Friday in California.

        Some of you reading this may be stuck in an office, fantasizing taling the fishing gear this weekend to the nearest lake or pier.

        In Washington, a big fishing trip is about to begin.

        Led by Los Angeles Democrat Henry Waxman, a Congressional subc

      • A.I.G.? YOU NOW OWN IT
        09/17/08
        A.I.G.? You now own it.

        You, the taxpayer, own it to the tune of up to $850 per household.

        Last night the Federal Reserve struck a deal to keep A.I.G. out of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve will loan A.I.G. up to $85 billion, giving the United States as much as an 80% equity st

      • FLASH: SENATE ADJOURNS WITHOUT CONFIRMING NEVANS
        09/16/08
        After passing a budget, the California Senate has now adjourned.

        Carrie Nevans, the AD of California's Division of Workers' Compensation, was not confirmed before the Senate adjourned.

        Without confirmation, Nevans will presumably have to step down soon. In politics, a

      • FITCH AND A.M. BEST DOWNGRADE A.I.G.: SCRAMBLE TO KEEP AFLOAT
        09/15/08
        Here's tonight's report on A.I.G. from Bloomberg.com:

        http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=

        Clearly, parts of A.I.G. will be auctioned.

        One immediate concern is whether regulatory authorities in various states will object to transfer of assets from some

      • FLASH: AIG ON THE BANKRUPTCY BRINK?
        09/14/08
        It's a beautiful night in New York. An hour ago I was strolling in Times Square after going to the theater.

        A full moon was hanging right over the Empire State Building. You'd never know that beneath the veneer, Gotham City was in the grips of a crisis that may have far reachin

      • The Penalty Box-Part One
        09/14/08
        You're late on your mortgage payment. You owe a penalty.

        You're late on your credit card payment. You owe a penalty.

        You're late on your cell phone bill. Your service probably gets cut off.

        But if you're a California workers' comp insurer and

      • RUNNING OUT OF MONEY
        09/10/08
        Running out of money.

        No, I'm not talking about Lehman Brothers, the venerable New York
        investment bank that is teetering and "restructuring". And I'm not talking about Ford or General Motors, both of which have been burning through cash like there was no tomorrow

      • A RECALL OF SCHWARZENEGGER?
        09/09/08
        It's funny how circular life can be.

        Schwarzenegger, whose efforts to recall Gray Davis jumpstarted his political career, may now be facing his own recall.

        The California Correctional Peace Officers Association has issued a notice of intent to do just that. Whether this is

      • PIECEMEALING IT
        09/04/08
        Hopes for comprehensive healthcare reform in California in the near term crashed and burned in late 2007. Even a special legislative session failed to produce a comprehensive healthcare package.

        But-to its credit-the legislature hasn't given up. Recognizing that millions of Californi

      • WRAPPIN' IN UP
        09/02/08
        It was an interesting weekend. Those of us who hadn't previously followed Alaska politics were introduced to Sarah Palin, who has registered the name "Rouge Cou" (translated as "redneck") for a marketing venture.

        Rust belt hockey moms, NASCAR dads and Catholic wom

    • August
      • WORKERS' COMP DEBIT CARDS
        08/28/08
        J.P. Morgan. Savior of Bear Stearns. Now coming to workers' comp.

        Huh?

        There's a reason why the folks on Wall Street are on Wall Street. They understand how to gin up new financial opportunities.

        Credit debit swaps and slice n' dice mortgage pools. Bee

      • SWEET HOME ALABAMA
        08/22/08
        Californians like to think of themselves as the ultimate trendsetters. From beach volleyball and skateboards to iPods and iPhones, it tends to happen here first.

        But consider Alabama. There's a cutting edge place for you. Hey, it's not Santa Cruz, Venice Beach or Cupertino, but

      • MIGDEN BILL PASSES BUT FACES POSSIBLE VETO
        08/20/08
        The public's attention is not exactly on workers' comp as the summer winds down. The Olympics, the impending vice-presidential picks and McCain's apparent pull ahead, the financial teeter-totter of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the spectre of a restless Russia... is it John Edward'

      • NOT UR'D
        08/18/08
        Not UR'd.

        The Governor, that is.

        The Governor found time to go have a quick knee arthroscopy while the legislature was in full food fight mode over the budget over the budget.
        Since the torn ligament was non-industrial, there was no need to wade through ACOEM review u

      • BREAKING: WCIRB RECOMMENDS LARGE RATE INCREASE
        08/13/08
        The WCIRB has just announced that it plans to recommend to Insurance Commissioner Poizner a 16% increase in workers' comp rates effective 1/1/09. The actual "filing"
        (a recommendation with the Department of Insurance) will be coming in the next few days.

        The Insurance

      • A DIFFERENT FOCUS
        08/11/08
        Think back a few years.

        Many in the press and public believed that California workers' comp was rife with worker fraud. The vision was fed by the occasional arrest shown on the 10 o'clock news. Or the story that doctor and attorney mills were feeding on each other, treating work

      • AB 515: STRANGE BREW...WHAT'S INSIDE OF YOU MAY KILL YA
        08/07/08
        Strange brew-what's inside of you may kill ya. Strange brew. Strange brew.

        I'm sitting here pondering the fate of AB 515, a bill currently under consideration in the California legislature that would regulate worker chemical exposures.

        I can hear the guitar riffs now

      • BUSH RUSHES TO CHANGE WORKPLACE TOXIN RULES
        08/05/08
        My car keys are on a digital clock that counts down the days, hours and minutes til the end of the Bush Presidency.

        This hapless POTUS failed to press a war that needed to be won decisively against the Taliban and Qaeda (Afghanistan) and put us in a war that didn't need to be fought

      • TRENDWATCH: FUNDING EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION FROM PENSIONS
        08/04/08
        At a time when workers compensation benefits have been reduced and worker benefit packages shrunk, you'd think that many companies would have "cooled it" on executive compensation.

        Not so.

        Today's Wall Street Journal article by Ellen E. Schultz and Theo Fran

      • OBAMA & THE FOLKS IN BENTONVILLE
        08/01/08
        Those folks in Bentonville are at it again. Wal-Mart is jumping into the political arena.

        Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Wal-Mart is organizing all its store managers and department heads to warn that an Obama victory would make it easier for workers to unionize.

    • July
      • FEEL BETTER NOW?
        07/31/08
        Feel better now?

        President Bush, Henry Paulson and Congress have cooked up their $300 billion housing rescue package. Perhaps this may help you, or your neighbors (if your lender cooperates and if the numbers still make sense for hanging onto a house rather than walking away from it).
      • SIX LITTLE WORDS
        07/29/08
        George Carlin had his 7 words. The 7 words you can't say on television.
        Remember what they were?

        If Gov. Schwarzenegger has his way with an executive order dropping state worker pay to minimum wage levels during the budget impasse , many Department of Industrial Relations employ

      • THE CAAA PD SCHEDULE PROPOSAL
        07/26/08
        My last post covered Tuesday's Oakland hearings on the DWC proposal for a small increase in benefits for permanently disabled workers.

        What's the position of the applicant attorneys on the issue? Is CAAA setting forth a proposal of its own?

        After all, interest groups

      • YESTERDAY'S HEARINGS
        07/23/08
        Yesterday the DWC held hearings in Oakland, wrapping up the second day of testimony on its new PDRS proposal.

        Looking dutiful but perhaps somewhat bored, DWC Administrative Director Carrie Nevans, DWC Chief of Legislation & Policy Susan Gard, & a DIR staff counsel listened to a st

      • THE SCHEDULE HEARINGS: ROUND 2
        07/21/08
        On Tuesday I'll be attending hearings at the Oakland State Building on the proposed revision of the PD rating schedule.

        Here's a link to the op-ed piece on the issue that I wrote which ran in today's California Progress Report:
        http://www.californiaprogressreport.c

      • THE PD SCHEDULE HEARINGS: WHAT'S AT STAKE?
        07/20/08
        Two and a half years.

        That's how long it has been since the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) recommended that the 2005 permanent disability rating schedule (the 2005 PDRS) be revised (note: I'll provide links to some of these stud

      • PUT IT ON YOUR SCHEDULE
        07/19/08
        Whether you're in SoCal or the Redwood Empire, take note of the important public hearings to be held this coming week in Los Angeles and Oakland.

        The subject? The Schwarzenegger administration's proposal for adjustments to the permanent disability rating schedule. The proposed a

      • AIG BLEEDS & BLEEDS
        07/15/08
        Think the big multinational insurers writing California workers' comp are immune from the current credit meltdown?

        Wrong.

        Look at today's news about AIG. The insurer may be facing a $7 billion loss this quarter. Potential writedowns over the next several quarters may

      • BACKGROUND NOISE
        07/11/08
        The universe's background noise is cosmic background radiation. It's a measurable phenomenon-and a component of the "Big Bang" theory of how it all got started (hold it there: don't go asking me to answer the question "why is there not nothing"; that's beyond

      • DOUBLE DIPPING
        07/06/08
        Double dipping.

        That can be good or bad.

        One of my favorite things is being on a summer car trip, rolling into a small town just about anywhere (what a peculiarly American, 20th century endeavor!), finding a Tastee Freez or Dairy Queen. Going for a cone of soft ice cream, askin

    • June
      • SNAPSHOTS FROM MONTEREY
        06/30/08
        I've been in Monterey over the weekend, attending the summer Applicants Attorneys convention.

        Some selective snippets......

        The overall theme? "Practical solutions for a broken system".

        Brad Chalk, Judge Colleen Casey, Dirk Stemerman & Dr. Michael

      • WCIRB RELEASES FIGURES: DEFENSE ATTORNEY FEES DOUBLE APP ATTY FEES
        06/22/08
        It's a lazy summer day. In much of the state Californians are starting their
        staycations.

        Today, I'll be looking at the latest comp numbers.

        Many industries are having to rethink their business plans as energy, ocean and rail freight, airfares and commodity price

      • 1,000
        06/18/08
        1,000.

        That's the number of QMES who have dropped out of the California workers' comp system over the past five years. Wow. My source?

        Remarks by DWC Administrative Director Carrie Nevans, speaking to the CSIMS summer conference at Oakland's Claremont Hotel this

      • RETROSPECTOSCOPY
        06/14/08
        Doc, please hold that retrospectoscope.

        One thing I like about being in doctor's offices to take depositions is seeing some of the tools of the trade. Modern medical technology is amazing.

        If you'd like to see some really strange futuristic tools of the trade (satiri

      • A CLASS OF ONE
        06/11/08
        Here's the quiz of the day for you.

        The worker is employed by the state of California or some other governmental entity. After conflicts on the job, the worker files a workers' comp psychiatric stress claim under California law. Eventually the state or governmental employer deni

      • THE RACE
        06/09/08
        The Race.

        No, I'm not talking about Big Brown at the Belmont (can you believe there are equine hedge funds?). Not about upcoming Nascar events at Sears Point or Daytona. Nor about the interminable slog toward November change on the Potomac. Or Lehman Brothers' race to raise more

      • TUESDAY'S RESULTS
        06/06/08
        June elections aren't exactly barnburners, For most of the public, Tuesday's vote was a big yawn.

        But for some comp attorneys, it was personal. Particularly many here in the East Bay of San Francisco. Richmond, the People's Republic of Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, Alamed

      • THINGS GET CLEARER
        06/03/08
        Was a crosswalk study required? Huh?

