Category: Daily News

The federal judicial branch of government announced that beginning on Monday, Oct. 20, it will no longer have funding to sustain full, paid operations. Until the ongoing lapse in government funding is resolved, federal courts will maintain limited operations necessary to perform the Judiciary’s constitutional functions.

Federal judges will continue to serve, in accordance with the Constitution, but court staff may only perform certain excepted activities permitted under the Anti-Deficiency Act.

The Anti-Deficiency Act is a key piece of legislation that ensures federal agencies adhere to the financial guidelines set by Congress. It prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation, and from accepting voluntary services. The Act is codified at 31 U.S.C. § 1341 (a) (1) (A) and § 1342, and it is enforced to prevent the incurring of obligations or expenditures that exceed the amounts available in appropriations or funds. Violations of the Act can lead to administrative and penal sanctions, including fines, imprisonment, or both.

Examples of excepted work include activities necessary to perform constitutional functions under Article III, activities necessary for the safety of human life and protection of property, and activities otherwise authorized by federal law. Excepted work will be performed without pay during the funding lapse. Staff members not performing excepted work will be placed on furlough.

Each appellate, district, and bankruptcy court will make operational decisions regarding how its cases and probation and pretrial supervision will be conducted during the funding lapse. Each court and federal defender’s office will determine the staffing resources necessary to support such work.

Anyone with Judiciary business should direct questions to the appropriate clerk of court’s office, probation and pretrial supervision office, or federal defender organization, or consult their websites. Find contact information and websites for federal court units.

Other shutdown information:

– – The Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system will remain in operation for electronic filing of documents. Case information will be available on PACER.
– – Individual courts will determine which cases will continue on schedule, and which may be delayed.
– – The jury program is funded by money not affected by the appropriations lapse and will continue to operate. Jurors should follow instructions from courts and report to courthouses as directed.
– – The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which maintains this website on behalf of the Judiciary, will not have staffing to answer the AO’s public telephone number. View contact information for the Administrative Office during the funding lapse.

A government-wide shutdown began Oct. 1. The Judiciary was able to continue paid operations through Oct. 17, with limited additional work performed over the weekend of Oct. 18-19, using court fee balances and other funds not dependent on a new appropriation.

On August 1, 2022, Cal/OSHA issued a citation to Uber Technologies Inc., pursuant to Labor Code section 6317, subdivision (a), identifying three alleged regulatory violations during the period April 29, 2022 to August 1, 2022: (1) failure to establish an effective injury and illness prevention program (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 3203, subd. (a)); (2) failure to maintain records (id.,§ 3203, subd. (b)); and (3) failure to establish an effective Covid-19 prevention program for its drivers (id., § 3205, subd. (c)). Uber appealed the citation to the Appeals Board (the Uber Cal/OSHA appeal) and asserted affirmative defenses challenging Cal/OSHA’s jurisdiction on the theory that, under Business and Professions Code section 7451, subdivisions (a)–(d), the drivers working for Uber were independent contractors, not employees.

On March 17, 2023, four Uber drivers, LaShon Hicks, James Jordan, Robert Moreno, and Karen VanDenBerg (collectively, the Uber Drivers), moved for party status in the Uber Cal/OSHA appeal, asserting they were “affected employees.” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 354, subd. (b).) Uber objected to the motion on the same ground asserted in its affirmative defenses, i.e., Cal/OSHA did not have jurisdiction to issue the citation because, under Business and Professions Code section 7451, the Uber Drivers were independent contractors, not employees.

The Appeals Board granted the Uber Drivers’ motion to be made parties to the Uber Cal/OSHA appeal. Uber asked the Appeals Board to reconsider that decision, again asserting the Uber Drivers could not be “‘affected employees’” because they were independent contractors, not employees.

The same day it filed its petition for reconsideration, Uber filed a complaint for declaratory relief in Orange County Superior Court against Cal/OSHA, the chief of Cal/OSHA, and the Uber Drivers. The complaint asked the court to “enter a declaratory judgment, declaring that the [Uber Drivers] are independent contractors, and not Uber’s employees, under [section 7451’s] standard,” as well as “a declaratory judgment, declaring that Cal/OSHA is exceeding its jurisdiction in investigating and issuing its citation to Uber.”

Cal/OSHA and the Uber Drivers demurred to Uber’s complaint. The trial court sustained the demurrers without leave to amend on the ground Uber had not exhausted its administrative remedies because the question of the drivers’ employment status – and the related question of Cal/OSHA’s jurisdiction – were still pending in the Uber Cal/OSHA appeal. A judgment of dismissal was entered against Uber, which appealed to the Callifornia Court of Appeal.

