Author: WorkCompAcademy

Munir Uwaydah was an orthopedic surgeon well known as a treating physician in California workers’ compensation cases. He has been charged as the ringleader in one of California’s biggest health fraud schemes, which included unnecessary operations by an untrained assistant that scarred patients forever, according to indictments unsealed in Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey alleged in a case filed in 2015 that Uwaydah and 14 associates, including another doctor and a lawyer, bilked insurance companies out of $150 million in the scheme.

The fraud indictment also names Uwaydah’s business associate Kelly Soo Park, who was acquitted in a sensational murder trial several years ago of strangling the doctor’s ex-girlfriend, college student and aspiring model Juliana Redding.

During that murder trial, prosecutors had described Park as a “female James Bond” who was hired to kill Uwaydah’s former girlfriend Redding because of a failed business deal between Redding’s father, who is an Arizona pharmacist, and Uwaydah. The doctor was never charged in the murder case and denied any involvement in the killing.

Redding was strangled in Santa Monica in 2008. Karen Thompson of the Santa Monica Police Department was the lead investigator on the murder case. Prosecutors alleged that Park strangled Redding with her bare hands and left overwhelming DNA evidence on the body and around the apartment. They say that Uwaydah who had dated Redding gave Park a six-figure payment to kill her after a business deal soured with Redding’s father.

Prosecutors alleged in the murder case that Park turned on a gas stove and lit candles in an effort to blow up the apartment after strangling the victim and dragging her scratched and bruised body into the bedroom.

Prosecutors during the murder trial had presented a link between Park and Uwaydah, alleging she had received $250,000 before Redding’s killing from Uwaydah, who was her employer at the time. Over the next 18 months, Park or her company received another $750,000 from Uwaydah’s company, according to the prosecutors.

Park is now accused in the pending fraud case of being the office manager and personal assistant to Uwaydah who ran Frontline Medical Associates, which prosecutors allege served as a front to fraudulently bill more than $150 million to insurance companies.

But Kelly Soo Park bites back.

Before her trial on murder charges, the judge ruled that she would not allow Park to present any evidence of third party culpability for the murder after Park’s key witness on that question, Melissa Ayala, invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege and refused to testify when subpoenad as a witness.

As part of her criminal defense, Park sought to introduce evidence that Redding’s killer was actually John Gilmore, the victim’s boyfriend at the time of her death. Gilmore had a history of domestic violence and had previously assaulted Redding.

Park’s investigator interviewed Gilmore’s former girlfriend, Melissa Ayala. During that interview, Ayala told the investigator that Gilmore had been violent toward her and had choked her on at least three occasions. According to Ayala, the first of these incidents occurred after Ayala brought up Redding’s death and accused Gilmore of murdering Redding.

After learning of this potentially exculpatory evidence, Park gave notice to the District Attorney of her intention to call Ayala as a defense witness at trial. Detective Thompson then contacted Ayala and allegedly attempted to dissuade her from testifying for the defense. Park alleges that Thompson later spoke with the El Segundo Police Department about filing charges against Ayala for assault and criminal threats against Gilmore based on an incident that had occurred during the previous year.

After her acquittal, Park sued City of Santa Monica Police Detective Karen Thompson alleging that Thompson violated her constitutional rights by intimidating and attempting to dissuade Ayala from testifying on behalf of the defense. Park asserted that Thompson orchestrated criminal charges against Ayala with the intention that Ayala invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to testify on Park’s behalf.

The federal district court dismissed Parks lawsuit against Thompson for failure to state a claim. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this month in the published case of Kelly Soo Park v Karen Thompson.

The majority opinion concluded that “Park’s complaint alleged facts that are “suggestive” of an agreement to engage in “illegal conduct” and reinstated the complaint. Park will now proceed with her case against Detective Thompson.

Hyok Kwon, owner of Good Neighbor Services, a janitorial company that provided services to some of San Diego’s most exclusive hotels and resorts pleaded guilty this week to seven felonies, including premium and employment tax fraud in an elaborate scheme to avoid paying workers’ compensation insurance premiums and employment taxes.

Kwon stipulated to an eight-year prison sentence and to pay restitution exceeding $5 million.

Woo Hui Kwon pleaded guilty on December 6, 2016 to two counts of premium fraud and two counts of employment tax fraud. She was sentenced to four years and eight months, and restitution that totaled over $5 million to insurance carriers and Employment Development Department.

The two defendants own a janitorial company that provides cleaning staff to major hotels across San Diego, Los Angeles and Riverside Counties, including The Hotel Del Coronado, Loews Coronado, La Costa Resort and Spa, The Grand Del Marin La Jolla, L’Auberge Del Mar, The Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, Hilton and Hyatt hotel chains.

