A Southern California federal district court reaffirmed that workers’ compensation is the “sole and exclusive remedy of the employee or his or her dependents against the employer” with its dismissal of a civil wrongful death lawsuit over an alleged delay in treatment. It is an interesting case. Plaintiffs claimed that a delay in care ultimately …
Public sector employers and health care providers dodged a large financial bullet when Gov. Jerry Brown went against organized labor and vetoed three workers’ comp bills covering presumptions and public safety officer benefits. The trio of bills included a proposal for a wide scale expansion of workers’ comp presumptions into private sector workplaces. Gov. Brown’s …
A handful of bills addressing workers’ comp presumptions for peace officers and healthcare workers, along with a bill to tighten the rules covering liability issues for labor contracting survived a legislative deadline and moved to the Senate. The bills are expected to increase workers’ comp costs for taxpayers and some private employers if they survive …
A bill –– the first workplace presumption applicable to traditional workers in private sector workplaces –– to apply workers’ comp presumptions is moving in the Legislature after a divided Assembly Insurance Committee gave its approval to AB 2616. The bill would create a presumption that specific types of infections are covered by workers’ comp if …
Against a backdrop of a public already very frustrated with public employees earning more and getting more benefits than those who pay for them, Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles) want to extend the period police and fire workers can get a workers’ comp death benefit. County and local government taxpayers pay public employees benefits. …
Members of the Assembly Insurance Committee reconvene this morning for the first time since their spring break and will review a host of workers’ comp-related bills. Included in the package are recently amended bills to expand the use of presumptions to some private sector workers, create a guarantee of expedited hearings to others and to …
Over the objections of employers, the Committee on Senate Labor and Industrial Relations cleared two workers’ comp bills addressing firefighter death benefits and a presumption for nurses who contract methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Employers say both bills are potentially costly and unnecessary. AB 808, authored by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Oakland), would create a presumption for …
The business community says that AB 1687, a bill that would expand attorneys’ fees in utilization review (UR) disputes, could cost employers, especially cities and counties, between $60,000 and $280,000 annually. AB 1687, authored by Paul Fong (D-Mountain View), would authorize the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board to award attorneys fees incurred by injured workers in …