Source: http://www.workerscompzone.com/2009/01/24/live-blogging-from-caaa-san-diego/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 04:42:09+00:00

Document:
I’m at the winter Applicants Attorney Conference in San Diego.
First up is a discussion of the Hertz (Aguilar) case.
-CAAA is requesting that Aguilar be depublished.
-The court’s treatment of writ denied cases as legal precedent is troubling. Aguilar marks a big departure from LeBoeuf, which looked at the impact of THIS injury on THIS worker.
-If it stands, Aguilar will open the gate for consideration of all kinds of factors: how tall is the applicant? does he have a diploma? Every worker has a different situation with respect to some limitations.
Now they’ve moved on to talk about the Sandhagen case, decided by the California Supreme Court.
-the applicant can still go to court on the treater’s report if the pre-UR medical report is strong enough; but it’s a strategy concern if you have to go back to get a supplemental treater report clarifying the treating request and in that event will you run into problems at the board?
-the applicant in Rubio denied the existence of an earlier award; the defendant could not locate a copy of the alleged award. The court noted that if a prior award exists, under Kopping vs. WCAB, the defendant has the burden of establishing overlap. Also, the defendant had the burden of proof to establish a prior award and the percentage attributable to the earlier award.
-note that there is an old pre AMA system and then under the AMA for a back injury there is ROM and DRE used to rate impairment.
The discussion moves to Barr v. WCAM and SIBTF v. WCAM (Dorigo).
-these cases involve the issue of costs of presentation of vocational expert testimony on diminished future earning capacity. In Dorigo the court granted the applicant’s petition, finding that the board improperly failed to exercise its discretion to award costs for the fees of the vocational expert.
-not being able to get the costs paid up front puts the woker and attorney at a disadvantage; but the other side of the coin is that the case is not developed at that point.
The discussion moves to Safaeipour v. Sierracin Corp. 36 CWCR 258.
-in this case the panel QME had found a compensable psych injury. Afterwards, defendant hired a lawyer, who sought to depose the treating doctor. Defendant sought removal where the judge had refused to allow the defense attorney to depose the treating doctor’s opinion (the treater’s notes were illegible). The WCAB granted removal, ordering further discovery.
-it’s not clear whether there were due diligence problems but those could dictate a different result if defendant did not pursue its discovery in a timely fashion.
Up for discussion next is L.A. County Professional Peace Officer Association v. County of Los Angeles (73 CCC 1235). The panel notes that in this case the worker sought to sue in Superior Court where the employer dealt with accrued vacation pay differently for individuals on industrial leave than for employees who had non-industrial disability. The case is significant because Labor Code 132 was held to be not the only remedy. The worker could pursue a separate civil remedy.
The panel then mentions Tapia v. Skill Master Staffing, 73 CCC 1339. The lien claimant has the burden of establishing the reasonableness of their charges. An unsupported billing in and of itself does not establish reasonableness, even if the insurer presented no rebuttal evidence.
Judge Mark Kahn notes that the lien claimant misapplied the Kunz case on liens (Kunz is 67 CCC 1588). $22,00 for 3 hours of surgery seemed unreasanable on its face and in Tapia the WCAB upheld an award of $4,700 to the surgery center.
Mark Kahn notes that the VR survival issue is coming up soon in cases in Los Angeles. Some have argued that VR survives via Godinez and the reference to “ghost statutes”. Since Kahn will be sitting as a judge on cases, he does not want to give his current thoughts on whether the statutes extinguished rehab rights that existed before 1/1/09.
Now they discuss Lane V. Zurich American, 36 CWCR 254. Under Lane, the applicant can seek treatment outside the MPN but it will be at his own expense if he was provided adequate notice of the existence of the MPN.
Also under discussion: Ramirez vs. Drive Financial Services & One Beacon Insurance Company, 73 CCC 1324.
Bill Herreras notes this is an important case setting forth the standard for setting penalty amounts under Labor Code 5814(b). The decision noted that the amount of a penalty is discretionary and sets forth a number of factors for the judge to consider in determining a penalty.
Heading toward the end of their program, they move to issues regarding rebuttal of the 2005 PDRS.
Note is made of Rosendin Electric v. WCAB (Bojorquez) 73 CCC 1123, where the board panel suggested a future roadmap on DFEC issues might be coming in future decisions.
Capurro notes that an unpublished panel decision in the Arledge case (not sure if I have spelled it correctly, but it was written by Commissioner Lowe) is significant. CAAA has a copy and will be circulating it. In that case, the app put on DFEC testimony that the 39% rating did not reflect the diminished future earning capacity.The trial judge, who rejected the DFEC rebuttal analsysis, had noted the expert relied on functional capacity information that was not reviewed or commented on by any doctor. The board panel apparently agreed. The Arledge decision may shed some light on how the WCAB will deal with DFEC issues.
That’s the report from San Diego this afternoon.

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