The Kwons were indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of workers’ compensation premium fraud, 18 counts of payroll tax evasion and one count of extortion.

The investigation uncovered a methodical and systematic shell game involving six straw owners. These straw owners were used to conceal the existence of hundreds of hotel workers to avoid paying millions of dollars in insurance premiums and payroll taxes. If convicted of all charges, they each would have faced up to 31 years in prison.

For nearly a decade, Good Neighbor Services concealed their real payroll information in order to fraudulently obtain workers’ compensation insurance from multiple companies including Travelers, Norguard, AIG, Southern Insurance, Everest National, Preferred Employers, State Compensation Insurance Fund and Employers Compensation Insurance.

Employees who were interviewed said they were paid with checks bearing the name of businesses other than Good Neighbor Services throughout the course of their employment, even though they wore uniforms with the Good Neighbor Services’ logo and identified the Kwons as the owners.

The employees also said they did not receive overtime pay or workers’ compensation benefits when they were injured on the job, and they feared retaliation if they reported their injuries. One employee said she had to repeatedly ask for medical attention for her injury. When she was finally sent to a doctor, she found out later the Kwons sent her to a dentist rather than a physician.

Six co-defendants have also been charged with workers’ compensation premium fraud and tax evasion. They are Melquiades Brizuela Jr., Manuel Rodriguez, Veronica Lucas Cuin, Aimee Sunmyung Kwon, Daniel Kwon and Hyun Bung Chae for their involvement in the scheme.

The San Diego District Attorney worked with the California Department of Insurance, Employment Development Department, Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, and Department of Industrial Relations to bring this complicated, underground economy case to light. The extensive amount of fraud would not have been uncovered without the efforts of these community partners.

Employees of Monsanto Co ghostwrote scientific reports that U.S. regulators relied on to determine that a chemical in its Roundup weed killer does not cause cancer, farmers and others suing the company claimed in court filings.

The documents, which were made public on Tuesday, are part of a mass litigation in federal court in San Francisco claiming Monsanto failed to warn that exposure to Roundup could cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer. Roundup is used by farmers, homeowners and others around the globe and brought Monsanto $4.8 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2015.

In the event California farm workers file cancer related industrial injury claims based on exposure to Monsanto farming products, this federal litigation may give rise to subrogation opportunities. Or, successful recoveries in this case by farm workers may later become the basis for benefit credit petitions in individual WCAB cases they may later file.

The company has denied that the product causes cancer. Plaintiffs claim that Monsanto’s toxicology manager ghostwrote parts of a scientific report in 2013 that was published under the names of several academic scientists, and his boss ghostwrote parts of another in 2000.

Both reports were used by the EPA to determine that glyphosate, a chemical in Roundup, was safe, they said.

They cited an email from a Monsanto executive proposing to ghostwrite parts of the 2013 report, saying, “we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing” while researchers “would just edit & sign their names so to speak.”

In an email to Reuters, a Monsanto spokeswoman denied that Monsanto scientists ghostwrote the 2000 report but did not directly address the 2013 report. She said the ghostwriting allegations were based on “cherry-picking” one email out of 10 million pages of documents.

Another filing focused on Jess Rowland, a former deputy director at the Environmental Protection Agency who chaired a committee on cancer risk and who plaintiffs say worked with Monsanto to suppress studies of glyphosate.

The filing includes an email from a Monsanto employee recounting how Rowland told him he “should get a medal” if he could “kill” a study of glyphosate at the Department of Health and Human Services, a separate federal agency.

Rowland, who is retired, is not a defendant in the litigation. He could not immediately be located for comment. The EPA had no immediate comment.

The federal mass litigation includes about 60 lawsuits, according to Aimee Wagstaff, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Several hundred more lawsuits are pending in state courts, she said.

Monsanto is also fending off claims over its past manufacturing of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which the WHO classifies as known carcinogens. At least 700 lawsuits against Monsanto or Monsanto-related entities are pending, brought by law firms on behalf of people who claim their non-Hodgkin lymphoma was caused by exposure to PCBs that the company had manufactured until the late 1970s.

The case is In re Roundup Products Liability Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-md-02741.

Theodore Davis filed two applications for adjudication of his workers’ compensation claim alleging he contracted prostate cancer due to both specific industrial exposure and as a cumulative trauma injury through March 31, 2014, while performing his duties as a firefighter for the City of Modesto.

The parties selected Thomas Allems, M.D., as the panel Qualified Medical Examiner (QME) during the discovery process. Dr. Allems produced two medical-legal reports concluding Davis’s cancer was not related to his employment.

At his own expense, Davis hired Gerald Besses, M.D., to review Dr. Allems’s reports and to evaluate him regarding the causation of his prostate cancer. Davis forwarded Dr. Besses’ reporting to Dr. Allems with a request to prepare a supplemental report addressing Dr. Besses’ evaluation, but Modesto objected and filed a declaration of readiness to proceed to a hearing, claiming the request was an attempt to violate the workers’ compensation discovery process.

