By Hon. Colleen Casey, Former Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board Practitioners beware! Death benefit trials often raise intricate and unique evidentiary conundrums. Obtaining...
Oakland, CA – California’s State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) rose nearly 3.8 percent in the year ending March 31, 2024, which will result in an increase in California workers’ compensation...
CALIFORNIA COMPENSATION CASES Vol. 89, No. 10 October 2024 A Report of En Banc and Significant Panel Decisions of the WCAB and Selected Court Opinions of Related Interest, With a Digest of WCAB Decisions...
By Hon. Robert G. Rassp, Presiding Judge, WCAB Los Angeles, California Division of Workers’ Compensation Disclaimer: The material and any opinions contained in this article are solely those of...
Oakland, CA – Migraine Drugs represented less than 1% of all prescriptions dispensed to California injured workers in 2023 but they consumed 4.7% of workers’ compensation drug payments, a nearly...
While it is the duty the ALJ to determine the facts, including whether or not an injured worker has reached MMI status, that determination may not be made without the support of appropriate medical evidence, held a Colorado appellate court. Accordingly, where neither the claimant’s treating physician nor an independent physician appointed under the state’s division-sponsored independent medical examination (DIME) process opined that the worker had reached MMI, a determination by the ALJ that she had was without support. The appellate court stressed that it was the ALJ’s job to resolve conflicts. Here there was no conflict to be resolved as both physicians indicated the claimant had not reached MMI.
Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).
LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.
See Burren v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 2019 COA 37, 2019 Colo. App. LEXIS 347 (Mar. 7, 2019)
See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 128.05.
Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law
For a more detailed discussion of the case, see