No, Seriously, It’s Free
To this day, most of the e-mails I receive are from people asking me some variation of “No, really, how much does it cost to use these calculators? When am I going to be charged? What’s the catch?”
I intend to keep all the calculators free for anyone who cares to use them. I have built this website because I really do enjoy the hell out of blogging about tech stuff and workers’ comp law, dissecting complex workers’ compensation math formulas, and building something useful to myself and other professionals. This is quite literally how I spend my free time. I’m just that nerdy.
Tacks Day Again
Tacks Day is upon us once again.
On the plus side, the Post Office will be open late.
Always a silver lining, eh?
WCAB Solicits Amicus Briefs on Weiner VR Repeal Case
The WCAB has just issued an “Order Allowing Amicus Briefs” (en banc) in the Weiner v. Ralph’s Company case.1 The Weiner case is about the effect of the legislature’s repeal of Labor Code Section 139.5 as of January 1, 2009. The repeal of this statute may have the effect of terminating all rights to vocational rehabilitation.
For the curious, you can download a copy of the Order Allowing Amicus Briefs (en banc) here:
- Order Allowing Amicus Briefs Lawrence Weiner v. Ralph’s Company, Permissibly Self-Insured and Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc. (Adjusting Agent) ADJ 347040, MON 0305426 (en banc) (4/16/2009)
The Board is allowing until May 11, 2009 for any interested party to file their own amicus brief on these Weiner vocational rehabiltiation issues.
Bench & Bar Committee: Suggestions?
I was recently invited to participate on the Oakland Bench & Bar Committee. The first meeting of the rejuvenated committee is going to take place tomorrow. 12
The committee includes a wide variety of stakeholders from the community – applicant, defense, lien claimants, and judges. The purpose of this committee is to foster discussion of issues of concern to the WCAB Oakland district office and the community.
Ideas?
I realize this is short notice, but is there a topic/issue you would like brought up at the bench and bar meeting tomorrow? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail!
- Nothing fancy – everyone’s bringing their own brown bag lunch. [↩]
- Photo courtesy of zappowbang. [↩]
Ogilvie, Almaraz, & Guzman: Reconsideration Granted! Amicus Briefs Allowed!
Sometimes even the WCAB needs more time to think.1
On March 26, 2009, the director of the Department of Industrial Relations, John C. Duncan, issued a letter to the entire Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board asking them to vacate their own decisions and solicit argument and amicus briefs. Here’s a copy, courtesy of WCExec.com, the Letter from Director of DIR to WCAB re: Ogilvie and Almaraz/Guzman (3/26/2009).
On Monday April 6, 2009 the WCAB issued three Orders Granting Reconsideration and Order Allowing Amicus Briefs (en banc) in Ogilvie and Almaraz/Guzman. For your review:
- Order Granting Reconsideration and Order Allowing Amicus Briefs on Wanda Ogilvie v. City and County of San Francisco, ADJ1177048, SFO 0487779, (en banc) (4/6/2009)
- Order Granting Reconsideration and Order Allowing Amicus Briefs on Mario Almaraz v. Environmental Recovery Services (a.k.a. ENVIROSERVE) and State Compensation Insurance Fund, ADJ1078163, BAK 0145426 (en banc) (4/6/2009) and Joyce Guzman v. Milpitas Unified School District and Keenan & Associates, ADJ3341185, SJO 0254688 (en banc) (4/6/2009)
What does the Order Granting Reconsideration of Ogilvie and Almaraz/Guzman mean for you?
- Ogilvie and Almaraz/Guzman are still the law. Despite Commissioner Aghazarian’s two concurring opinions, the WCAB did not issue a stay of either Ogilvie or Almaraz/Guzman.
- The WCAB has granted SCIF’s petition for reconsideration in Almaraz, granting reconsideration on their own motion in Guzman, and the parties’ petitions for reconsideration in Ogilvie. They have granted reconsideration on these cases to, “afford us a sufficient opporutnity to study the issues.”2
- Any interested party may file an amicus brief no later than May 1, 2009 at 5pm.