The WCJ concluded Dr. Besses’ report was not admissible because it was not obtained pursuant to section 4060 (Batten v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 1009 (Batten)), but that the report may nevertheless be reviewed and commented on by Dr. Allems as the QME pursuant to Labor Code 4605.

LC 4605 provides that “Nothing contained in this chapter shall limit the right of the employee to provide, at his or her own expense, a consulting physician or any attending physicians whom he or she desires. Any report prepared by consulting or attending physicians pursuant to this section shall not be the sole basis of an award of compensation. A qualified medical evaluator or authorized treating physician shall address any report procured pursuant to this section and shall indicate whether he or she agrees or disagrees with the findings or opinions stated in the report, and shall identify the bases for this opinion.”

Modesto petitioned the WCAB for reconsideration. In a July 15, 2016, opinion, the WCAB treated the petition as one for removal, granted removal, dismissed reconsideration, and rescinded the WCJ’s decision concluding that Dr. Besses’ report was  not reviewable by the QME

Davis filed a petition for writ of review. In addition to an answer from Modesto, the WCAB filed a letter brief stating it had reviewed the petition and determined it failed to address Labor Code section 4605 in its October 3, 2016, decision. Accordingly, the WCAB asked the court to grant the petition for review, annul the WCAB’s decision, and remand to the WCAB for further proceedings.

The Court of Appeal granted a writ of review in the unpublished decision of Davis v WCAB, and the City of Modesto. The WCAB’s October 3, 2016, Opinion and Orders Denying Petition for Reconsideration and Dismissing Petition for Removal was annulled. The matter was remanded to the WCAB to conduct any further proceedings it deems appropriate.

“Given the WCAB’s admission it did not consider section 4605, which is also apparent from the face of its October 3, 2016, opinion, we conclude the WCAB’s decision fails to ‘state the evidence relied upon and specify in detail the reasons for the decision’ as required under section 5908.5. ‘The purpose of this section requiring the appeals board to specify in detail the reasons for its decision is to assist the reviewing court to ascertain principles relied upon by the lower tribunal to help avoid careless or arbitrary action and to make the right of appeal more meaningful.’ (Burbank Studios v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1982) 134 Cal.App.3d 929, 936.) The WCAB’s failure to set forth its reasoning in adequate detail constitutes a sufficient basis to annul the decision and remand for a statement of reasons.”

Physical therapy is as effective as surgery in treating carpal tunnel syndrome, according to a new study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy® (JOSPT®).

Researchers in Spain and the United States report that one year following treatment, patients with carpal tunnel syndrome who received physical therapy achieved results comparable to outcomes for patients who had surgery for this condition. Further, physical therapy patients saw faster improvements at the one-month mark than did patients treated surgically.

Carpal tunnel syndrome causes pain, numbness, and weakness in the wrist and hand. Nearly half of all work-related injuries are linked to this syndrome, which can result from repetitive movements. Although surgery may be considered when the symptoms are severe, more than a third of patients do not return to work within eight weeks after an operation for carpal tunnel syndrome.

The study demonstrates that physical therapy – and particularly a combination of manual therapy of the neck and median nerve and stretching exercises – may be preferable to surgery, certainly as a starting point for treatment.

“Conservative treatment may be an intervention option for patients with carpal tunnel syndrome as a first line of management prior to or instead of surgery,” says lead author César Fernández de las Peñas, PT, PhD, DMSc, with the Department of Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Rehabilitation, and Physical Medicine at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Alcorcón, Spain.

Dr. de las Peñas and his fellow researchers studied the cases of 100 women with carpal tunnel syndrome. By random allocation, 50 women were treated with physical therapy and 50 with surgery. Patients assigned to the physical therapy group were treated with manual therapy techniques that focused on the neck and median nerve for 30 minutes, once a week, with stretching exercises at home.

After one month, the patients in the physical therapy group had better hand function during daily activities and better grip strength (also known as pinch strength between the thumb and index finger) than the patients who had surgery. At three, six, and 12 months following treatment, patients in the surgery group were no better than those in the physical therapy group. Both groups showed similar improvements in function and grip strength. Pain also decreased similarly for patients in both groups. The researchers conclude that physical therapy and surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome yield similar benefits one year after treatment. No improvements in cervical range of motion were observed in either patient group.

The researchers caution that because the study only included women from a single hospital, additional research needs to be done to generalize their findings. Further, there are no available data on the most effective dosage for the manual therapy protocol applied.

The study was funded by a research project grant (FIS PI14/ 00364) from the Health Institute Carlos III (PN I+D+I 2014-2017; Spanish Government).