SACRAMENTO – Democratic lawmakers refused to back down in the face of a potential veto and passed a $3.6 billion benefits increase bill without compromising with Republicans or Gov. Gray Davis. Davis had proposed a less costly plan that relied on the expansion of managed care to control ever-rising workers’ comp costs, but the authors …
The Senate Rules Committee reappointed Tom Rankin and Kristen Schwenkmeyer to the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation. Rankin, president of the California Labor Federation, will continue to represent labor interests on the advisory board. He formerly served as the labor member on the Governing Committee of the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Ratings Bureau …
The owner of a Redwood City roofing company will spend at least eight months in jail as punishment for his scheme to avoid taxes and workers’ compensation premiums by paying his employees a portion of their wages in cash. Last month, a Superior Court judge sentenced Laurence Bennett Guy, owner of Guy’s Roofing, to a …
LOS ANGELES – The Industrial Medical Council last month produced a rough draft of guidelines to help state disability raters evaluate injured workers who suffer from urinary incontinence. Current state rules provide a disability rating only for patients who have complete loss of both urinary and bowel functions. That forces state officials to play it …
Torres vs. Parkhouse Tire Service, Inc. (Filed 8/30/2001) See Sept. 21 edition of ABR This case provides an interesting twist on the “Exclusive Remedy Rule.” Under Labor Code 3600, an employer is liable for injuries to his employees arising out of and in the course of employment. This liability is “in lieu of any other …
California’s workers’ compensation system had the highest claims adjusting and litigation expenses among eight large states studied, according to an August research brief by the Workers Compensation Research Institute in Massachusetts. Such benefit delivery costs have been growing rapidly in California, which also has a higher percentage of cases where permanent partial disability payments are …
Senate Bill 71 contains dozens of obscure provisions that had experts nitpicking public policy or simply scratching their heads. For example, language buried in the 107-page bill called for the Industrial Medical Council to collect “utilization review” and “outcomes” data, basically directing the panel of doctors to review what types of treatments seem to work …
As poster children go, Gary Vincelet is rather old and not nearly as heartrending on videotape as he made himself out to be in court. A Shasta County jury deadlocked when asked to convict Vincelet of workers’ compensation fraud, despite a videotape by investigators that showed him vigorously wiping windows, vacuuming drapes and lugging buckets …