LexisNexis has picked the top “noteworthy” panel decisions issued by the California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board during the period July through December 2014. You’ll find many helpful cases in this list, including a recent decision...
A Virginia appellate court affirmed a finding of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission that had apportioned an injured employee’s disability based on her preexisting condition, awarding benefits based upon a 25 percent PPD to the right...
Where a New York employer and its carrier successfully argued in a 2013 scheduled loss of use (SLU) claim that any loss of use sustained by claimant had been the result of aging and not the claimed work-related injury, they were not precluded from subsequently...
Illustrating that apportionment between a preexisting condition and a work-related injury is a legal determination involves broader issues than merely examining the medical findings, a New York appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Board that...
Construing the state’s version of the Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act [see Ark. Code Ann. §§ 16-61-201, et seq. (UCATA)], an Arkansas appellate court held an employer immune from tort liability under the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act could not be...
New York’s Workers’ Compensation Board inappropriately apportioned 60 percent a claimant’s disability to his non-disabling and undiagnosed multiple sclerosis, held a state appellate court. Stressing that there was no evidence that the condition had affected the...
Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law , and reiterating the usual, “two-cause” rule: that where a work-related disability combines with a nonwork-related disability to prevent the injured worker from continuing to work, the employer is responsible for the...
Recently, a panel of three commissioners with the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) addressed the “cannot parcel out” exception” outlined in Benson v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (2009) 170 Cal. App.4th 1535 , 74 Cal. Comp...
By Raymond F. Correio, Esq. A number of decisions from the WCAB in 2016 and 2017 indicate a marked shift related to apportionment involving multiple injuries under Labor Code §§ 4663 and 4664 , as reflected in the WCAB’s Benson en banc decision...
The California Constitution mandates that the workers’ compensation process, including those provisions applicable to discovery, shall be established so as to accomplish substantial justice in all cases expeditiously, inexpensively, and without encumbrance...
While the normal rule in most jurisdictions is that a judge or board may not apportion a claimant’s PPD award based upon a preexisting condition that did not prevent the employee from effectively performing his or her job duties at the time of a subsequent...
Everyone in the workers’ compensation community has heard of the paradigm changing package of laws brought about by SB899 in 2004 and SB863 in 2013, but sometimes a new law slips under the radar radically tweaking a particular aspect of the rules. I. Outdated...
The dilemma of determining apportionment of permanent disability arising directly from employer furnished medical treatment necessitated by both preexisting industrial and nonindustrial causes and conditions. In a decision certified for publication, the Court...
A Colorado appellate court affirmed an order apportioning two-thirds of an injured worker’s bilateral knee osteoarthritis to the employee, requiring the employer to pay just one-third of the worker’s medical expenses and other benefits, although the worker spent...
The recent decision from the Court of Appeal in City of Jackson v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (Rice) (2017) 11 Cal.App. 5th 109 , 2017 Cal.App. LEXIS 383 (certified for publication), has justifiably engendered wide spread controversy in the workers’ compensation...