        Did chiropractors stage a major coup by hiring former California Supreme Court justice Armand Arabian to argue their argument that the 24-visit chiropractic treatment cap is unconstitutional?

        No and no.

        Two of the major Californi

    • May
      • DEMS, YES; REEPS, NO
        05/30/08
        Maybe the apocalypse is near, after all.

        Monster earthquakes in China and typhoons in Southeast Asia. Several men attacking Stonehenge to chip off part of the rocks. Bush's press secretary turning on his old boss, in service of "the truth" or "the big book advance"

      • FLASH: CALIFORNIA SENATE PASSES PD INCREASE BILL SB 1717
        05/27/08
        Earlier today the California Senate voted in favor of SB 1717, the PD increase bill being sponsored by Senate Pro Tem Don Perata. In voting for the bill, the Senate clearly rejects the approach embodied in the recent DWC benefit increase proposal.

        Should California's disabled workers

      • ON MEMORIAL DAY
        05/26/08
        Happy Memorial Day to my readers.

        The latest thing I've seen about comp is today's Los Angeles Times piece by Marc Lifsher on the proposed comp PD increase. You can see Lifsher's article here:
        http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-c

        As spring turns to summe

      • TOMORROW'S WORKPLACE VIOLENCE
        05/21/08
        "Going postal" is now a part of the American lexicon.

        It would be nice to think that workplace violence is a problem that will lessen as we head further into the 21st century. Think again.

        What caught my eye on Monday was a front page article in the San Francisco Chro

      • POLAR BEARS, THERMOGRAMS AND MORE
        05/18/08
        If global warming in the Arctic continues apace, it looks like polar bears are headed towards extinction.

        Scientists estimate that of the estimated 10-30 million plant and animal species on the planet, that as many as 50,000 are becoming extinct each year due to human and environmental f

      • PUTTING THE C IN CHANGE
        05/15/08
        San Francisco. Herb Caen's "Bagdad by the Bay".

        Here, in the warm glow of tonight's twilight, atop a hotel tower with expansive views of city and bay, a celebration for the changers.

        Yes, change is the political currency of the day.

        Tonight in h

      • WHAT SHOULD WORKERS' COMP DOCTORS BE PAID?
        05/13/08
        That's the question the California Division of Workers' Compensation is trying to answer.

        It's a critical one, because without treating doctors the whole system collapses. Over the past few years a number of California doctors have decided to stop taking workers' comp

      • CALIFORNIA PROGRESS REPORT: CALIFORNIA HAS FOURTH LOWEST BENEFITS
        05/11/08
        A 16% solution?

        That's the DWC's proposed solution to the inadequacy of benefits for permanently disabled workers. On Friday the division unveiled its plan for a revision of the permanent disability rating schedule. The revision comes after several years of "study" of

      • NEWSFLASH: DWC UNVEILS PROPOSED RATING SCHEDULE CHANGE
        05/09/08
        After months of delays and a shroud of secrecy over the project, the California Division of Workers' Compensation today unveiled its plan for a permanent disability rating schedule fix.

        According to the DWC press release, the proposed change in the rating schedule (the "PDRS&quo

      • PERATA TO JOHN DUNCAN: DON'T PLAY ME FOR A FOOL
        05/08/08
        Yesterday the California Senate Rules Committee held confirmation hearings on the nomination of John Duncan, Schwarzenegger's appointee for Director of the Department of Industrial Relations.

        Apparently there was a sharp exchange between Duncan and Senate Pro Tem Don Perata. Perata m

      • ACOEM TO FEDS: DOCTORS PUSHED TO DOWNPLAY INJURIES
        05/06/08
        A blockbuster charge recently by ACOEM.....

        Weak on your acronyms? ACOEM is the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. California now uses ACOEM standards as official treatment standards for most types of conditions.

        ACOEM claims to be a source of "ev

      • TOP 10 DEVELOPMENTS IN CALIFORNIA WORKERS' COMP JAN. 08-APRIL O8
        05/03/08
        2008 is speeding by.For those of you who aren't following the daily developments in the California comp world, a big-picture review may be of interest.

        In many ways, it's been a sleepy start in 2008.

        There's been a lull in definitive court rulings on workers�

      • JESSE CHAVEZ VS. BRINKS, INC AND LIBERTY MUTUAL
        05/01/08
        Here's a question for ya.

        Suppose an insurer has a valid medical network (MPN). The MPN met all the notice requirements and technical MPN access standards.In our hypothetical the worker had not, before his work injury, predesignated in writing a doctor to treat in the event he was in

    • April
      • THE CAMEL CITY
        04/29/08
        I grew up in the Camel City. (Maybe that's why I went out of my way to ride one of those critters in Marrakech at the foot of the Atlas mountains and why I ventured to Dubai and the Tunisian Sahara).

        My Camel City was where they made Salems. And Winstons.

        My alma mater i

      • I HATE HIGHWAY 238
        04/28/08
        AC/DC had its Highway to Hell. AC/DC's highway had no stop signs and speed limits.

        Mine does. Here in Alameda County we have Highway 238, a snarled two lane connector joining multiple four lane freeways that link the Bay Area to inland cities.

        Over the years I've was

      • ABC COVERAGE OF THE PERATA PD BILL
        04/24/08
        Don Perata's PD increase bill passed a California senate committe vote yesterday.

        Here's a video piece on the issue done by ABC news reporter Nannette Miranda:
        http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio

        Stay tuned.

        Julius Young
        http://www.boxer

      • SCIF FOR SALE?
        04/23/08
        Could SCIF actually be sold?

        SCIF is the California's largest workers' comp insurer. A quasi-public insurer, SCIF just a few years ago had around half of the market share for comp in the state. That market share is probably down to the 20% range now.

        Rumors are circu

      • NOT JUST IN THE ABSTRACT
        04/21/08
        Senator Don Perata is introducing another bill to increase compensation to workers who sustain permanent disabilities.

        As sure as the swallows return to San Capistrano, you can be sure that
        entrenched California business interests will issue press releases attacking
        the PD incre

      • WEEK'S WRAP UP
        04/18/08
        I've been on the road this week, so this space has been dark for a few days. From afar a few things caught my eye.

        State Senate Pro Tem Don Perata is unveiling his proposed PD increase bill in the next few days. That'll be the third try in 3 years. Guv Schwarzenegger has twice v

      • TGIF
        04/11/08
        The weekend is nigh.

        Workers start fidgeting in their cubicles and factories.For some the weekend might normally mean salmon fishing. Not this year. What to do? An adventure to the mall with that trusty plastic card? That great American tradition of shop til you drop is fading, a victim o

      • BENSON BRIEFS
        04/10/08
        It's a brief-fest!

        The stakes couldn't be higher. Did the 2004 reform wipe out Wilkinson?
        If each little injury a worker has suffered is rated separately rather than lumped together to determine overall effect, the savings for insurers will be huge. That's the issue in

      • THE FIONA MA PAID SICK LEAVE BILL
        04/07/08
        Later this week I'll be doing a recap on the Top 10 developments in workers' comp for the first quarter of 2008.

        But today, let's look at an important employment related issue: paid sick leave.

        Millions of California employees have no paid sick leave. If they

      • DYING FOR COVERAGE
        04/04/08
        Greeting from Sherman Oaks. I'm here in L.A. attending meetings of the California State Bar's workers' compensation subcommittee.

        Next week I'll be doing a recap of the Top 10 developments in California workers' comp in the first quarter of 2008.

        But ca

      • ADDING STRAW TO THE CAMEL'S BACK
        04/03/08
        Some of the nation's premier safety net programs are looking quite creaky.

        That would be Social Security Disability and SSI (known as "Title II" and "Title XVI" respectively). These are the Federal programs for disabled workers (SSD) and other disabled individual

    • March
      • A TAR HEEL AT DUKE
        03/31/08
        It was 1974.

        I was in law school, living in a ramshackle country house on a corner of a hog farm. The place was about 20 miles from both Chapel Hill (where I was at UNC Law) and Durham (home of Duke's Blue Devils). Surrounded by corn fields and a secluded pond good for little but wa

      • GETTING TOUGH WITH HEALTH INSURERS
        03/27/08
        Major healthcare reform this year in California looks dead as a doornail.

        Last year's special session failed to produce an airtight deal, and the budget debacle and recession are setting the stage for an ugly legislative session.

        But-to its credit-the Schwarzenegger admini

      • THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT: A HEALTH RISK FACTOR?
        03/25/08
        Is graveyard shift work a health risk? Are night shift workers more susceptible to accidents and illness?

        As many as 15 million Americans-15% of the work force-work hours other than the day shift. There's some evidence-though controversial-that night shift work makes accidents more l

      • DIRTY CAR WASHES
        03/23/08
        Happy Easter.

        It's been quite a week. We've been bombarded with images of the nutty
        Jeremiah Wright. There's got to be more to James Cone's"Liberation Theology" than Wright's screeds. But just as liberals have their Wright, conservatives have their

      • EAMS COMMENT PERIOD
        03/21/08
        The DWC has now posted proposed regulations on its website dealing with EAMS (the coming electronic paperless system) and voc retraining/return to work.

        The regs include proposed new forms to be used in California workers comp cases.

        The regs are in a public electronic forum p

      • A BAD BILL
        03/19/08
        Here's a legislative stinker for you: SB 1096.

        The bill would allow pharmacies to sell patient information to pharmaceutical companies, who would then be able to communicate directly with patients about prescription refills.

        The rationale? Some patients forget to take thei

      • TASK FORCE TELLS POIZNER: PROSECUTE CARRIER FRAUD
        03/17/08
        Bear Sterns is being bailed out. March Madness is around the corner.
        California Republican legislators who blocked higher yacht and oil taxes are now probably facing bake sales outside their offices staffed by teachers getting pink slips. Bobby Flay kicks butt again on Iron Chef. Bush issues an

      • WHO?
        03/15/08
        Who? And when?

        The governor still hasn't filled that other vacancy on the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board.

        The rumor mill has been kinda quiet.

        Send your suggestions and reliable tips to me and I'll consider posting them.

        And check back

      • THE EAMS NEWSLETTER
        03/12/08
        The California DWC continues on in its EAMS project for the Workers Compensation Appeals Board to go paperless.

        It's a huge project, and recently there have been many rumors that the project had hit some bumps in the road, delaying its rollout.

        Now the DWC is sponsoring an

      • EVIAN WATER, PLEASE
        03/11/08
        Maybe the Evian, Perrier and San Pellegrino drinkers among us are on to something? Maybe it's not just snobbery, but rather a matter of self preservation.

        Blind tastings have shown that tap water often tastes as good as pricey
        waters from the Swiss and Italian Alps. But....
      • DATELINE: THE DWC ANNUAL CONFERENCE (PART 1)
        03/05/08
        Dateline Oakland.

        Alas, it would be sexier if I could say this dateline was from Timbuktu,
        Tunis, or Tbilisi. But the 15th Annual Workers' Compensation Conference sponsored by the California DWC wrapped up yesterday just a few blocks from my Boxer & Gerson offices. At least

      • THE STOCKTON RECORD: "A WORKERS' COMPENSATION NIGHTMARE"
        03/04/08
        Unless you're a Central Valley resident, you probably didn't catch the piece
        several days ago in the Stockton record, "A Workers' Compensation Nightmare" by Record staff writer Joe Goldeen.

        Here's a link to the piece:
        http://www.recordnet.com/a

      • WATCH THE VIDEO
        03/01/08
        Alert for all the couch potatos out there.

