Yesterday I had an appearance in San Jose and then another up in San Rafael. From San Jose I drove up through San Francisco, northbound over the Golden Gate Bridge, to my appearance, then back over to Contra Costa County via the Richmond Bridge.1
Wait for it…
The Golden Gate is only toll southbound and the Richmond is only toll westbound. I traveled over two bridges and didn’t pay a single toll!
I was waiting on two attorneys walking through a settlement last week while at the Oakland Board. Applicant’s counsel had added some unusual language. 1 The Judge read it aloud to the hearing room:
Defendants shall make payment before Christmas.
Oh, and… the Applicant was Jewish. :)
This last weekend while attended a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Workers’ Compensation Section of the State Bar of California I referred to myself as a workers’ compensation nerd. 12
Some very kind, but ultimately uninformed, person assured me that I was not a nerd after all. 3 4 Let’s step back for a minute and examine the facts. At that very moment I was:
Clearly, we need to have a heart-to-heart about “substantial evidence.”
Well, last night I received an e-mail stating that they had seen this website and offered this retraction:
“I must actually withdraw my objection to your calling yourself a workers’ comp nerd.”
They must have seen my walk through posts.
I ran across this website a few days ago. It’s a website devoted to the homemade modifications firefighters make to their tools and gear to make their lives easier and fighting fires safer. 1 Hopefully a firefighter you know might find it useful.
Most of these modifications are simple and practical – and all are designed to help save a life. 2
If you happen to be at the WCAB in Stockton, stop by and say hello.
Chance are I’ll be there most of the day. Any good spots for lunch?
And my dream is to do four walk through settlements at three different WCAB district offices in one single day.12
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I even have a plan as to how to get this done. If I ever got the chance to do four walk throughs at four Boards in one day, I’d do it like this:
I honestly don’t even know if this is possible. 3 There are a million things that could go wrong. I could hit traffic, I could be missing a page from a benefits printout, someone could change their mind about the settlement, a doctor could issue a supplemental report. I also know that I would need a LOT of things to go right. Here’s my tentative checklist:
However, having done two walk through settlements in a single morning gives me hope.
I’ve been so busy lately I completely forgot to mention PDRater’s second birthday!1
This site was launched on July 23, 2007. For both of you who were using it back then, you remember it was an ugly ugly baby.
I’ve really enjoyed working on this website for the last two years. I use the word “work,” but I don’t really mean it. Building calculators, creating charts, and unraveling the mysteries of Ogilvie are my hobbies too. :)
What would you like to see from this website in the coming year? Please let me know in the comments or send me an e-mail. I already have several (more) new calculators in the pipeline, but I’m always open to ideas.
Last Wednesday I set another personal record. The last one I mentioned was doing two walk throughs at two different WCAB district offices in the same morning.
Wednesday I had to be in Novato, San Francisco, and then back at my office in Pleasant Hill. As a result, I traveled over three bridges in the same morning – San Rafael, Golden Gate, and Bay Bridges.
I guess paying $10.00 in bridge tolls in one day is also a record…1 I was all out of singles so the CHP officer at the Golden Gate Bridge gave me the stink-eye when I paid with a $100.00 bill.
Seriously, that guy was NOT happy. The officers at the Oakland Board are a lot friendlier.
A defense attorney friend of mine called me up yesterday to say (I’m paraphrasing here), “You jackass. Thanks to your Ogilvie proof every Applicant’s attorney I know is calling me up, gloating, and asking for 18 points on top of the whole person impairment on every case! Why the hell did you do that???”1 My first thought was of my favorite quote from Swingers.2 What I actually said was something along the lines of:
For the moment, let’s set aside the issue of whether California’s injured workers have gotten a raw deal since SB899. Suppose there’s an injured worker with a finger injury, stays on temporary disability for two years, and is immediately made permanent and stationary. If instead they get a 0% WPI, they get nothing. If they gets a 1% WPI, Ogilvie tells us this person gets a DFEC adjusted WPI of 19%.
Nearly every litigated case involves an extended period of temporary disability and a whole person impairment less than 45.4 Ogilvie effectively removes the first 18% permanent partial disability levels.
I really don’t think the WCAB intended this consequence. Don’t get upset with me – as long as Ogilvie is the law I might as well make Ogilvie calculations easy for you, right?5
