CALIFORNIA COMPENSATION CASES Vol. 89, No. 7 July 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...
Havanis v. Calif. Dept. of Transportation (Board Panel Decision) By Hon. Colleen Casey, Former Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board I. Medical apportionment is not the...
By Robert G. Rassp, author of The Lawyer’s Guide to the AMA Guides and California Workers’ Compensation (LexisNexis) Disclaimer: The material and any opinions contained in this treatise are...
Oakland, CA – Private self-insured claim volume in the California workers' compensation system fell 9.5% in 2023, producing the biggest year-to-year decline in private self-insured claim frequency...
By Hon. Susan V. Hamilton, Former Assistant Secretary and Deputy Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board No matter the source of your media consumption, it seems that the topic...
Any information or opinions contained in this commentary are not necessarily endorsed by LexisNexis® or its affiliates or by the LexisNexis® editorial consultants who review panel decisions.
Recently, a Workers’ Compensation Administrative Law Judge (WCALJ) and a panel of commissioners with the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) reminded practitioners in the California Workers’ Compensation System that the standards of conduct required of Qualified Medical Evaluators (QME’s) will be taken seriously. In Timothy Beecham v. Swift Transportation Services LLC, ADJ10084731, ADJ10084732, the WCALJ and WCAB panel found that a PQME’s comments that the employee’s markers were abnormally low for a person with “negro blood” constituted “impermissible racial or ethnic bias”. The PQME was removed from the case.
In this day and age of what many consider to be excessive litigation involving the removal of QME’s for hyper-technical reasons, it’s particularly important to remember that QME’s are not only required to comply with the procedural aspects of the Workers’ Compensation process. More importantly, they are required to conduct themselves with professional decency and specifically not render opinions or conclusions based on a worker’s race, sex, national origin, religion or sexual preference (8 Cal. Code Reg. § 41(c)(3)).
In conclusion, a significant distinction must be drawn when discussing the removal of QME for ethical reasons as contrasted with removing a QME for less serious and far more frequently seen procedural reasons. Indeed, practitioners would well advised to remember that fundamental to the Workers’ Compensation process is the fair and ethical treatment of the injured worker.
Read the Beecham noteworthy panel decision.
© Copyright 2018 LexisNexis. All rights reserved.
">