Boxer & Gerson Workers’ Compensation Attorney Arjuna Farnsworth made two stops in the greater Sacramento area this spring, continuing his longtime service of educating physicians, attorneys and other industry professionals in the legal details of workers’ comp.
Farnsworth journeyed to Sacramento on March 16 to make a presentation at an annual event entitled “Current Issues in Workers’ Compensation.” The seminar series is produced by Montarbo Law, a Red Bluff-based attorney firm that specializes in continuing education in the workers’ comp field.
Arjuna Farnsworth
More than 100 industry professionals attended Farnsworth’s address, and hundreds more tuned in remotely to the live webinar format. His talk focused on the issue of “cumulative trauma” and the key role that “date of injury” determinations play in workers’ compensation judgments.
The possibility of a prior injury serving as a precursor to a fresh workers’ comp injury can be a significant point of contention between claimants and insurance companies representing employers. Establishing the exact date of an injury and any previous trauma that may have contributed to it has a substantial effect on apportioning payment responsibilities for medical and other bills.
Farnsworth returned to the inland area again on April 14, when he made a presentation to an audience comprised mostly of physicians treating workers’ compensation patients. The event was under the auspices of Exam Works, a provider of independent medical examinations and a host of other services for parties such as insurance carriers, law firms, third-party claims administrators and government agencies who require medical review of sick or injured persons under various insurance coverages.
Farnsworth has served on the faculty of Exam Works for a number of years. He addressed the topic of “apportionment,” which in workers’ comp cases involves the degree to which a given job injury may be “apportioned” to a past injury to the same body part. If the current injury is determined to be rooted in a past injury event, it can reduce the financial benefits payable by the worker’s current employer. A number of conditions must be met, however, for this to occur.
A 15-year veteran of the legal profession, Farnsworth earned his law degree from the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in 2003 and then passed the State Bar in the same year. He has been with Boxer & Gerson since 2006, where he has developed a particular fondness for teaching other legal professionals at educational seminars and conferences around the state.
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