The facts regarding Lyft are similar. On August 1, 2022, Cal/OSHA issued a citation to Lyft identifying the same three alleged regulatory violations as those set forth in the Uber citation, for the same three-month period. Plaintiffs’ appeals for all purposes.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court dismissal on the ground that the Plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies in the unpublished case of Uber Technologies v. Cal. Dept. of Industrial Relations -G064372 (October 2025).

“Generally, ‘a party must exhaust administrative remedies before resorting to the courts. [Citations.] Under this rule, an administrative remedy is exhausted only upon “termination of all available, nonduplicative administrative review procedures.”’ [Citations.] ‘The rule “is not a matter of judicial discretion, but is a fundamental rule of procedure . . . binding upon all courts.”’ [¶] The exhaustion doctrine is primarily grounded on policy concerns related to administrative autonomy and judicial efficiency. [Citation.] The doctrine favors administrative autonomy by allowing an agency to reach a final decision without interference from the courts. [Citation.] Unless circumstances warrant judicial involvement, allowing a court to intervene before an agency has fully resolved the matter would ‘constitute an interference with the jurisdiction of another tribunal.’ [Citation.]

Further, creating an agency with particular expertise to administer a specific legislative scheme would be frustrated if a litigant could bypass the agency in the hope of seeking a different decision in court. [¶] As to judicial efficiency, the doctrine allows an administrative agency to provide relief without requiring resort to costly litigation. [Citation.] Even when an administrative remedy does not resolve all issues or provide complete relief, it still may reduce the scope of litigation. [Citation.] Requiring a party to pursue an available administrative remedy aids judicial review by allowing the agency to draw upon its expertise and develop a factual record for the court’s consideration.” (Plantier v. Ramona Municipal Water Dist. (2019) 7 Cal.5th 372, 382–383.)

In short, as our Supreme Court has underscored, “courts should not interfere with an agency determination until the agency has reached a final decision” and “overworked courts should decline to intervene in an administrative dispute unless absolutely necessary.” (Farmers Ins. Exchange v. Superior Court (1992) 2 Cal.4th 377, 391, italics added, cited with approval in Coachella Valley Mosquito & Vector Control Dist. v. California Public Employment Relations Bd. (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1072, 1080 (Coachella).)

“This fundamental principle is fully applicable here.” This undoubtedly is just one of many court battles that will be fought over the Cal/OSHA jurisdiction over Uber/Lyft and potentially other gig economy employees.

In 2022, the California Health Care Quality and Affordability Act (SB 184, Chapter 47, Statutes of 2022) established the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) within the Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI). (Health and Safety Code, Division 107, Part 2, Chapter 2.6). Title 22, Division 7, Chapter 11.5, Article 1 of the California Code of Regulations sets forth the regulatory requirements for Material Change Transaction Notices and Cost and Market Impact Reviews.

A lawsuit filed this week in San Francisco County Superior Court by the California Hospital Association (and its membership of about 400 hospitals) alleges that the California Office of Health Care Affordability’s (OHCA) board, what the Association claims is “a group of eight unelected bureaucrats,” has raced to implement health care spending caps while ignoring critical factors, including:

– – The underlying costs of care (labor expenses, advancements in clinical care, pharmaceutical prices, etc.)
– – A rapidly aging population that will require more intensive care
– – National and statewide inflationary pressures
– – State and federal policy changes, such as passage earlier this year of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will strip tens of billions of dollars from California’s health care system over the next decade

The California Hospital Association asks the court to prohibit OHCA from implementing five actions, effectively requiring the board to revisit:

– – The creation of a 3.5% statewide spending target for 2025, declining to 3% by 2029
– – The adoption of a hospital sector
– – The adoption of a hospital sector spending target equal to the statewide cost target
– – The adoption of criteria for identifying supposed “high-cost outlier” hospitals
– – The adoption of reduced spending targets for the “outlier” hospitals, starting at 1.8% for 2026 and declining to 1.6% by 2029

“Since its inception, OHCA has continually flouted both the letter and spirit of the law that created it,” said Carmela Coyle, President & CEO of the California Hospital Association. “Lawmakers intentionally established a multi-year time frame for OHCA – to ensure its board engaged in a thoughtful, data-driven approach to making health care more affordable without sacrificing access to care, quality of care, health care jobs, and more. Yet, the office’s illegal and breakneck pursuit of cost-cutting – regardless of the impact on patients and workers – has now put vital health care services for all Californians at risk.”

According to the lawsuit, the Legislature’s intent was clear: “OHCA’s work to improve health care affordability must promote, rather than come at the expense of, health care access, equity, and quality, and the stability of the health care workforce.”

