Karen C. Yotis, our Feature Resident Columnist, provides insights into workplace issues and the nuts and bolts of the workers' comp world. 

It's been a full decade since the 2004 enactment of SB899 turned California Labor Code §§ 4663 and 4664 on their respective heads (and almost as long since the California Supreme Court in Brodie v. WCAB (2007) 40 Cal. 4th 1313, 72 Cal. Comp. Cases 565 overturned 36 years of case law). But even though this diametrically changed era of apportionment doesn't really qualify as 'new' any longer, it was nevertheless standing room only during the presentation that Raymond F. Correio, Senior Associate with Pearlman, Borska & Wax, and Mark L. Kahn, of Altman, Lunche & Blitstein, PC, gave on the topic at the recent Division of Workers' Compensation's 22nd Annual Educational Conference in Los Angeles...read more.

With commentary by Robert G. Rassp, Esq.

In Murphy v. Petsmart, Inc., 2015 Cal. Wrk. Comp. P.D. LEXIS --, a split panel WCAB rescinded the WCJ's order awarding a maximum 25 percent penalty under Labor Code § 5814 for the defendant's delay in providing dental treatment to an applicant cashier who suffered an industrial injury to her right foot and psyche, and held instead that the defendant did not act unreasonably when it refused to make an advance payment of $25,600 to the applicant's treating physician, Dr. Evans, for oral surgery and dental implants approximately seven months after the proposed dental treatment was requested and approved by the defendant's utilization review...read more.