Employers are often caught off-guard when a Washington Department of Labor and Industries’ workers’ compensation audit results in a daunting Order of Assessment demanding back payment of industrial insurance premiums, penalties and accruing interest due to the misclassification of covered workers. Simply labeling a contractor as “independent” does not take away the workers’ compensation protections…

On remand from the Oregon Court of Appeals, the Oregon Workers’ Compensation Board recently found that although a combined condition had been accepted and a current combined condition denial issued, the material cause standard applied for determining compensability of a diagnostic MRI. In Daniel B. Slater,[1] the worker’s claim was accepted for a medial collateral…

To authorize or not to authorize? Authorization of treatment is a tricky issue for Washington self-insured employers trying to strike a balance between restoring an injured worker’s function and running afoul of Washington’s compensable consequences doctrine, which can hold an employer or insurer responsible for issues stemming from treatments provided under a claim. The Washington…

In a very disappointing decision for employers and insurers issued on August 8, 2019, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the presence of a legally cognizable preexisting condition is no longer sufficient to apportion permanent impairment in the absence of combined condition processing. In Caren v. Providence Health System Oregon, [1] the injured worker sustained a…

Members of the Firm’s Bellevue office participated in Defeat Multiple Myeloma held June 23rd at Magnuson Park on beautiful Lake Washington in Seattle to support research and awareness for multiple myeloma cancer at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.