- Photo courtesy of radiospike photography [↩]
- Hence, the “The Thinker” reference above… [↩]
Suggestions for the Ogilvie Calculator
I was recently sent feedback about the Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculator on this website. 1 Here’s how I’ve incorporated that feedback:
- Inputs. The calculator results repeats the inputs with the results. This ensures that the answer provided gives you enough context when showing the calculation to the other side or when you go back to review your file.
- Email. You can now e-mail your calculations to yourself.
- Links. I’ve added a link to the various Employment Development Department and U.S. Dept of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics inside the calculator itself. It doesn’t automatically obtain the information, but hopefully you will find this helpful.
There are two other issues I’m thinking about:
- An easy way to pull up the FEC rank of a particular body part. Its kind of a pain to look up the body part, find the FEC rank, and then enter that into the calculator. I’m thinking ways to simplify this process. This shouldn’t be too bad to write.
- Rating using the Ogilvie DFEC adjusted whole person impairment. This one will prove to be a difficult one to write in an intuitive fashion.
How would you change these calculators? What else would you like to see? What do you hate about them? Shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment!
- Photo courtesy of biketrouble [↩]
Calculator Useability Update
You may have noticed a few cosmetic changes in the look of the workers’ compensation calculators. 1 It turns out that some of the calculators are getting a LOT more use than others.
- In order to make them a easier to use, I’ve re-ordered all of the calculators in rough order of popularity. 2 Hopefully you’ll find this helpful. Eventually I plan to separate out all of the EAMS related search functions from the actual benefits calculators.
- I’ve found that when you click to expand a calculators it would cause the entire page to scroll to the top. I’ve fixed this.
Send me an e-mail and let me know or leave a comment!
- Photo courtesy of Sock Monkey Photography [↩]
- This change only affects the order in which you see the calculators and has nothing to do with how they work. [↩]
New Ogilvie DFEC Rebuttal Calculator feature!
Late last week a user asked for a new feature.1 He wanted to be able to perform the Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculation and have the results e-mailed to him.2 Well, I built it!3
To e-mail yourself a calculation, perform the calculation as normal. When the website returns your calculation, it will say “E-mail Me!” Just click that button and it will send an e-mail to the address you used to register for this website.
However, here’s the cool part: I’ve installed this new e-mail system into every calculator! 4 No more having to copy and paste! Just click one button and your calculation will show up in your inbox!5
Although I intend this to be a paid-subscription-only feature, I am going to leave it open for all users while I get some feedback. So, what do you think? Please leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail!
- Thanks Dennis! [↩]
- Photo courtesy of Vernhart [↩]
- Why, what did you do with your Saturday morning? [↩]
- I haven’t installed it in some of the EAMS lookup functions [↩]
- If you filled in the boxes for Applicant, WCAB #, and File #, it will include this information in your e-mail as well. This is only for your convenience and not a requirement. [↩]
WordPress – Not Just For Kids Any More!
A friend of mine owns and operates a number of websites – all of which run on ASP/.NET/MS-SQL servers. He knows what he’s talking about, but he’s fairly dismissive of WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.
All this time I’ve been raving about WordPress, telling him that you can basically do anything with it. I’ve mentioned how easy it is to use, how easy it is to maintain, its open source, how many global corporations use WordPress to build their websites, how its the tool of choice for so many designers, and how huge the WordPress community is.
In the meantime, he’s referring to his millions of rows in his “real-SQL, MicroSoft SQL” database. I believe he’s been stuck thinking of PHP and MySQL as “kiddie” stuff, just not ready for big time.
That is, he’s been dismissive of WordPress until about two months ago. In the last two months other people (SEO consultants, professional designers) have been raving about WordPress to him too.
I think he’s finally coming around.