Instead, it alleges that OHCA has rushed to establish hospital spending targets while ignoring “voluminous and complex information,” according to the lawsuit. OHCA has “relied on incomplete and at times faulty data” in establishing “improperly-focused, and unattainable cost targets, which neither consider the actual factors that impact hospital costs nor are constructed to actually ensure consumer affordability,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges that actions taken to date by OHCA officials are “arbitrary and capricious,” contain repeated violations of state law, and do not ensure that savings from the imposed cost targets “would be passed to consumers in the form of lower premiums and cost sharing, rather than simply being retained by payers as higher profits.” While OHCA has targeted hospitals with “unattainably low” cost targets, health insurance companies are increasing the premiums paid by consumers by 10% or more each year – calling into question the agency’s actual impact on the pocketbooks of working Californians.

“The spending caps set by politically appointed bureaucrats could force cuts that result in many Californians traveling farther for care, facing longer emergency room wait times, experiencing more overcrowding, and losing access to critical services like maternity care, cancer treatment, behavioral health services, and surgical care,” Coyle said. “OHCA has unfairly targeted hospitals without the necessary research and analysis. This has resulted in a handful of unelected individuals who have chosen to cut billions from California’s health care system, endangering access to health care in vulnerable communities across the state.”

On October 14, 2025, during Oracle AI World in Las Vegas, Oracle announced a significant partnership with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), a top-ranked pediatric hospital and research center. The collaboration highlights CHLA’s adoption of Oracle’s Autonomous AI Database on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to dramatically boost the performance of its mission-critical business systems – achieving up to 98% improvement in speed and efficiency.

This is part of CHLA’s broader digital transformation strategy, which includes a long-term migration of key operations like finance, human resources (HR), supply chain, and customer experience to Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications. The initiative aims to modernize legacy systems (including PeopleSoft applications), enhance data security, and free up resources for patient care in a high-stakes pediatric environment.

Oracle’s major AI push was unveiled during the keynote at Oracle AI World in Las Vegas, featuring Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison and other executives. The event, formerly known as Oracle CloudWorld, shifted focus to AI as a core business differentiator. The announcements center on integrating AI deeply into Oracle’s cloud infrastructure, databases, and data platforms, aiming to make enterprise data “AI-ready” while emphasizing security, scalability, and agentic automation (AI agents that can act autonomously). This builds on Oracle’s prior AI efforts, like embedding AI agents in cloud apps and partnerships for large language model (LLM) training.

CHLA plans pilot programs for advanced AI features, like predictive analytics for patient resource allocation, and potential expansions into machine learning for research data. Success will be tracked via metrics like reduced processing times and staff satisfaction, with possible joint publications to guide the sector. This could accelerate Oracle’s penetration in U.S. healthcare, especially among academic medical centers, amid a market projected to exceed $50B for cloud AI in health by 2027.

Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) competes in electronic health records (EHRs), cloud infrastructure for healthcare, AI-driven analytics, revenue cycle management (RCM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) for providers like hospitals and clinics. Its strengths lie in integrated AI agents, autonomous databases on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and end-to-end solutions post-2022 Cerner acquisition.

However, it faces stiff competition from EHR giants, cloud hyperscalers with healthcare-specific offerings, and specialized analytics/RCM vendors. Oracle holds about 23% market share in acute care EHRs (as of 2024 data), trailing leaders like Epic.Epic leads with customization, but Oracle’s “voice-first” AI EHR aims to differentiate via OCI’s semantic database for “army of AI agents.” KLAS reports mixed Oracle satisfaction but optimism for AI features.

Jillian DiFusco filed an Application for Adjudication of Claim in 2010, claiming injury to various body parts on July 21, 2008, while she was employed by Hands On Spa as a massage therapist.

On December 7, 2012, a WCJ awarded applicant home health care services of four hours, twice per week. Defendant was ordered to employ a nurse case manager to manage home health care services.

On July 31, 2017, a WCJ issued a Findings, Orders and Award, in which the WCJ found that applicant sustained injury arising out of and in the course of employment to various body parts; that the injury caused temporary total disability and temporary partial disability for various time periods between 2008 and 2012; that the injury caused permanent partial disability for additional time periods between 2009 and 2014; that the injury caused permanent total disability commencing on September 22, 2013; and that there is need for further medical treatment.

On September 21, 2018, applicant filed a Declaration of Readiness to Proceed alleging that the home health care services that applicant had received since 2013 had been discontinued and requesting that the matter be set for expedited hearing to reinstate these services.

