Workers Comp Zone

A Partner at Boxer & Gerson LLP, Julius Young has practiced worker’s compensation law and social security disability law since 1979. He has represented thousands of individuals who have sustained life-changing injuries or illnesses while on the job. In every case, his goal is to secure the medical treatments his clients need.

September 11, 2017

AB 570 HEADING TO THE GOVERNOR

AB 570 is heading to the governor, where it faces a dubious future. The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, is a slimmed down effort to ban gender bias in California workers’ compensation. The concept is rather simple. Labor Code Section 4663 would be amended to add a provision that “No percentage of an […]


August 30, 2017

ZALEWSKI GETS THE CHAIR

Governor Brown has now promoted WCAB Commissioner Katherine Zalewski to the slot of Chair of the California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The slot of WCAB Chairperson has been open for over a year following the departure of Ronnie Caplane. Frankly, it was surprising that the slot had been left open so long. A bit of […]


August 24, 2017

TO BE? NO, NOT TO BE

A bill to reform the $120 Million Return to Work Fund is dead for this year. The bill, AB 553 (carried by Tom Daly of Anaheim), will become a “two year bill”, meaning it may resurface next year. This week’s scheduled Senate Appropriations hearing on the bill was canceled. The bill was designed to address the […]


August 17, 2017

WCIRB RELEASES 2017 STATE OF THE SYSTEM REPORT

The WCIRB has now issued its 2017 report on the state of the California workers’ comp system (the report can be found at the bottom of this post). If you’re headed to a desert island and want to take along one resource for understanding California workers’ comp now, this is probably the best choice. As […]


August 9, 2017

STEVENS CASE UPDATE

In late June the WCAB issued a clarifying decision in Frances Stevens V. Outspoken Enterprises (State Compensation Insurance Fund) (link at end of this post). The decision reaffirms the WCAB’s determination that a former home health care guideline, the 2009 MTUS guideline on home health care, is void ab initio. SCIF filed a writ petition on 8/1/17: […]


August 3, 2017

TESLA

About a year and a half ago I toured the Tesla factory in Fremont. What an eye opener. Our office has represented auto workers at that plant for decades. That means going back to the old General Motors operation there. After that, we handled workers at New United Motor (NUMMI), the joint venture between GM and […]


July 27, 2017

FORMING THE FORMULARY

What will the California workers’ comp drug formulary look like? We didn’t get an answer by July 1, 2017, the date mandated by AB 1124, passed in 2015. But the DWC is making strides in putting the formulary in place. Stakeholders with an interest in this will probably want to pay close attention, as the […]