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Is the "no fault" system of workers' compensation, in an "at will" employment state, the appropriate venue for determining whether termination was "for cause"?

Temporary Disability and the "For Cause" Termination. There are many cases where the employee seeks temporary disability benefits for a period of time after their termination. Invariably, the employer argues that they would have offered applicant modified duty had he not been terminated, and the employee argues that modified work was not offered and he should receive temporary disability benefits. As the WCAB is addressing an increasing number of these cases, these cases seem to turn on whether or not the employer's termination was "for cause". Recently, a panel of commissioners with the WCAB confronted just such an issue. > Read more.

The 2012 RIMS Annual Conference & Exhibition April 15-18 in Philadelphia is the lollapalooza of the risk management industry, what with its high energy, dynamic speakers, 120+ sessions, 10,000 attendees from 50 different countries, 400 exhibitors, and numerous networking opportunities. Find out how workers' comp defense attorneys and other attorneys can benefit by attending this event where they can get to know their clients better and learn how to be more valuable to them. And don't miss the brilliant keynote speakers: Billy Beane, the Oakland A's General Manager and subject of the bestselling book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and Walter Isaacson, author of the authorized biography, Steve Jobs, and President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. Listen to the 15-minute LexisNexis podcast of Scott Beckman, VP Claims, ISMIE Mutual Insurance Company and Chair of RIMS Conference Program Committee as he explains the takeaways for defense attorneys, or read excerpts of the podcast here.

Medical Provider Networks; Reimbursement for Self-Procured Medical Treatment. WCAB, reversing WCJ in split opinion, held that WCJ erred in finding that applicant was entitled to obtain medical treatment outside defendant's validly formed MPN because there was a lack of doctors within MPN willing to provide treatment, when WCAB found that (1) basis for WCJ's determination that there were no available physicians in defendant's MPN to provide applicant with medical treatment was WCJ's own involvement in gathering evidence for parties, including making telephone calls to four orthopedic surgeons on defendant's MPN list in applicant's geographic area, which WCAB determined not only failed to establish unavailability of physicians within MPN, but also constituted inappropriate conduct by WCJ as it is improper for WCJ to personally engage in discovery and draw legal conclusions from the facts, and (2) there was no admissible evidence to justify WCJ's finding that there were no available doctors within defendant's MPN willing to treat applicant. See Ponce De Leon panel decision.

Reminder: Be sure to check the subsequent history of a case before citing to it.