ANOTHER TEMP AGENCY SCAM

In what is becoming a common scam was seen in O'Donnell v. WCAB (2018) Cal. Wrk. PD Lexis 129 where a general employer/temp agency agreed to provide employees along with payroll services and work comp coverage to employees assigned to a special employer, but then obtains a work comp policy through a carrier that only covers the agency's clerical staff and none of its temp workers. In the present case, the temp agency obtained the policy through Hartford, who discovers the scam and cancels the policy effective in two months, during which time two claims are filed. Hartford denied liability because their policy did not cover the temp workers assigned by the general to the special employer.

As the initial issue pertained to "coverage", the matter was heard by an arbitrator who ruled that while the Hartford policy may have expressly included only clerical staff, the policy however failed to have any language excluding temp workers (as allowed under LC 2810 et al) and therefore the two claims filed prior to the policy's effective termination date are the responsibility of Hartford.

[ Comment: As this scam is prevalent, employers are advised to get actual copies of the work comp policies, and insurance carriers to have specified temp employee policy exclusions.]

AMA GUIDE USED TO DISALLOW PD COMBINATION ON WRIST

In Gutierrez v. WCAB (2018) Cal.Wrk.Comp Lexis 71, the PTP provided 8% PD for range of motion and 12% PD for grip loss on a right wrist injury. The WCAB upheld the WCJ who correctly noted that barring an Alvaraz/Guzman rationale, the AMA Guide disallows PD based upon both grip loss and range of motion loss on the same joint due to being completely duplicative.

[ Comment: Too often doctors ignore AMA Guide rules such as not being able to combine different factors such as pain with grip loss and/or range of motion loss, unless can show the complaints are unrelated.]