Court case Kilpatrick decided March 12, 2015

A recent court case was issued on March 12, 2015. In Kilpatrick the claimant sought to reopen a closed case based on new evidence. As part of his efforts claimant sought discovery of the insurers financial records of monetary gifts to any

Division or hearing office personnel including judges. This was denied as over-burdensome and became part of the appeal by claimant. The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision yet it concluded that all judges are subject to such disclosures despite the fact that no regulations have been set up on this. It concluded the claimants remedy is with the Division or hearing office not the court in denying claimants assertion of a denial of equal protection of the law. I question this conclusion when the claimant is denied disclosures by administrative inaction. Still unless this is appealed the Kilpatrick case does limit discovery. Every party truly may need discovery to ascertain the issues, the witnesses and the evidence. To me this includes any monetary favors provided to a judge. While bribery is unlikely and most judges are highly ethical I do believe such matters should be fully disclosed. Next, the claimant argued that the doctor rescinded his opinion that the claimant needed no further treatment with a new opinion based on new evidence. However the hearing judge decided that the case should not be reopened. The judge did not accept the doctors change of opinion. The judge believed the change was equivocal and not enough to justify reopening. Certainly a judge can weigh the evidence and absent an abuse of his discretion a judge's determination cannot be set aside. I disagree with this and would assert an outright rescinding should not be considered equivocal. Still you are encouraged to read the case yourself for all the details. There were other concerns but none to permit a favorable decision for the claimant. In this case the claimant lost his appeal unless he can get the Colorado Supreme Court to look at it.

SB 11-199

While this senate bill 11-199 is awaiting the governor's signature I expect it to become law. There are 4 provisions in the bill worth noting. First, it requires that the insurer pay costs in advance, if requested by the claimant, for an insurer IME or vocational evaluation. This means the cost for the claimant to travel, food and even a hotel must be paid or the claimant can refuse to attend. If they pay and claimant does not attend they can get an offset from future compensation due the claimant. Next, a Final Admission must admit for future recommended treatment by the authorized doctor unless there is a record of a contrary medical opinion. This prevents the insurer from disregarding physician maintenance treatment once the claimant reaches MMI. At times insurers never admit for further treatment even though its need is undisputed. A claimant may think or even be told by the doctor he can get further treatment only to be denied by the insurer and the bill seeks to avoid such a practice. Third,procedurally it corrects a discovery matter by not requiring those represented by an attorney to first ask permission before starting discovery. That extra step (documenting you asked permission) seemed just a waste of time and paper. Last, the bill makes it clear that any lump sum request regardless of the date of injury is not a waiver of the right to seek permanent total benefits. For those readers not familiar with the last issue the history of it is a claimant would receive an admission for permanent partial benefits of a certain amount, let us say $30000.00, and yet feel he was much more disabled so he'd seek permanent total disability benefits. Since by law the admission had to be paid out every other week the claimant sought it in a lump sum. That was deemed a waiver of his claim for permanent total benefits. The poor claimant was stopped in his tracks by accepting the lump sum perhaps just to pay bills and other expenses. You had to be careful to avoid this but the law has been changed. A total disability claim is no longer waived by accepting a lump sum.

Laptop Privacy an interesting Colorado case

On Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a case which addressed the privacy of materials on a party's laptop. While not a workers comp case it does involve issues of how much must be disclosed to the other side. It seems as if the Supreme Court is trying to balance the interests of requiring disclosure of pertinent information with the right of privacy. Since almost every case involves required disclosures it is an interesting case to read. In workers comp for example the other side always seeks as much of your past medical records as they can get their hands on. Sometimes however the disclosure is simply not relevant to the claim. For example should a female claimant be required to disclose or sign a release to disclose her ob/gyn records when the injury is to a wrist or back? Any disclosure just allows the other side to have more information. In the latest case the defendant was driving and it was alleged he was looking at his laptop when the traffic accident happened and someone was injured. The trial court ordered inspection of the laptop but in doing so left the defendant without protection from other matters on his laptop. The Supreme Court decided that the lower court must take steps to protect the privacy of the laptop contents except to show if it was being used at the time of the accident. View the case here.