Law Office of Lawrence Strid

MORE CHANGES TO WORKERS COMPENSATION LAW

Following the radical overhaul of the Workers Compensation (WC) laws by the Governator, Governor Jerry Brown has just signed into law further changes to the system that will take effect in 2013.  The changes will include the following:
1.  Coverage for psychiatric injury will be barred, absent the worker suffering a "catastrophic injury".  What is "catastrophic" is apparently undefined.
2.  The Workers Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) will no longer adjudicate disputes over appropriate medical treatment that opposing physicians espouse on behalf of the applicant versus the employer.  Instead, disputes over appropriate treatment will be taken out of the WCAB and assigned to an anonymous state appointed doctor, who will have the final decision as to whether a disputed treatment or surgery is compensable or not.  This decision would be non-rebuttable and would put treatment decisions into the hands of an unknown doctor with unknown qualifications, and with no right of cross-examination or rebuttal testimony from another physician.
Critics of the change worry that if the insurance company pays for the anonymous doctor review, that this will create a conflict of interest for the anonymous doctor.
The ostensible purpose of the new law is to make the WC system less litigious and increase the size of permanent disability awards to injured employees.
There are sure to be due process challenges to the new law in civil court, but given the last set of changes to the WC system it is doubtful that court action or resultant appeals will prevent implementation of the changes.
The WC system tries to draw a fine-line between compensating injured workers and shielding employers from tort responsibility for worker's injuries.  While neither side will be happy with how this fine-line is drawn, given events to date the employer would seem to be coming out on top.