        Time to pull yourself away from reruns of The Addams Family or The Sopranos or Beavis and Butthead. You can watch The Wire or 24 later. Don't be tempted to start the Laurence Olivier festival-from Hamlet to Marathon Man-this weekend. Why?
    • February
      • BREAKING NEWS: NUNEZ SUCCESSOR SELECTED
        02/28/08
        In closed a closed door session this afternoon, California Assembly Democrats decided to give the nod to Assemblywoman Karen Bass to succeed termed out Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

        Bass was not in the Assembly in 2004 and did not vote on SB 899, the Schwarzenegger workers' comp ref

      • BILL TO BAN BIAS CLEARS COMMITTEE
        02/27/08
        Earlier today the California Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee voted in favor of SB 1115, the bill that would ban age, race and gender discrimination in awarding disability compensation to California workers.

        The bill will eventually have to make its way through the Californ

      • HEARINGS ON THE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION BILL
        02/27/08
        The California State Senate Labor and Insurance subcommittee holds hearings Wednesday on the bill to prohibit discrimination in workers' compensation.

        Here's the bill, SB 1115 (sponsored by State Senator Carole Migden):
        http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/s

      • IT'S A LONG WAY FROM HARLAN COUNTY
        02/25/08
        The Oscars.

        Looks like "No Country For Old Men" has smoked the intense period piece "Atonement" and the social justice thriller "Michael Clayton".

        Oscars is a sacred night for many of us. Perhaps you grew up watching Doris Day flirt with Rock Hudso

      • WANDERING IN THE WONKISPHERE
        02/22/08
        A cold winter night.

        Sometimes comp seems like a lazy backwater.

        The legislature hasn't geared up. Action on comp anti-discrimination will move, but at a slow pace.

        The WCAB is in transition, still sporting one vacancy.

        Important DWC action on PD sc

      • SAN DIEGO UNION: RACE, AGE, GENDER BIAS HITS WORKERS ACROSS STATE
        02/18/08
        An important article surfaced in today's San Diego Union: "Race, Age, Gender Bias Hits Workers Across State".

        The article by Deal Calbreath, full of examples of such bias under the current "apportionment" provisions of California's workers' comp law, can

      • AIG TAKES A BATH
        02/14/08
        Ever wonder if comp benefits paid out by carriers are only part of the insurance rate equation? What about the return on investments of insurers? Perhaps workers' comp payouts are only a sideshow in the three-ring circus of insurer finances?

        Food for thought.

        Meanwhile, co

      • BLUE CROSS WINS YEAR OF THE RAT AWARD
        02/12/08
        Gung Hai Fat Choy! It's now officially the Year of the Rat.

        Today I'm awarding Blue Cross my Year of the Rat award.

        Blue Cross (owned by Wellpoint) has been sending letters to its participating doctors requesting the doctors to turn in patients who have conditions no

      • SACRAMENTO MUSICAL CHAIRS
        02/08/08
        As expected, the failure of Prop 93 (the initiative to change term limits)
        has set off changes in Sacramento. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and
        California Senate Pro Tem Don Perata are both termed out at the end of this year's legislative session.

        Nunez' Louis Vuitton

      • THE FITZPATRICK FIZZLE
        02/04/08
        Now that the Super Bowl frenzy is spent, back to the world of comp.

        If you have been waiting for fireworks from the California courts on the issue of "risk based apportionment", you'll have to wait a bit longer.

        The Fitzpatrick case sorta fizzled. Fitzpatrick is

      • DOC IN THE BOX REFORM
        02/01/08
        The Division of Workers' Compensation has now posted transcripts of testimony at recent hearings on QME regs. They make for interesting reading (see links below to download the testimony).

        Testifying in Los Angeles on January 14 were:
        Linda E. Atcherley (legislative chair of

    • January
      • CRUNCH TIME
        01/28/08
        This afternoon is crunch time for the Schwarzenegger-Nunez healthcare reform package, ABX1. Last week's California Senate hearing on the bill was continued to this afternoon.

        A few weeks ago it appeared that ABX1 might make it after all. The product of year-long negotiations and a &q

      • COUNTRY ROADS
        01/26/08
        (Note: the following is a workerscompzone series done by Julius Young while currently traveling in Asia)

        "Country roads, take me home
        To the place, I belong
        West Virginia, mountain momma
        Take me home, country roads"

        "Are you goin to San Francisc

      • GUANDONG GREETINGS
        01/22/08
        A couple of developments in the last few days worth noting
        (from afar: I'm in Guandong province, China, but more on that later).

        In LA County Superior court the trial judge ruled in favor of the insurers in a suit brought by the "new" Albertson's. At issue is the

      • NO COMP BENEFITS
        01/19/08
        Readers of my last post know that I'll currently in Indo-China. Northwest Cambodia, specifically, at the moment.

        Looking across the Pacific, the past week seems to have been a sleepy one in California workers'comp. The biggest development is that the California Court of Appeal 1

      • TODAY'S HEARING ON QME REGS
        01/17/08
        Today (January 17) the DWC will be holding hearings in Oakland on proposed revisions to the QME regs. The hearing is slated to begin at 10 am in the auditorium of the Elihu Harris State Building.

        Changes in the QME regs are being watched closely by all major workers'comp stakeholders

      • SCHWARZENEGGER APPOINTS 3 TO THE WCAB
        01/12/08
        Gov. Schwarzenegger announced three appointments to the WCAB yesterday.

        Re-appointed (as I predicted) were James Cuneo and Frank Brass. Cuneo and Brass have been in the majority in most of the WCAB's decisions over the past several years. It's a board that, in close cases, has g

      • TAKIN' SCIF TO THE WOODSHED
        01/10/08
        2007 was a tough year for SCIF. 2008 promises to be a year of change for SCIF as well.

        SCIF. It's California's largest workers' comp insurer, the quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund. SCIF competes with other carriers in the market.

        SCIF's market s

      • TOP TEN THINGS TO WATCH IN 2008 CALIFORNIA WORKERS' COMP
        01/05/08
        2008 promises to be an active year in California workers' comp.

        Here is my subjective list (in no particular order) of the top things to watch for in 2008. I'll include links to prior posts I've done on some of these issues.

        1. APPOINTMENT OF NEW WCAB MEMBERS
      • TOP TEN CALIFORNA WORKERS' COMP EVENTS IN 2007
        01/02/08
        In California, 2007 was generally a year of transition in California workers' comp.

        Some old cases are being played out under a mixture of old and new rules. But for many workers, the 2003 and 2004 reforms are controlling.

        Insurers are very happy with the results, as are

  • 2007
    • December
      • LACKING LAWYERS, JUSTICE IS DENIED
        12/30/07
        Lacking lawyers, justice is denied.

        That's the title of a major piece by Daniel Costello in yesterday's Los Angeles Times.

        Costello examines the effects of the 1975 cap on California medical malpractice awards known as MICRA. MICRA (the Medical Injury Compensation Ref

      • THE WEDDING CRASHERS
        12/27/07
        Wedding crashing.

        You've undoubtedly seen The Wedding Crashers. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn pay charming rogues who crash weddings hoping to meet women.

        Following their own crashing code, they insinuate themselves into a Jewish wedding, telling gullible young women of the

      • VAIRA AND FITZGERALD
        12/23/07
        The recent coverage about Vaira, the AARP and ACLU's challenge to application of California's workers' compensation apportionment, failed to highlight that a second case was coming on the heels of Vaira.

        The case is Fitzpatrick v. WCAB. Arguments were held last Monday in Sa

      • THE BUDGET NUN
        12/20/07
        Thank goodness for "user funding." By and large, the workers' comp system pays its own costs, so the system is less vulnerable to cuts in times of a $15 billion California state budget shortfall.

        A shortfall which could require tax hikes, of course. Among revenue-increasin

      • STEEPER THAN EVEL KNIEVEL'S JUMP
        12/19/07
        One of my heroes died recently. Evel Knievel. Knievel staged death-defying jumps over impossibly long barricades and into huge river canyons. Part athlete, part showman, part insane man, Knievel was the Harry Houdini I dreamed about as a little kid.

        As readers of the column know, my mind

      • UNIVERSAL COVERAGE AND INDIVIDUAL MANDATES
        12/18/07
        Mea culpa.

        My weekend column predicted there'd be no health care bill emerging from the "special session." But Schwarzenegger and Nunez did connect on a hail mary pass. Nunez rounded up his Democratic troops and herded the bill through the California Assembly on a 45-31 par

      • THE UPCOMING APPOINTMENTS
        12/16/07
        Two WCAB commissioners were recently termed out.

        William K. O'Brien and Janice Murray are gone. Both were Gray Davis appointments.

        Over the past few years, there has been backstage grumbling about Murray by workers' comp insiders for her lack of involvement. Murray,

      • BREAKING: WCAB REJECTS WILKINSON DOCTRINE
        12/14/07
        Breaking news this afternoon... No sooner did I get to San Francisco to attend the labor-sponsored "Moosefeed" than I learned of the demise of Wilkinson.

        R.I.P., Wilkinson. We'll miss you.

        The California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board has issued an en b

      • PERATA: NO HEALTHCARE REFORM
        12/14/07
        Looks like any slim remaining chance for passage of a California healthcare reform package this year has slipped away.

        The legislature has been in "special session," of course. You'd never know it, because no sessions are actually being held. But every week, there have been

      • NEWSFLASH: AUDIT OF SCIF SHOWS LARGEST COMP INSURER RAN AMOK
        12/12/07
        Every time it seems like a slow period for California workers' comp, something interesting pops up.

        Today, it was the Department of Insurance audit of SCIF (the State Compensation Insurance Fund) performed by RSM McGladrey Consulting.

        And what an audit! (note: the lengthy

      • BUSH'S SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY DEBACLE
        12/11/07
        The year was 2000. The George Bush presidency was in its infancy. The Social Security Administration had a backlog of 311,000 pending disability cases.

        Fast forward to 2007. The backlog of Social Security Disability cases has mushroomed to over 755,000 cases on Bush's watch.
      • THE COMP CASES OF THE FUTURE
        12/07/07
        Looking ahead a decade or two, will there be more or less workers' comp cases?

        Somewhere there are probably actuaries wearing green eye-shades who know the answer. Or at least who have some projections.

        I don't have the definitive answer. But here's my thesis.
      • MORE ON VAIRA
        12/06/07
        My last post had a link to Vaira, the case where ACLU, AARP and the Impact Fund challenged application of the workers' compensation apportionment statute.

        Disabled Californians owe great thanks to Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund and to ace Sacramento applicants' attorney Meliss

      • NEWSFLASH: VAIRA IS HERE
        12/03/07
        Vaira is here.

        What's that?

        Several weeks ago, AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and the Impact Fund entered the workers' compensation apportionment debate by filing a legal brief in Lois Vaira v. WCAB. AARP, ACL

      • THERE OUGHTA BE A (COMP) LAW
        12/03/07
        Today's the deadline, in case you missed it.

        Yup. It's that time of year again for State Senator Joe Simitian's "There Oughta Be a Law" contest.

        Simitian, a State Senator from Palo Alto, has sponsored this contest for over five years. It's a way fo

    • November
      • NEWSFLASH: DWC UNVEILS PROPOSED QME REGULATIONS
        11/30/07
        The California Division of Workers' Compensation has finally unveiled proposed new QME regulations.

