Strong Association Exists Between AMA Guides Impairment Ratings and Earning Losses, But Losses Vary Significantly Across Body Regions, by  Robert G. Rassp, Esq. & Robin E. Kobayashi, J.D. A new major study funded by CHSWC focuses on the AMA Guides Fifth Edition in California but has implications for the AMA Guides Fourth and Sixth Editions used in other states. The study purports to quell the main criticism that the AMA Guides can only measure severity of impairment and not disability. The study examines whether there is a strong association between AMA-based impairment ratings and earnings losses for workers' comp claimants with permanent disabilities, thereby indicating that impairment ratings accurately reflect the effect of impairments on the ability to work. The study also examines...Read more.

The Lawyer's Guide to the AMA Guides and California Workers' Compensation, 2013 Edition, by Robert G. Rassp, Esq.

Now available in print and eBook at the LexisNexis Store.

How to rate permanent disability under both the 2005 PDRS and the new "2013 PDRS". 

Here's a sneak peek of a recent noteworthy panel decision that will be added to the LexisNexis services. Reminder: Be sure to check the subsequent history of a case before citing to it.

Attorney's Fees. WCAB, after previously declining to award applicant's attorneys requested § 5801 fees in amount of $51,900 because attorneys' declarations in support of fee request were inadequate, awarded fees in amount of $2,500 pursuant to § 5801 plus costs, rather than what WCAB determined to be a reasonable fee between $14,000 and $16,000, when WCAB,...continued

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CA: DWC Honors Wei, McNally With Carrie Nevans Community Service Awards.

CA: DWC Issues Notice of Hearings for Electronic Document Filing, Lien Filing Fee Rules.

CA: DWC Updates Fact Sheet, Address Questions on Benefits Notices, SB 863.

CA: DWC Posts Adjustments to OMFS to Conform to Medicare Changes.

CA: Construction Co. Settles DOT Workers' Comp False Claims Suit.

CA: SB 146 Would Change Pharmacy Billing Procedures.

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CA: Kern County's Workers Comp System Reported Broken Down.

Study Finds High Correlation Between Mental Illness and Smoking.

US Dept of Labor Cracks Down on Late Reporting of Deaths by Iraq War Contractors.

NCCI Posts Presentations From 2013 Data Educational Program.

AIA Releases Statement on Bill to Reauthorize Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.

exercising its discretion to award less than an otherwise reasonable fee or no fee at all if original attorney's fee request is unreasonably inflated, entirely disregarded additional, itemized declarations submitted by applicant's attorneys in response to NIT (lexis.com subscribers, see 2012 Cal. Wrk. Comp. P.D. LEXIS 526) based upon its finding that declarations were not credible (possibly even perjurous) and represented an inadequate after-the-fact-attempt to justify original unitemized fee request, especially since declarations claimed payment for legal services rendered in connection with petition for writ of review before petition was even mailed (based on proof of service) and before it presumably would have been received by attorneys in course of ordinary mail. See the latest Mota panel decision.