Challenges to the Constitutionality of Worker’ Compensation programs, or components of such programs seems to be under unrelenting pressure from lawyers seeking to have courts declare the program to be unconstitutional under state or federal provisions.
California will be facing a ruling on June 29 in a case filed by Dr. Eduardo Anguizola – who is facing multiple counts of insurance fraud filed by Orange County prosecutors. He has filed a federal lawsuit that claims SB 1160 and Labor Code 4615, the anti-fraud law that took effect January 1, violates his rights to due process of law and to make a contract and to hire and pay his criminal defense attorneys, among other arguments.
His request for a preliminary injunction halting the provisions of SB 1160 is scheduled for hearing on June 29 before Federal Judge George H. Wu. Judge Wu previously ruled on the constitutional challenge to the re-instatement of the $100 lien filing fee as a result of SB 863 several years ago in the Angelotti Chiropractic case.
In 2015 the California Court of Appeal upheld the constitutionality of the IMR process in the publilshed case of Stevens v WCAB.
And earlier this year Daniel Ramirez also lost his constitutional challenge of the IRM/UR process. Ramirez wanted discovery to determine whether the doctor performing the independent medical review was biased or had a conflict of interest. His constitutional challenges were rejected in the published case of Ramirez v WCAB. On the constitutional challenges, the Court affirmed the prior decision of Stevens v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 1074 on these issues.
And there seems to be an abundance of such constitutional challenges across the nation.
This week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with the Mary Ann Protz v WCAB constitutional challenge to the AMA Guides. Protz argued that the Pennsylvania General Assembly unconstitutionally delegated to the AMA the authority to establish criteria for evaluating permanent impairment. The Supreme court held that it does.
And there are numerous other examples.
In 2016 the Oklahoma Supreme Court dealt several blows to the state’s 2013 workers’ comp overhaul by finding unconstitutional a provision of the Oklahoma Administrative Workers’ Compensation Act pertaining to the deferral of permanent partial disability benefits. In Maxwell v. Sprint PCS, (Case Number: 113898), which is representative of a class of several companion cases, the Court ruled that “scheduled members are exempt from the AMA Guides under the Administrative Workers’ Compensation Act,” and that the permanent partial disability deferral provision of statute “is an unconstitutional violation of due process.” In state statute, the term “scheduled member” includes body parts such as arms, legs, toes, fingers, etc.
Last month Circuit Judge Pat Ballard found two provisions of the Alabama workers’ compensation law – the $220 a week cap in compensation for injured workers, and the 15 percent cap on attorneys fees – unconstitutional in the case of Nora Clower vs. CVS Caremark. And because one or more provisions of the law were found unconstitutional, the entire act was struck down. Ballard stayed the order for 120 days to give the Alabama Legislature time to act.
And of course Florida has had an array of constitutional problems. A recent Stetson Law Review article points out that In over three-quarters of a century many constitutional challenges to the Florida Act have arisen. The three main arguments have invariably implicated the rights to equal protection, due process, and access to courts. And last year The state of Florida’s workers’ compensation system suffered another blow when the Florida Supreme Court ruled another part of the state’s workers’ compensation insurance system is unconstitutional.
In a 5-2 decision in the case of Bradley Westphal v City of St. Petersburg the Florida Supreme Court recently struck down a law limiting payments to injured workers for two years, instead ordering that the payments for injured workers should last five years.
On June 29 California will discover if it can withstand its third constitutional challenge to workers’ compensation law in the same number of years.