        The regs were posted on the DWC website today. Interested parties have awaited these regs for months.

        The regs are in the public comment phase. Public hearings will be held

      • POIZNER TELLS WCIRB: NO INCREASE NOW
        11/29/07
        In an advisory rate-finding decision sure to please California employers, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner yesterday rejected the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau's recommendation that insurers increase comp rates.

        You can see the decision here:
        http://w

      • SCIF GETS THE JUMP ON POIZNER
        11/28/07
        SCIF's Monday announcement that it will not be increasing its comp rates at this time puts added focus and pressure on Steve Poizner.

        The State Compensation Insurance Fund announcement follows rate filings by a number of insurers (including Chubb) who plan to reduce comp insurance ra

      • OFF THE TABLE AND OFF THE SHELF
        11/25/07
        Human behavior is a fascinating thing.

        People lining up in the dead of night outside electronics stores for a chance to stampede for teaser deals. Long haul truckers taking philosophy classes downloaded into their iPods off of iTunes. We're all writers and editors now. There's

      • GOOD TIME FOR SHARKS
        11/22/07
        It's Thanksgiving. Being a lawyer has been good to me and most of my colleagues in the workers' comp field.

        But perks?

        The workers' comp industry doesn't have many perks. Yes, the occasional A's game ticket. And periodic educational junkets and forums.

      • MOTHRA FIGHTS GODZILLA
        11/18/07
        Hey, it's the weekend, and my mind works in strange ways.

        Remember the 1950s/1960s Japanese monster films, many of which are now cult classics? Mothra vs. Godzilla was in 1962:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra_vs._Godzilla

        I couldn't help thinking of those

      • THE WCAB EN BANC IN COSTA 2
        11/15/07
        A unanimous California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board has issued its decision in Joey Costa vs. Hardy Diagnostic and State Compensation Insurance Fund.

        Here's the link to the decision:
        http://www.dir.ca.gov/WCAB/EnBancdecisi

        The decision (Costa "2&qu

      • IN THE CIRCULAR FILE
        11/15/07
        A few years ago, a batch of Workers' Compensation Appeals Board mail was found in a dumpster away from the court. Sorta circular filed, so to speak.

        I remember when I was a newbie workers' comp attorney practicing at the Oakland district office. The local board at the time was h

      • BLACKWATER AND VETERANS DAY
        11/13/07
        Veterans Day 2007.

        The Iraq War continues, unstopped by a Democratic Congress that lacks the votes to override the Bush-Cheney team.

        It's odd how you can live your life forgetting about the conflict thousands of miles away. The Bachelor is still agonizing about who he'

      • COSTA IS COMING
        11/10/07
        Costa is coming. Costa 2 to be exact.

        Workers' comp practitioners have been waiting for months for the statewide Workers' Compensation Appeals Board to issue "Costa 2." "Costa 1" indicated that the workers' compensation permanent disability rating schedu

      • HEALTH INSURER PAID BONUSES FOR DROPPING SICK POLICYHOLDERS
        11/09/07
        If you thought the insurance industry couldn't stoop lower, think again.

        Health Net (based out of Woodland Hills near L.A.) has been paying bonuses to employees based on how many sick policyholders they can drop from coverage.

        In doing so, Health Net rescinded over 1,500 p

      • HOT STOVE VELOCITY TALK
        11/06/07
        They were huddled around the hot stove reminiscing about the season...

        Vladimir: "That was quite a game... 3-2 count, bases loaded, tying run on second. And the pitch hits him in the eye! Carried out on a stretcher. Took the stuffing out of our rally and the cornea out of his eye.&qu

      • DAN WALTERS: HEALTHCARE REFORM ON LIFE SUPPORT
        11/04/07
        One of the consequences of legislative term limits is a legislature that finds it harder to craft big solutions to big issues.

        Dan Walters is one of the most astute writers covering the Sacramento scene (a shrinking breed as newspapers trim their Capitol bureau staff).

        Here

      • A HAIL MARY PASS?
        11/02/07
        It's been about as exciting as watching paint dry.

        The "special session" of the legislature to deal with healthcare reform, that is. Schwarzenegger's call to extend the legislative year by focusing on healthcare and water projects appears to be going nowhere.

      • JERRY BROWN TO THE RESCUE
        11/01/07
        I've got a question for you. Whether you grew up watching "Family Feud" or "I've Got A Secret," we all seem to love a good quiz.

        What do car washes, restaurants, landscaping businesses, garment factories, construction firms and farms have in common?

    • October
      • AT A SNAIL'S PACE
        10/29/07
        The U.S. Senate has called for answers as to why Medicare (the Centers for Medicare Services) is taking so long to act on Medicare set-aside proposals.

        Here's a link to an article on the issue, which was raised by New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg:
        http://www.nj.com/news/

      • IMPLEMENTING THE NAVA BILL
        10/26/07
        One of the few bright spots for workers in this year's legislative session was the passage of Santa Barbara Democrat Pedro Nava's bill, AB 1079.
        AB 1079 lifts caps on post-surgical physical therapy for workers who had exhausted the numerical limits on therapy visits; the legislation c

      • WCIRB RECOMMENDS COMP RATE HIKE-PART 1
        10/24/07
        Will the price of California workers' comp insurance begin to rise?

        That was the subject of a California Department of Insurance hearing yesterday. The Southern California fires required Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner's presence. yesterday. But in San Francisco, a schedule

      • TODAY'S HEARINGS ON RECOMMENDED COMP PRICE HIKE
        10/23/07
        On the 22nd floor of a San Francisco highrise this morning, a small army of insurance company actuaries and lobbyists attended hearings on California's workers' comp pricing.

        It's what's known as the "pure premium rate." The Workers' Compensation Insuran

      • DISTRIBUTING SOME CRUMBS
        10/21/07
        Most Californians are too busy enjoying the Indian Summer weather to focus on workers' comp right now. Up here in the People's Republic of Berkeley and down on Figueroa in the land of Troy, there's deep mourning that Cal and USC's football teams aren't the invincible units w

      • DISCRIMINATION VERDICT AGAINST BART
        10/18/07
        Boxer & Gerson partner Jean Hyams has won a $1.3 million race discrimination verdict against BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit District).

        The case was featured in an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle. To read about the Chronicle piece on the case, click here:
        http://w

      • ARNOLD IS NOT A FAMILY VALUES GOVERNOR
        10/15/07
        Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a number of family-friendly bills over the weekend. The overall picture is of a governor who puts corporate values over family values.

        I did an article on this for today's California Progress Report. Click here to read about the Schwarzenegger vetoes:<

      • SCHWARZENEGGER SIGNS 2 COMP REFORM BILLS
        10/14/07
        My last couple of posts mentioned Schwarzenegger's Friday veto of the Perata bill to raise permanent disability benefits and the VIAW-sponsored bill to speed issuance of retraining vouchers.

        Yesterday he did sign 2 comp reform bills, AB 1073 (Nava) and AB 338 (Coto).

        AB 10

      • NUNEZ STATEMENT ON SCHWARZENEGGER VETO
        10/12/07
        Here is the statement by Fabian Nunez commenting on the Schwarzenegger veto of SB 936, a bill that would have provided a benefit increase for permanently disabled workers:
        http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a46/
        Stay tuned.

        Julius Young
        www.boxerlaw.com

      • FLASH! SCHWARZENEGGER VETO OF 2 WORKERS' COMP BILLS
        10/12/07
        This afternoon Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed 2 worker's comp bills.

        SB 936 (Perata), the bill to increase permanent disability benefits over a period of several years, was nixed by the Governor. The press release issued by the Governor's office claiming that the bill was a &quo

      • NEARING THE FINISH LINE
        10/12/07
        American political history is a treasure trove of little dramas.

        Hunkers and Soft Shells. Logrollers. Silver Grays. Scalawags. Pewter Muggers. Popocrats. Mugwumps. Hot Water Warriors. Free Soilers. Claybanks and Charcoals.

        Remember the Era of Good Feeling?

        And what

      • A SLEEPY SESSION
        10/09/07
        Heidi Fleiss' father, a Los Angeles pediatrician, is being disciplined over his record-keeping practices. But you probably already knew that via some tabloid journal.

        We love to see celebrities stuck in the tar pits of life. I'd bet that more Californians are yakking about Fleis

      • BACK FROM SHANGHAI
        10/05/07
        He's back. From China, that is.

        Today the Governor's website notes almost 60 bills either signed or vetoed, but nothing yet about the fate of various workers' compensation and employment law bills that sit on his desk.

        AB 537 is one of those bills that remains o

      • A 10% INCREASE
        10/04/07
        Will the DWC acting administrative director Carrie Nevans be recommending only a 10% increase in PD benefits?

        That's the suggestion in an article in today's Los Angeles Times. The article quotes prominent insurance executive Mark Webb as saying that insurers could support an inc

      • TODAY'S CHEESE WHIZ MEETING
        10/04/07
        Today in Oakland, the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) will be meeting at 10 am.

        Among the topics will be an "update on permanent disability." Presenters will include CHSWC consultant Lachlan Taylor. It had been anticipated that
      • EXODUS
        10/03/07
        One accelerating trend in California workers' comp has been the exodus of doctors from the system. Complaints of low pay and the cost and frustration of treating injured workers has caused many doctors to refuse comp patients.

        Many workers find that the doctors on insurer MPN network

    • September
      • RONNIE CAPLANE: WHAT'S ON THE WCAB'S PLATE
        09/30/07
        Greetings again from Anaheim. Little kids wearing mouse ears fill the streets. And lawyers fill the corridors here at the State Bar Convention, taking seminars in topics as wide ranging as "How to Do Business in Vietnam" to "Dealing with Difficult Clients."

        It's h

      • CARRIE NEVANS: GOVERNOR WON'T SIGN SEVERAL BILLS
        09/29/07
        Greetings from Anaheim. The Happiest Place on Earth (Disneyland) is just down the street. It's here that the California State Bar is holding its annual convention.

        Carrie Nevans (acting Administrative Director of the California Division of Workers' Compensation) spoke on Friday

      • IT'S A GLOBAL WORLD
        09/27/07
        This weekend, the California Applicants' Attorneys Association is sponsoring a seminar about the nitty gritty of law practice under the new workers' comp laws. Entitled "Managing a Successful Practice," the mantra will apparently be "work smarter, not harder."

      • DAN WALTERS: SCHWARZENEGGER & THE "JOB KILLER" BILLS
        09/26/07
        Dan Walters is one of the most experienced reporters in Sacramento, covering the legislative beat for decades.

        Here's his take in today's Sacramento Bee on the likely fate of the workers' comp bills under consideration by Schwarzenegger:
        http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-

      • SAN JOSE MERC CALLS FOR PERMANENT DISABILITY ADJUSTMENT
        09/25/07
        Yesterday's San Jose Mercury editorial on workers' comp makes the follwing observation:

        "..the Governor must address the fact that the weekly benefits provided to California's permanently disabled workers are the fourth lowest in the nation."

        The Me

      • DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS
        09/23/07
        A late summer Sunday afternoon. In many parts of the state, a hint in the air that the seasons are about to change. It's that time of year when the promise of summer's long, easy days seems to be winding down. Not exactly the time many of us want to ponder the minutia of workers' comp

      • GIVING THEM TIME TO SPEAK
        09/19/07
        One of my guilty pleasures is listening to right-wing talk radio when I'm driving. Not what you'd expect from a Bay Area liberal/libertarian.

