Senator Anna Caballero’s (D-Fresno) decision to drop a provision for an annual cost-of-living adjustment to workers’ comp permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits allowed her bill, SB 555, to advance out of Senate Appropriations and ultimately the Senate. Instead of an annual COLA adjustment, the bill is advancing with an unspecified increase in average weekly PPD …
Employers and copy service providers over the years have aired a litany of complaints against each other over alleged billing and payment abuses. The state’s adoption of a new copy service fee schedule in 2015 eliminated some of the acrimony. But comments on the state’s proposed new workers’ comp copy service fee schedule update show …
The Division of Workers’ Compensation is taking another run at updating California’s copy service fee schedule. The agency is seeking comments on a slightly revised, year-old proposal via its informal public forum process. The update proposes the first increase in the flat rate paid for copy services – from $180 to $210 – since the …
The California Supreme Court just ruled that injured workers collecting workers’ compensation benefits with total permanent disability awards and life pensions are only eligible for prospective cost-of-living adjustments after they begin receiving the payments. The decision overturns a Court of Appeal holding that the COLA increases should apply retroactively back to the January 1, 2004 …
In spite of California’s rough economy, workers still on the job in the Golden State on average earn more, according to new wage data from the U.S. Department of Labor. And that increase puts workers’ comp carriers, third-party administrators and self-insured employers on notice to increase benefit payments for several classes of injured workers. According …
California’s Supreme Court justices are now considering four options for calculating cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for California’s most seriously injured workers, and the outcome, one way or the other, will have serious consequences for employers’ workers’ comp costs. The justices started the day with only three options, but through the power of oral argument ended with …
California’s employers caught a break yesterday when the California Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging a lower court’s methodology for calculating the impact of inflation on workers’ comp cases with life pensions and permanent total disability. The disputed methodology does not have a big impact on current cases, but could become very expensive …
Defening the workers’ comp reforms on yet front, Department of Industrial Relations Director John Duncan is asking the California Supreme Court to take up a case that could have dire repercussions not only for the Subsequent Injury Benefits Trust Fund (SIF) but for California’s entire workers’ comp industry. The decision in the case, Duncan v. Workers’ …