Under the going and coming rule, travel to and from work ordinarily is not considered within the course and scope of employment, but travel undertaken as part of a special mission is. Here a prison employee would have ordinarily left work and traveled home after his regular shift ended at 10:00 p.m. on a Friday […]
Claim Of Equitable Tolling Of Statute Of Limitations While Plaintiff Pursued Her Work Comp Case.
Plaintiff fell from an outdoor balcony at the offices of her employer. Immediately she began receiving workers’ compensation benefits and later filed a claim with the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board seeking additional benefits. More than two years after the fall, she filed a superior court action for premises liability against the building owners. She alleged […]
Employer Says He Was Not An Employee And Doesn’t Pay Him, And Insurance Company Gets Off Because The Trial Court Said He Was An Employee.
Appellant is one of two truck drivers paid a lump sum for a cross-country haul. While appellant was sleeping, the other driver was in a one-vehicle accident, and the truck company refused to pay the lump sum because he did not finish the trip. The company also informed him he was not eligible for worker’s […]
Rating By Analogy In Workers’ Compensation Case.
An agreed medical examiner recommended characterizing a workers injury: “by analogy, it would be similar to an individual with a limp and arthritis.” The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board found a doctor could rate an impairment by analogy to other impairments which are rated in the guide used in workers’ compensation matters. The employer, a city, appealed, […]
No Compensation Or Indemnity In California For WNBA Athlete.
Athlete was drafted by the Cleveland Rockets, a professional basketball team in the Women’s National Basketball Association, WNBA. She later played for other teams, but never for any team in California. She played only one game in California, in 2003. She filed for Workers’ Compensation in California, alleging cumulative injuries, and was awarded disability indemnity. The […]
Workers’ Compensation Proceedings: There’s More Than One Way To . . .
Labor Code section 4605 gives employees the right to retain consulting or attending physicians at their own expense for workers’ compensation proceedings. Labor Code section 4616.3 requires the employer to notify the injured employee of the existence of medical provider networks [MPNs], as well as the employee’s right to change treating physicians within the network after the […]
CIGA Sent Packing In Workers’ Compensation Case.
Applicant in a Workers’ Compensation action was on the payroll of a company, but was working as a personal assistant for the president of the company. The company had one insurer and the president of the company had homeowner’s insurance with another insurer. Of course, there were arguments about who employed her, but the parties were […]
Patent Exhaustion Does Not Permit Farmer’s Practice.
Plaintiff company invented and patented genetically altered soybean seeds. It sells the seeds to farmers pursuant to a licensing agreement. A farmer purchased the seeds for his first crop, following the terms of the licensing agreement. But for the next crop, the farmer planted ordinary soybeans and used plaintiff’s alteration methods to achieve the same genetically […]
Workers Compensation Psychiatric Injury Award Annulled.
Labor Code section 3208.3, subdivision (h), states a psychiatric injury is not compensable “if the injury was substantially caused by a lawful nondiscriminatory, good faith personnel action.” In this case, the worker sustained psychiatric injury after encountering trouble at work. An agreed medical evaluator concluded the injury was not substantially caused by personnel actions, and the Workers […]
Summary Judgment For Employer Reversed On Worker’s Compensation Defense.
Plaintiff functioned as a volunteer employee for defendant. Defendant’s worker’s compensation insurance policy provided coverage for volunteers. On the day of the incident, according to plaintiff, plaintiff was not acting as a volunteer, but went to defendant’s business to visit a friend. Plaintiff claimed that while she was there, she was asked to go get somebody […]