        But I enjoy listening to some of the talking heads rant and rave about reinstitution of the Federal Communication Commission's "

      • THE FAIR EMPLOYMENT AND HOUSING COMMISSION: NOT DISMANTLED YET
        09/18/07
        Perhaps you're too distracted by news that a Nebraska state senator is suing God (and no, it's not because USC's Trojans just gave the Cornhusker football team a major whuppin' on Husker home turf) to notice other things. But focus for a moment on the strong allegations yesterday

      • MESSIN' WITH DFEH
        09/17/07
        The Schwarzenegger administration is attempting to get rid of the legal staff at the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission. These lawyers hear and rule on employment discrimination cases. As a result, they have special expertise in the complicated area of employment discrimination law.
      • TPA FRAUD
        09/13/07
        Not all of the interesting action in Sacramento this week has been at the legislature. On Tuesday, there was a meeting of the Fraud Assessment Commission up in the River City.

        The commission heard a report from Tom Veale, the president of Tristar Risk Management. Focusing on third-party a

      • THE FINAL LEGISLATIVE DAY
        09/12/07
        The legislature wound up their regular session in the wee hours this morning.

        Among the bills passing yesterday (on their way to "enrollment," which is a step on the way to the Governor's desk) were AB 338 (Coto) and AB 1073
        (Nava).

        The Coto bill will allow

      • GUT AND AMEND
        09/11/07
        As my last post noted, the legislature approved SB 936 (Perata) yesterday; it's a bill to increase permanent disability benefits.

        Today I couldn't help but wonder whatever became of the sister bill of SB 936 (Nunez). Regular readers of this blog may recall that AB 1212 would hav

      • FURTHER LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
        09/11/07
        There was more action yesterday on bills to change the 2-year temporary disability cap (AB 338 sponsored by Joe Coto) and to loosen the 24-visit therapy cap (AB 1073 by Pedro Nava).

        AB 338, which has been amended recently, passed the California Senate on a 37 to 3 vote (Machado, McClintoc

      • DEAD ON ARRIVAL
        09/10/07
        A health care reform package, AB 8, was passed by the legislature today. But the package is dead on arrival. Gov. Schwarzenegger will probably veto this bill within the next week and call for a special legislative session to focus on health care reform.

        It's an issue of great importa

      • AB 1636: THE MENDOZA VOUCHER BILL
        09/09/07
        AB 1636 passed the California Senate on September 7 and appears headed toward the Governor. The bill would expedite the provision of a retraining voucher to injured workers who have been determined unable to return to work.

        If the worker does not return to work within 60 days of being fou

      • FAST AND FURIOUS
        09/06/07
        Fast and Furious. And I don't mean the Vin Diesel movie of 2001 (which happens to be the last film I saw at a drive-in).

        No, I'm talking about the fast and furious pace of legislative activity in Sacramento as the legislature moves to a close of the session. A number of workers&

      • THE VIERRA CASE ON ATTORNEY FEES
        09/04/07
        One of the consequences of the 2004 California workers' comp reform has been the shrinking of the pool of attorneys representing claimants. Experienced attorneys have been closing up shop, and there is barely a trickle of new attorneys coming into the applicant-side practice.

        As with

      • HAPPY LABOR DAY
        09/03/07
        It's been a strange summer. NFL star involved in dogfighting. Hypocritical family values U.S. senators trolling for sex whereever they can get it. The Taliban re-surging, and nuclear-armed Pakistan looking ever more unstable. Art-house cinema director greats Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Be

      • PUTTIN' IT TOGETHER
        09/01/07
        The real drama in Sacramento right now is on the health care reform issue. Because the negotiations among the "Big Five" (Schwarzenegger, Perata, Nunez, Villines and Ackerman) on this issue are behind closed doors, it's hard to sort out the smoke and mirrors.

        Only a few day

    • August
      • WOULDN'T TOUCH IT WITH A TEN FOOT POLE
        08/30/07
        Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

        That's what California doctors seem to be saying about becoming QMES (qualified medical examiners). The California DWC (Division of Workers' Comp) revealed this week that the number of QMEs in California has dropped 25% since 2004. T

      • ARE THESE THE GOOD OLE DAYS?
        08/28/07
        I'm not talking about Nat King Cole's lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

        No, I mean the good ole days for insurers and large self-insureds. They have seen a rapid decrease in workers' comp payouts since 2004 and a large increase in profits.

        Yet another study has b

      • RALPHS MARKETS, BEL-AIR MARKETS AND THE SUPREMES
        08/25/07
        Suppose you are a grocery store manager. In addition to your regular salary you participate in a compensation scheme that rewards you based on the store's profit. Among items that affect the store's profit is workers' compensation costs.

        An employee reports a claim to you.

      • SMALL BUSINESS COALITION SUPPORTS HEALTHCARE REFORM
        08/24/07
        A California coalition of small business owners-calling itself Small Business for Affordable Healthcare-has announced support for the concept of mandated employer funding for health care coverage.

        The group released a survey yesterday that claims over half of California small business own

      • DWC PROPOSES CHRONIC PAIN GUIDELINES
        08/22/07
        The California Division of Workers Compensation is proposing to adopt guidelines for treatment of chronic pain. The guidelines are largely based on the "Official Disability Guidelines," known as the ODG guidelines.

        By clicking the following link you can read the proposed treatme

      • BASEBALL CARDS, FOOTBALL CARDS.....BUT POIZNER CARDS?
        08/22/07
        I was always a big sucker for baseball and football cards. One of the worst things my mother ever did was to throw out my collection while I was off at college. Little did she know they'd eventually be worth a small fortune.

        Someday on eBay perhaps you'll be able to find Poizner

      • TWO TO TANGO
        08/21/07
        What took seven weeks and made California's governor look like a hostage to the far right of his party? The California budget, of course.

        But the two have finally tango-ed.

        This afternoon Senate Minority leader Dick Ackerman essentially caved, joining Senator Abel Maldona

      • IT'S THE EMPLOYER FRAUD, STUPID!-PART 2
        08/18/07
        Employee workers' comp fraud is sexy. The high drama of catching a worker on video water skiing when they claim to need a cane to walk. Using night vision photography to catch a worker moving tools out of his truck.

        Every so often the 10 o'clock news will show a worker being le

      • DON'T MESS WITH OUR BBQ!
        08/16/07
        We really, really want that BBQ! Better not file your comp claim! If you file your claim the store won't make its safety incentives. And your fellow workers won't be getting that BBQ and other perks. You definitely won't be winning the Mr. Popularity award. And forget about "Most

      • SPUTTERING
        08/15/07
        Hopes for California healthcare reform are sputtering at the moment.

        Arnold Schwarzenegger may have called legislators "girlie-men" a couple of years ago, but members of his own party threaten to make him and his legislative dreams irrelevant as the budget stall drags on toward

      • IT'S NOT THE BOSTON MARATHON
        08/14/07
        Ever suspect that employers could benefit from promoting a healthier workforce? Perhaps a healthier workforce might have less workers' comp claims and need less overall medical care, thus lowering group medical costs?

        That's the theory. Workers' comp medical care in Califor

      • CONSTIPATED
        08/11/07
        A constipated legislature. A governor who can't move his agenda. A budget 6 weeks overdue. A legislature on summer recess that will reconvene with just 3 weeks to wrap up all business.

        R.I.P. healthcare reform? And workers' comp?

        To see the L.A. Times piece on this, c

      • TODAY'S CHEESE WHIZ HEARING
        08/09/07
        Today in Oakland the California Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC or "Cheese Whiz") is holding hearings on key aspects of California workers' compensation.

        For your reading pleasure I'm attaching a pdf version of some of the materials t

      • HASTA LA VISTA CHICO
        08/09/07
        Chico, California. What comes to mind?

        Bucolic small Northeastern California town? After all, the town of Paradise is just down the road. Or maybe you recall seeing that the Cal State campus there has been a perennial contender for one of the nation's top "party schools"?
      • CHEESE WHIZ ON THURSDAY
        08/06/07
        Cheese.The French may love their brie, the Spanish their Manchego, the Dutch their Edam, the British their Cheshire. But a whole generation of Americans grew up on Cheese Whiz. As a teenager I recall spraying a whole can on a pack of Ritz crackers.

        But in workers' comp Cheese Whiz me

      • THE MAGANA CASE AND DFEC
        08/03/07
        At the bottom of this blog entry I've uploaded a pdf version of the Magana case (Bonifacio Magana vs. Essey International Inc and Wausau Insurance)that was just recently decided.

        A decision by a 3-member panel of the statewide California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, Mag

      • ONE DOWN ONE TO GO
        08/02/07
        With the new mantra of "post-partisanship" in shambles and with California over 30 days without a budget, the lockstep nay-saying of the California Senate Republican caucus crumbled last night.

        The budget, supported by Gov. Schwarzenegger, needs 2 Republican votes to pass. Last

    • July
      • NUNEZ AND PERATA
        07/30/07
        If you've been too busy swatting summer mosquitoes to follow state politics, never fear. Here's what's been going on:

        Arnold can't deliver votes from members of his own party to pass a budget. California is almost a month overdue for a budget, and some critical project

      • A REALLY SCARY MOVIE
        07/29/07
        It's a Sunday morning. Often with the blog I'll do a weekend post looking at some big-picture issues regarding workers and the economy.

        Like scary movies? Last night I saw a doozy.

        Workers knee-deep in oil sludge breaking up ships. Workers knocking used computers and

      • THE CHANG CASE
        07/25/07
        One of the most famous plays of the "modern" theater is Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". On a bare stage, two quirky characters hang around a sickly tree, bantering for hours about an individual named Godot. They wait for him, and he never comes, yet the vigil continues

      • TOOTIN' MY HORN
        07/21/07
        I'm pleased to note that I've been appointed to the California State Bar's Workers' Compensation Executive Committee, effective September 2007.

        A number of California's influential workers' comp judges and attorneys are on the committee. Applicant attorneys a

      • CHINA EXPANDS, AMERICA CONTRACTS
        07/19/07
        American workers are seeing their rights contract. California's 2004 workers' comp reform is but one example of a multi-state trend toward lesser benefits. Two-tier wage packages, shrinking healthcare coverage, no-strike contracts, vanishing pension funds....these are all examples of trend

      • TOP 10 EVENTS IN CALIFORNIA WORKERS COMP IN 2ND QUARTER 2007
        07/15/07
        Perhaps you haven't been paying attention. Too busy following the national immigration reform debate, which resulted in implosion of the grand legislative bargain? Or perhaps you're a techie who's been obsessed by the marketing drumbeat for the holy grail tech fetish object, the iPhon

      • IS THAT DOC GOOD WITH A KNIFE?
        07/13/07
        We can check Barry Bonds' batting average every day. Heck, with a few clicks we can see how Minnie Minoso or Mickey Mantle did in the 1960's.

        But would it be a good thing if we could get the batting average of surgeons? Or psychiatrists? Or lawyers? A study just unveiled of hear

      • YESTERDAY IN SACRAMENTO
        07/12/07
        My last post described hearings to be held at the California Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee yesterday on several comp bills.

        Here are the results:

        AB 1073 (sponsored by Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara) cleared the committee on a 3-2 vote. This bill would loosen the

      • TOMORROW IN SACRAMENTO
        07/10/07
        Tomorrow there will be State Senate committee hearings on several workers' comp bills I have been following. As the legislative process moves along toward its usual August conclusion, it is time for these bills (which originated on the Assembly side and which have already cleared the Assembly)

      • A FAREWELL ADDRESS
        07/07/07
        Goodbye, Mr. W. No, no, not that W! Not the Dubya who resides in Crawford, Texas and near the Potomac.