A number of expedited hearings took place culminating on February 17, 2021, when the parties entered into another Stipulation, approved by a WCJ, that required defendant to pay the outstanding invoices from the home health care services agency. With respect to defendant, the typed caption states “Hands On Spa; Insured by Employers Compensation Insurance Company; Administered by Employers Insurance Group.”

On the same day applicant’s attorney requested that defendant’s attorney provide coverage information on the case pursuant to former WCAB Rule 10550 (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10550, now repealed) and the Coldiron cases. Coldiron v. Compuware Corp (2002) 67 Cal.Comp.Cases 289 (Appeals Board en banc) [Coldiron I]; Coldiron v. Compuware Corp. (2002) 67 Cal.Comp.Cases 1466 (Appeals Board en banc) [Coldiron II].

Defense attorney declined to provide detailed information stating “there is no legal authority requiring disclosure of the policy limit, the primary and the secondary excess carrier on the claim, the limits of each carrier’s policy, or any stake holder with actual or potential financial responsibility for this claim.”

A Findings of Fact and Order (F&O) issued by a workers’ compensation administrative law judge (WCJ) on April 19, 2022, wherein the WCJ found that in response to applicant’s discovery request, defendant was only required to comply with WCAB Rule 10390 (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10390) and disclose the name of the employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier.

The WCJ concluded: :This evidentiary record makes clear that the recently promulgated Regulation § 10390 not only repealed Regulation § 10550, but supercedes [sic] Coldiron. It is illogical to believe that the Appeals Board instituted Regulation § 10390 to cause a conflict in the law. The Regulation’s purpose is to simplify and clarify the obligations of defendant to identify the legally responsible entity – not create this current litigation or obfuscate a party’s disclosure obligations.”

Applicant’s petition for reconsideration was granted in the En Banc case of DiFusco v Hands On Spa, Employers-Compensation Insurance Group et.al. -2025-EB-03 (October 2025). The WCAB rescinded the WCJ’s April 19, 2022 F&O and returned this matter to the trial level for further proceedings consistent with this decision.

Applicant contends that the WCJ’s conclusion that WCAB Rule 10390 only requires that a defendant disclose the name of its insurance carrier was too narrow, and that the en banc decisions by the Appeals Board in Coldiron I and II require additional disclosures, including disclosure of a high self-insured retention, a large deductible, or any other provision that affects the identity of the entity liable for compensation.

The WCAB wrote “This case involves the legal question of whether defendant was required to comply with applicant’s February 17, 2021 discovery request to defendant to identify potential insurance carriers, potential insurance policies and their limits, and other potentially liable persons or entities pursuant to the statutory discovery provisions, WCAB Rule 10390, and our en banc decisions in Coldiron I and II.”

“We answer this question in the affirmative. In light of our constitutional mandate to accomplish substantial justice, and our statutory mandate under Labor Code section 5500.34 to ensure uniform court procedures, we issue this decision en banc to clarify existing law and to ensure due process and consistency of practice at the trial level.”

“The California Supreme Court explained in People v. Bouzas that in interpreting legislation, “repeal by implication is disfavored…” (People v. Bouzas (1991) 53 Cal.3d 467, 480,” … “The same principle is applicable here: en banc opinions of the Appeals Board are not repealed “by implication” and thus, an en banc opinion cannot be “superseded” by the enactment of a regulation. Again, we emphasize that an en banc opinion issued by the Appeals Board is binding legal precedent, unaffected by the regulatory process, and continues to be binding legal precedent unless the Appeals Board explicitly rescinds it en banc, it is overruled by a higher Court, or it is rendered no longer applicable by legislative changes.”

“Read together, WCAB Rules 10390, 10400 and 10401 ensure that all parties, representatives and liable entities are fully identified in each case. Compliance with these rules is important to avoid errors such as misidentification of parties, inadvertent omission of parties from pleadings, and incorrect case captions.” … “The facts of the current case provide a clear example of why the Coldiron disclosure requirements are essential to accomplish our constitutional mandate to achieve substantial justice in all cases.”

Based on its review of the record, and for the reasons discussed in the Opinion, the WCAB held en banc that:

1. All en banc decisions are binding on panels of the Appeals Board and WCJs, and the binding en banc decisions in Coldiron I and Coldiron II require disclosure of any entities liable for payment and any insurance policies that impact liability for payment.
2. Only the Appeals Board is statutorily authorized to issue regulations for adjudication for workers’ compensation proceedings, and WCAB Rules 10390, 10400 and 10401 require that parties, their representatives, and their insurance companies be fully identified.
3. WCAB Rule 10390 does not supersede the Coldiron decisions. Defendants must comply with WCAB Rule 10390 and the disclosure requirements in Coldiron I and II, regardless of whether there is a third-party administrator.