        The goodbye is to Melvin Witt, longtime editor and publisher of the California Workers' Compensation Reporter. For many years the CWCR has been the go-to source for monthly updates

      • GETTING INVOLVED
        07/04/07
        The Fourth of July. From the East Bay hills I've just finished watching spectacular displays at San Francisco's distant Crissy Field and the closer booms over the Berkeley marina.

        Ka-boom. Ka-boom.

        Who creates fireworks in the comp system? Is there a group that is cre

      • SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS
        07/01/07
        The Odyssey, the ancient epic poem of the Greek poet Homer, tells the heroic tale of sailors navigating through the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, encountering fantastic beasts and nightmarish dangers. The Sirens. The Cyclops...and more.

        Workerscompzone has been in Italy this past week. H

    • June
      • FIRED FOR ATTENDING A FUNERAL
        06/27/07
        It's hard to fathom. But under current California law, you could be fired for taking a day off to attend the funeral of a family member, spouse or domestic partner.

        Why? California employees currently have no right to bereavement leave under state or federal law. The Federal Family M

      • SCIROCCOS AND THE APPELLATE COURT: ACOEM DOES NOT APPLY TO CHRONIC PAIN CASE
        06/25/07
        Ever experienced a scirocco?

        Me neither til yesterday.

        Workerscompzone is visiting Sicily. Yesterday, sudden fierce, blindingly hot winds swept through the piazza here in Taormina, knocking over vendor's carts, sending locals and tourists scurrying alike. These winds-also

      • WHEN IN ROME
        06/24/07
        Normally, Workerscompzone would be at the California Applicants' Attorneys Association meetings, happening this weekend in San Francisco. I'll cover the conference gossip another time.

        But this year, I had the opportunity to go to Italy. Greetings from Rome.

        As I was

      • BILLS WORTH WATCHING
        06/22/07
        Summer is upon us. Kids out of school. Barbecues. Enough daylight for all of those outdoor activities we love.

        In Sacramento, the legislative year begins to take shape. Lots of maneuvering behind the scenes by different interest groups over various proposals for healthcare reforms. And, d

      • U TURN
        06/20/07
        U-Turn. A quirky film that has developed a cult following, Oliver Stone's "U-Turn" features Sean Penn as a hapless motorist who gets stranded in a two-bit Arizona town. Penn gets trapped in this god forsaken place as Billy Bob Thornton, his crazed mechanic, finds ever-longer excuses t

      • THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
        06/18/07
        The 1950s really are over. Last week brought the news that Mr. Wizard has died. And the distributor of the Veg-O-Matic has gone into bankruptcy. Boomers are starting to join the AARP in droves.

        According to yesterday's New York Times, middle-aged folks are now freaking out their kids

      • COMMENCEMENT
        06/15/07
        Commencement. Betcha think caps and gowns, family gatherings, goodbyes and beginnings as students move on from high school and college.

        But I'm not thinking about that kind of commencement. I'm thinking of the concept of commencement of temporary disability. In 2004 California l

      • HEARING ON DWC WAGE LOSS STUDY
        06/13/07
        San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to call it Baghdad by the Bay. San Francisco. Where foggy summers can sometimes make one long for a ray of sunshine.

        The city was the site of today's public hearing on the California Division of Workers' Compensation wage loss stu

      • YESTERDAY'S HEARINGS....AND TOMORROW'S
        06/12/07
        The California Division of Workers' Compensation held hearings in Los Angeles yesterday on its study of injured worker wage loss.

        Tomorrow, I'll be attending the public hearings in San Francisco on the wage loss study. I'll be posting my impressions.

        At the Los A

      • IS THE NEW SCHEDULE INVALID? REPONSE FILED TO INSURER BRIEF
        06/12/07
        I recently published a copy of the appeal filed by attorney Ellen Langille on behalf of the insurer in the Boughner case. Boughner is the case in which a San Francisco workers’ comp judge ruled that the new Schwarzenegger permanent disability rating schedule is arbitrary, capricious and invalid unde

      • RAMBLING IN HEALDSBURG
        06/10/07
        Greetings from Healdsburg. That's in northern Sonoma County. It's a former sawmill town, wedged between the Russian River and the Dry Creek Valley, home of many of California's top boutique wineries.

        Healdsburg is the site of a world class jazz festival every June. Looking

      • FROM THE REPUBLICAN HEARTLAND
        06/07/07
        Here's a quiz for you.

        The first significant press coverage of the dysfunctional state of California workers' comp by mainstream newspapers in 2007 was from newspapers from:

        a) a Redwood Empire coastal county best known for growing some of the nation's fines

      • IS THE NEW SCHEDULE VALID AFTER ALL?
        06/06/07
        Lawyers for the insurer have now filed an appeal of the decision by a San Francisco workers' comp judge which ruled that the "new" permanent disability rating schedule is arbitrary, capricious and invalid. I have a pdf version of the appeal which you can read here: Scott Boughner vs.

      • LEADBELLY BLUES
        06/03/07
        Me and my wife went all over town
        And everywhere we went people turned us down
        Lord, in a bourgeois town
        It's a bourgeois town
        I got the bourgeois blues
        Gonna spread the news all around

        Home of the brave, land of the free
        I don't wanna be mistreate

      • 2010 CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR'S RACE BEGINS
        06/02/07
        Just kidding.

        After all, the Governator has 3 more years before he resumes movie-making again, runs for mayor of L.A. or makes a U.S. Senate bid.

        But, in a way, the gubernatorial race is already starting. Aside from a few candidates who can write themselves a big check (think h

    • May
      • DWC RELEASES WAGE LOSS STUDY: PUBLIC HEARINGS SET
        05/30/07
        The California Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) yesterday released its third report in its study of wage loss for permanently disabled workers. A link to the study itself is included at the tail end of this post.

        This study will play a significant role in the debate over wheth

      • CHECKING OUT THE RIVER CITY
        05/29/07
        One of my favorite bars happens to be in Rio Vista, a small town on the banks of the Sacramento River. Foster's Bighorn is a throwback to another era. An era not environmentally or politically correct. The original owner was a big game hunter in the 1940s and 50s.

        Foster's coll

      • POIZNER'S ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY
        05/29/07
        Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner issued important findings today, followed by a teleconference to the media. Poizner, a Republican elected in 2006 to replace John Garamendi, issued a call for insurers to cut workers' comp rates by 14 1/2%. Because California workers' comp rates were de

      • COSTCO GETS WHAT IT WANTED
        05/25/07
        Take a trip down memory lane back to late 2003 and early 2004. The California Chamber of Commerce and various employer coalitions were pushing several different proposals to overhaul California's workers' comp system.

        Among the major players in the effort was the warehouse club

      • SCHWARZENEGGER: I WILL TERMINATE WORKERS' COMP BILLS
        05/23/07
        Recent figures from the insurance industry show that comp insurer profits now exceed benefits paid to injured workers. But despite evidence that the system remains broken, Governor Schwarzenegger continues to claim that he "fixed" comp.

        If anyone has ANY doubts about his inflexi

      • DEFENDANT ORDERED TO PAY WORKERS’ COMP ATTORNEY FEES
        05/23/07
        If a California workers’ compensation judge disapproves a settlement agreement reached between an insurer and an unrepresented worker, will the insurer be liable for fees of an attorney the worker thereafter hires? Yes, according to a March 26, 2007 decision by a panel of the statewide California Wo

      • TROUBLE IN FROG CITY
        05/20/07
        Is nothing sacred? Can't frogs just jump in peace?

        Up in Calaveras County today, some 2,000 frogs were waiting to compete for the world frog jumping championship. According to today's New York Times piece by Jesse McKinley, these frogs are kept in a cool, dark place. Limited to

      • CALIFORNIA WORKERS' COMPENSATION "FIXED" SO THAT INSURER PROFITS ARE GREATER THAN BENEFITS PAID TO WORKERS
        05/18/07

      • PIGS AT THE TROUGH
        05/16/07
        Oink! Oink! Oink! Old MacDonald had a farm... and on that farm he had a trough, e-eye e-eye o... but who would have have thought that MacDonald’s farm had become the California workers’ comp system, with insurers feeding at the trough?... e-eye e-eye o...

        Think I’m overstating the case? L

      • THE WEEK ENDETH
        05/13/07
        One of my favorite features in the San Francisco Chronicle is Earthweek. It's a syndicated column that summarizes both great world natural disasters and strange small earth disturbances.

        This week, there was news of an explosion of the gopher population in the Canadian prairie. One r

      • WORKERS COMP PD SCHEDULE RULED INVALID
        05/11/07
        Workers’ Comp Judge Jacqueline Duncan has issued a 51-page decision (Scott Boughner vs Comp USA and Zurich North America) which rules that the Schwarzenegger administration’s revision of the permanent disability schedule is invalid. It’s a decision that will create great waves in California workers’

      • NEWS FLASH: JUDGE RULES NEW CALIFORNIA RATING SCHEDULE INVALID
        05/11/07
        BREAKING NEWS:

        A Workers Compensation Judge at the San Francisco District office of the California Workers' Compensation
        Appeals Board has ruled that the new permanent disability rating schedule adopted by the Schwarzenegger administration is invalid.

        In a few hours

      • Blue Cross Blues
        05/08/07
        Lucky you.

        Undoubtedly thouands of Californians are online right now....reading the latest news about Paris Hilton's upcoming jail time, Lindsay Lohan's latest attempt at rehab, Katie Couric's poor ratings, where Britney Spears had lunch and whether she was wearing underwe

      • SHOULD THE WORKERS' COMP SYSTEM BE ABOLISHED?
        05/06/07
        Should California's workers' compensation system be abolished?

        Yes, according to a provocative article by political analyst Frank Russo, editor of the influential blog California Progress Report. You can read Russo's article by clicking here:

        http://www.californ

      • SUPREME COURT HANDS INSURERS A MAJOR VICTORY: $3,360 AMPUTATION AWARD
        05/03/07
        The California Supreme Court has just released its decision in the Brodie and Welcher cases. The 2 martini lunch went out of fashion a few years ago, but I suspect quite a few employers and insurers will be popping the champagne corks at lunch today.

        This is a BIG win for employers and in

      • SUPREME COURT RULING TOMORROW IN WELCHER
        05/02/07
        The California Supreme Court has decided the Welcher, Brodie and Dykes cases on apportionment. The court announced today that it will release the decision at 10 AM on Thursday May 3rd.

        I will be posting tomorrow on the decision and what it means for claimants. The issue to be decided is

      • IT'S THE EMPLOYER FRAUD, STUPID! - PART I
        05/01/07
        I've always been a fan of straight-talking political consultant James Carville. During the 1992 presidential campaign by Bill Clinton, Carville created a key slogan for the campaign -- "It's the economy, stupid."

        For California workers' comp, the slogan should now

    • April
      • THE WEEK THAT WAS
        04/29/07
        It was a week with several reminders of how dangerous the workplace can be for many workers. On Friday, a 52 year old plumber working on the remodel of an Oakland high rise fell 14 stories to his death at the intersection of Telegraph and Broadway, just across the street from my office. And last nig

      • RESPECT YOUR ELDERS
        04/26/07
        Stay tuned for my upcoming blog post, "When is an Amputation an Amputation?"

        In the meanwhile, I hope you will check out the sister blog of workerscompzone.com. I'm referring to attorney Felicia Curran's blog www.elderadvocacyblog.com. You can get to that blog by click

      • BRING ME THE POPCORN
        04/24/07
        It happens two or three times a month. I go to my mail slot at Boxer & Gerson. Buried along with the incoming mail and subpoenaed medical records is a VHS tape or a DVD.

        And will I soon be getting just a notice of a clickable link to see my client on video on You Tube? Here in Web 2.

      • YADA YADA YADA
        04/23/07
        It's a week of hearings and studies:

        The Assembly Insurance Committee holds hearings at 9 am in Sacramento this Wednesday on various workers' comp issues:
        http://www.assembly.ca.gov/defaulttext.asp

        The Commission on Health Safety and Workers' Compensation

      • SCHWARZENCARE
        04/23/07
        As I continue to note, the debate in Sacramento over health care reform is critical to many injured workers since so many of them lose their group health coverage.

        Last week, the Senate Health Committee voted favorably on the single payer plan sponsored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl. The

      • HAPPY BIRTHDAY?
        04/21/07
        Happy Birthday?

        April 19 was the 3rd birthday of SB 899, Schwarzenegger's workers' comp reform. Dueling press releases were issued by employer groups and injured worker groups, including Voters Injured at Work.

        The California Labor Federation study can be accessed her

      • RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
        04/19/07
        This week... the week of the Virginia Tech massacres, has been a traumatic week for many Americans. Once again, a certain mythic innocence has been lost. Our culture seems coarser. The university... an idealized place of learning... a site for the rites of passage to adulthood... has been stained by

      • THE $12,000 BROKEN RIB
        04/17/07
        If you think the health care system in California isn't broken, just ask Joey Palmer. A minor solo motorcycle accident wound up costing him $12,000 in medical bills at a San Francisco hospital... money he didn't have. His saga can be found in the piece by San Francisco Chronicle columnist

      • DOWNLOAD THIS
        04/14/07
        If you are trying to understand the current situation in California workers' comp... be you a politician, a journalist or an injured worker... I have an excellent idea for you... download the recent study of workers' comp released in March 2007 by the California Labor Federation.

      • FABIAN NUNEZ AND AB 1212
        04/12/07
        Will the California legislature address the sharp cuts in permanent disability awards that resulted from Schwarzenegger's workers' comp reform?

        If you missed my earlier posts on this issue, check out the following:
        http://www.workerscompzone.com/index.ph

        If the

      • EXPANDING THE TWO-YEAR LIMIT
        04/11/07
        The California Assembly Insurance Committee voted today on Assembly Bill 338. Reversing one of the most harsh features of the 2003-2004 comp reforms, AB 338 would allow TD benefits of up to 156 weeks (instead of the current 104 week maximum). A worker could draw these weeks of TD over a five-year pe

      • THE TANNING SALON DOC
        04/10/07
        The client appears, x-rays in hand, for a QME exam that will determine numerous issues in her case. Puzzled, she notes that the location of evaluation is actually at a ... tanning salon. It turns out that this is one of many "offices" the QME doctor has... er, rents. Talk about cheesy!
      • WCAB TAKES A MULLIGAN -- PART 2
        04/07/07
        My golf game kinda sucks. I've been known to take a mulligan now and then. Thank goodness my golf buddies are okay with an occasional do-over.

        But what about a court taking a mulligan? If, after rendering a decision in a case, the judges on a court change, should the court re-hear th

      • WCAB TAKES A MULLIGAN -- PART 1
        04/06/07
        Big news today in the California workers' comp world. The
        statewide Workers' Compensation Appeals Board has taken a mulligan in 2 important cases, Pendergrass and Baglione.

        This do-over is a result of a shift in the board occasioned by the retirement of WCAB commissioner Me

      • SHOWDOWN IN LOS ANGELES
        04/04/07
        Yesterday morning, the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the first case to reach the court involving the Schwarzenegger workers' comp reform, SB 899.

        Actually, the court was hearing arguments in multiple cases. At issue in these cases (Welcher, Brodie and Dykes) are th

      • TOP 10 EVENTS IN CALIFORNIA WORKERS' COMP DURING THE FIRST QUARTER 2007
        04/01/07
        2007 is flying by, and it is time for Workerscompzone to note the most significant events in California workers' comp during the first quarter of 2007 (caution: note that the law on some of the following is in flux and may change depending on further court decisions or legislative action).
    • March
      • DOWN 64%
        03/29/07
        The rates California workers' comp insurers charge employers were deregulated in the early 1990s. Since then, the California Insurance Commissioner makes a non-binding recommendation on rates.

        The rates recommended by the Insurance Commissioner often follow the recommendations of an

      • TODAY'S LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON PERMANENT DISABILITY
        03/28/07
        Is the glass half empty or half full? Listeners to the testimony in Sacramento at today's California Assembly Insurance Committee hearing on the effect of recent changes on permanent disability and temporary disability may have wondered... are these guys all on the same planet?

        Repre

      • COTO'S QUEST
        03/27/07
        On Wednesday, March 28 at 9 AM, the California Assembly's Insurance Committee (chaired by San Jose Democrat Joe Coto) will hold a public information hearing on the effect of recent revisions to the workers' comp permanent disability rating schedule.

        The Schwarzenegger administra

      • CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION
        03/23/07
        Few people in California haven't heard Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones squawking "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." He was wailing with existential angst about finding meaning in a world bombarding him with useless information about how white his shirts could be (as well as his sea

      • FOURTH TIME THE CHARM?
        03/22/07
        The California Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) has really been struggling to "get it right" in formulating regulations concerning utilization review.

        The FOURTH set of revised proposed regulations has just been unveiled. These are available at the following site:
      • SACRAMENTO AND THE LOCKOUT
        03/19/07
        In a post a few days ago, I discussed Senator Perata's lockout of the so-called Senate Mod Squad. Three state senators were briefly locked out of their offices to show Perata's disapproval of their attempt to set up a legislative bloc within the state senate's Democratic caucus.

      • THE JUSTICE GAP
        03/16/07
        I rarely read the California Bar Journal, the State Bar's official publication. But the March 2007 edition featured a graphic that caught my eye. The article focused on California's "justice gap."

        Did you know that there is one private lawyer for every 250 Californians

      • PERATA AND THE MOD SQUAD
        03/12/07
        Interesting reports today about some political dissension in the California State Senate.

        It seems that State Senate Pro Tem (think head honcho) Don Perata ordered a change of locks. Locked out of their offices were three Southern California State Senators, all recently elected after se

      • $3.6 MILLION DISCRIMINATION SETTLEMENT
        03/10/07
        Boxer & Gerson LLP lawyers recently settled an employment discrimination lawsuit against the City Of Emeryville for $3.6 million.

        Boxer & Gerson LLP partner Leslie Levy and associate Darci Burrell represented the plaintiff in the case, which is one of the largest employment law re

      • MEDICATION ERRORS
        03/09/07
        Ever have concerns about whether you are taking the right medicines in the right dosage? Ever wonder whether the different pills you are taking could cancel each other out or have unintended health side affects?

        I see cases where some injured workers are taking as many as 10 different ty

      • THE DOCTOR'S APOTHECARY
        03/08/07
        Should California doctors who treat workers' comp patients be allowed to dispense medication out of their offices? If so, should they receive big markups on the medicines they dispense?

        We are not talking occasional medication samples that a physician may give to the patient. Rather,

      • CONVERGING
        03/07/07
        As noted in prior posts, this year's California legislative debate over health care reform has implications for California workers' comp.

        Various forms of expanded health care coverage are being proposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, Senate Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabi

      • CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL QUALITY
        03/06/07
        Hospitals, like other things in life, are not all equal.

        If you are a California injured worker, you might want to check the following site to see highly rated hospitals in your area. The site CalHospitalCompare.org is a project of the California HealthCare Foundation. CalHospitalCompare.

      • MAKING LACK OF WORKERS' COMP COVERAGE A FELONY
        03/06/07
        When workers' comp fraud is mentioned, usually the press focuses on fraud by the worker.

        But in California, there is a growing awareness of a different sort of fraud -- premium fraud by employers who either underreport their payroll or fail to seek coverage at all.

        This is

      • SB 936
        03/05/07
        You may be hearing a lot about SB 936 here between now and September.

        SB 936 is a "spot bill" held by State Senate Pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland. A spot bill is a placeholder bill; the bill can be gutted or stripped later to include different language.

        In 2006, Senato

      • PELOSI AND BUSH ON LABOR RIGHTS COLLISION COURSE
        03/05/07
        Even though the general focus of this blog is California workers' comp, sometimes there are related topics I must discuss. Workers' comp is not an issue in a vacuum; it is one aspect of employment law and labor rights.

        Ever hear someone tell you that "both political parties

      • SAN FRANCISCO'S NEW SKYLINE
        03/04/07
        As a kid, I spent hours playing on my living room floor with an erector set. This toy consisted of a pack of metal pieces (think pretend steel beams) with various screws, pulleys, rivets and the like. I'd spend afternoons dreaming of designing and constructing buildings. Erector sets are now kn

      • THE VIEW FROM DUBAI
        03/03/07
        The view from Dubai, United Arab Emirates... the Arabian Gulf megalopolis being built (along with its sister Emirate Abu Dhabi) by a group of sheiks with fantastic oil wealth.

        Workerscompzone has been quiet this week while on a trip to Dubai and Oman (Dubai's southerly neighbor, a ra

    • February
      • CHEESE WHIZ AND MEDICAL TREATMENT
        02/22/07
        On Friday, February 23, Cheese Whiz will be meeting at the California state building auditorium on Clay Street. Cheese Whiz? That's the acronym for the California Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation. It's a state agency charged to do study and loose oversight of the

      • CLOUDS OVER HEALTH CARE REFORM
        02/21/07
        For an excellent look at some of the factors which may block health care reform in the legislature this year, check out this article in The Fresno Bee by Jim Boren:
        http://www.fresnobee.com/182/v-printerf

        Health care reform is important to injured workers, and I will continue to

      • ALFONSO MORESI APPOINTED TO WCAB
        02/20/07
        San Francisco attorney Alfonso Moresi has been appointed to an open slot on the California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board.
        Moresi will fill the slot that recently opened up with the departure of WCAB commissioner Merle Rabine.

        The appointment is subject to confirmation by t

      • ARE EMPLOYERS FLEEING CALIFORNIA?
        02/20/07
        A major factor that led to the Draconian comp reforms of 2003 and 2004 was the job flight issue. Proponents of reform argued that workers' comp was strangling the California economy, causing business to leave for other states or the Far East.

        But a recent study by a prestigious thin

      • KAISER GOING DIGITAL
        02/19/07
        Interesting article in last week's Los Angeles Times about Kaiser going digital. Many of the large insurers and medical providers are (or will) be trying to go digital. Unless and until the kinks get worked out, serious problems in patient care can develop.

        To see the article; click

      • DWC PUBLIC FORUM
        02/18/07
        On Tuesday, February 20, the California Division of Workers' Compensation is holding a public forum on a study it has been conducting concerning return to work data and wage replacement.

        This meeting may provide important clues as to the Schwarzenegger Administration's position

      • THE YEAR OF THE PIG
        02/18/07
        The Year of the Pig. Or the boar, to be exact. Gung Hay Fat Choy to you on the Chinese Lunar New Year. It's one of workerscompzone's favorite holidays.

        Being a native North Carolinian, I have a natural affinity to pigs. North Carolina is one barbecue-obsessed state, and is one

      • NEVANS PREDICTS ADJUSTMENTS IN PD SCHEDULE
        02/17/07
        At a Thursday public hearing in Los Angeles, the acting director of the California Division of Workers' Compensation, Carrie Nevans, indicated that there will probably be adjustments in the California permanent disability rating schedule this year.

        The February 16 edition of Workcomp

      • DUMB REASONS TO PICK A QME
        02/15/07
        Most important issues in California workers' comp cases are resolved by the QME process (QME is short for "qualified medical examiner").

        This usually occurs when the insurance adjuster sends the worker a letter saying that the worker must request a QME panel from the state.

      • POIZNER NAMES DEPUTY FROM INSURANCE INDUSTRY
        02/14/07
        Newly elected Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has announced the appointment of William Gausewitz as counsel. Poizner, the only Republican elected to statewide office in 2006 other than Gov. Schwarzenegger, had campaigned on a platform of being an independent voice.

        Observers have b

      • WHO SHALL PAY?
        02/13/07
        The debate over health care reform is important to California injured workers, many of whom lose their group health coverage after an injury.

        The big debate in California now is over how we shall cover more of the uninsured... and over who shall pay.

        Many states are experiment

      • THE STATE GOP CONVENTION
        02/12/07
        It was interesting to watch the State GOP convention this weekend, albeit from afar. After all, with Schwarzenegger tacking towards the middle after his disastrous losses for his ballot initiatives, how will he deal with members of his own party?

        The answer to this question may have ramif

      • THE HISPANIC WORKER AND WORKERS' COMP
        02/11/07
        Recently, while in Los Angeles, I had occasion to travel by bus from Santa Monica to downtown LA. From the Santa Monica Promenade bus stop the city bus wound its way through an assortment of neighborhoods reflecting the socioeconomic highs and lows of America.... Westwood, Beverly Hills, Hancock Par

      • FILLING THE SLOT
        02/11/07
        There is much insider gossip regarding who may be the next appointee to the California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board.

        A slot opened up with the January 2007 expiration of the term of Merle Rabine, appointed in 2000 by Gray Davis.The terms of a majority of the commissioners expi

      • DWC UNVEILS PROPOSED PENALTY REGULATIONS
        02/08/07
        Is the third time the charm? We shall see. Yesterday, the California Division of Workers' Compensation released a third version of proposed penalties for utilization review abuse. The 2004 reforms allow insurers to have outside medical reviewers (utilization review) determine whether a doctor&

      • FACE TIME WITH YOUR QME EXAMINER
        02/06/07
        California workers' comp regulations specify that QME examiners must spend "face time" with the worker being evaluated.

        One of the most frequent complaints I hear is from workers who tell me that the QME spent almost no time examining or talking to them. Apparently, many QM

      • ENFORCING A MEDICAL TREATMENT AWARD
        02/05/07
        Good news for injured workers... A recent California Court of Appeal decision (Dwight Smith vs. WCAB) will be a great help to California injured workers who seek to enforce a medical treatment award.

        The Smith case should make it easier for workers to find an attorney to help enforce an a

      • PRO FOOTBALL PLAYER INJURIES
        02/04/07
        Its Super Bowl Sunday again. The gladiators of American culture will be taking to the field soon.

        For a moment, though, take time to honor the pro football players of the past who were injured while entertaining us on those Sunday afternoons and Monday nights. Injuries... some catastrophi

      • FOOTBALL'S WALKING WOUNDED
        02/02/07
        Many of us worship at the altar of Monday Night Football. I was a LA Rams fan long before they moved to Saint Louis. As a kid, I would pretend to be Johnny Unitas or Roman Gabriel, throwing the hail mary pass as I evaded some Dick Butkus wannabe kid.

        Later, I marveled at the dominance of

      • NEW SCHEDULE OR OLD SCHEDULE?
        02/01/07
        One of the hot current issues in California workers' comp law is how to "rate" injuries that occurred before before January 1, 2005. Are workers injured in 2004 under the old pre-Schwarzenegger rating system? Or are they covered under the new rating system which relies heavily on the

    • January
      • OLD WITH THE OLD DOC, MEET THE NEW DOC!
        01/31/07
        Have an award for medical treatment in a California case? Think you can always continue treating with your current doctor? Think again.

        In Sharon Babbitt vs National Market, a January 2006 decision of the California Workers' Comp Appeals Board, the statewide WCAB ruled that workers i

      • CARRIE NEVANS AT THE CAAA CONVENTION
        01/30/07
        I attended the California Applicants' Attorneys conference in San Diego this past weekend... fun city.. interesting conference. Carrie Nevans, the acting director of the California Division of Workers' Compensation, was on a panel discussing medical treatment and utilization review. Her au

      • HEALTH CARE REFORM DEBATE GEARS UP
        01/28/07
        The current debate in the California legislature over health care access and health care reform is of great interest to California's injured workers. Many of those injured workers end up losing their group health benefits and cannot get health insurance.

        In recent posts we looked at

      • COMP 101: AUTHORIZATION OF MEDICAL TREATMENT
        01/26/07
        Medical treatment issues are a source of tremendous frustration for many California injured workers.

        On the upper right-hand links section on this blog, you can click on "articles" to find a number of detailed articles explaining medical treatment in California for work injuries

      • COMP 101: DECLARATION OF READINESS FORM
        01/25/07
        In California workers' comp law, what is a "declaration of readiness"?

        This is a state form used by the worker, employer or insurer (or their attorney) to request a court date. The party requesting the court date needs to file this form (known as a DWC 9) at the district of

      • WHAT HURRICANE KATRINA BROUGHT TO OAKLAND
        01/25/07
        Great article in this week's business section of the Contra Costa Times... it features Gary Barkley Roth, Boxer & Gerson's newest personal injury trial lawyer.

        Gary Roth was a successful trial lawyer (with a track record of several multi-million dollar trial verdicts) in New

      • WORKERS' COMP GLOSSARY
        01/24/07
        Confused by workers' comp terminology? Wish you had a California workers' comp dictionary? A glossary of California workers' comp law terms?

        The California Division of Workers' Compensation has put together a glossary of workers' comp terms. You can find it by cli

      • COMP 101: VOCATIONAL REHAB OR A VOUCHER?
        01/23/07
        In California workers' comp law, what is the difference between vocational rehab and a voc rehab voucher?

        Both of these terms refer to what an injured worker may receive in California if the worker is unable to return to work and the employer claims there is no modified or alternate

      • WORKERS' COMP 101: DOCTOR'S FIRST REPORT OF WORK INJURY
        01/23/07
        The California workers' comp system has a form for doctors to file when the doctor determines that there has been a work injury or occupational disease. The form is known as "Doctor's First Report of Occupational Injury or Illness" and can be downloaded by clicking here:

      • HEALTH CARE REFORM AND WAL-MART
        01/22/07
        This year's debate in the California legislature over health care access is important to California injured workers. Most injured workers lose their coverage if they don't return to work after an injury.

        Over the last several decades, some large employers have either reduced hea

      • GOODBYE TO THE COMMISH.....
        01/21/07
        The term of California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board commissioner Merle Rabine is ending. Earlier this week, I attended a goodbye event honoring Rabine. Held at the San Francisco building which houses the California Supreme Court, the event was pretty much a who's who of California w

      • REVIVAL OF THE COMPANY CLINIC
        01/20/07
        I noted an interesting article in the 1/14/07 Sunday edition of The New York Times. The title? "Company Clinics Cut Health Costs: More Big Companies Are Turning To An Old Idea."

        This is an interesting phenomenon, particularly in the context of California's 2004 workers'

      • MILEAGE EXPENSE FORMS
        01/19/07
        California injured workers are entitled to reimbursement for mileage incurred traveling to and from doctor's appointments. This includes trips to and from physical therapy, acupuncture and other types of treatment. It also includes trips to and from the pharmacy to pick up your medication.
      • WORKERS' COMP 101: WHAT IS AN APPLICATION?
        01/18/07
        In California workers' compensation, what does the term "application" mean? And what is an "applicant"?

        An "applicant" is the workers' comp claimant. In a civil case the claimant would be called "plaintiff," but in workers' comp they

      • WORKERS' COMP CLAIM FORMS
        01/17/07
        California has an official form (known as a DWC-1 form) that is to be used for reporting work injuries. The top half is to be filled out by the claimant and the bottom half by the employer. You can download the form by clicking the following:
        http://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/DWCForm1.pdf
      • PREDESIGNATING A DOCTOR
        01/16/07
        If you are a California worker who does not want to be forced to treat with a company-chosen doctor in the event of a work injury, you MAY be able to predesignate a doctor
        of your choice. You do not have this right unless you are covered by group insurance sponsored by your employer or union.
      • MORE ON THE HEALTH CARE REFORM DEBATE
        01/14/07
        In my January 13 post, I summarized the key elements of Schwarzenegger's proposal to extend health coverage to all Californians. Key interest groups in California -- doctors, hospitals, large employers, counties, unions, drug companies, among others -- will be doing heavy lobbying to influ

      • SCHWARZENEGGER'S HEALTH CARE REFORM PACKAGE
        01/13/07
        Well, it's a beautiful Saturday... picking up the paper, I see that California has slipped from 6th to 8th in the world economy. .. the Siskiyou salamander won in court... and tortilla prices are up in Mexico City.... A poll just out from the well-respected San Jose State Survey shows the Gover

      • SCHWARZENEGGER STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS
        01/09/07
        I just finished listening to Governor Schwarzenegger's 1/9/07 State of the State address.

        It was a short speech that pushed big goals but broke little new ground politically. What were the themes? Among the principal themes were the following:

        - Promoting green tec

      • SCHWARZENEGGER SWORN IN TODAY
        01/05/07
        Pull your retrospectoscope out of your closet. Scroll back to 2005. Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity tanked. In the special election he called, The Governator was dealt a humiliating defeat by a coalition of unions. He lost all of his reform initiatives. Re-election prospects looked dim. Pol

      • 2007 INCREASES IN TEMPORARY DISABILITY RATES
        01/04/07
        As of 1/1/07, the maximum temporary disability (TD) rate for California injured workers is now $881.66. This increase is a 4.96% increase based on the automatic Labor Code cola (cost-of-living-adjustment). The cola adjustment is based on the increase in the state average weekly wage (SAWW).
      • 2007 CALIFORNIA WORKERS COMP QUIZ
        01/02/07
        Readers of the New York Times may be familiar with the year-end current events quiz done for many years by columnist William Safire. As 2006 has just turned to 2007, here is my 2007 workers' comp quiz:

        1. In 2007, the legislature will:

        (a) without the governor's supp

      • TOP 10 CALIFORNIA WORKERS COMP EVENTS IN 2006
        01/01/07
        As 2006 turns to 2007, here is my list of the top 10 California workers' comp stories in 2006:

        1. In December 2006, the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau released startling statistics on California workers' comp. Insurers reaped record 46% profits (after payment

  • 2006
    • December
      • WELCOME TO WORKERSCOMPZONE!
        12/30/06
        This blog focuses on California workers' comp law and the politics and culture that surround it. Over time I will follow not only the development of the law but also the background stories behind those developments. And sometimes I'll be looking at California workers' comp in a larger