The CWCI COVID-19 tracking tool (see story below) reports a stunning 14,470 California workers’ compensation claims filed so far this year. Some estimates show that the State will have twice that number in a few short months.

The Floyd Skeren Manukian Langevin, LLP – workers’ compensation and employment law firm – was asked about how the firm is responding to the pandemic and these claims from the employer’s point of view.

Partner Amanda Manukian pointed out the importance of her firm remaining fully operational during the pandemic shutdown. A few months ago, officials arrived at the office building in Pasadena where her branch office is located, and ordered the entire building to be closed within two hours.

Fortunately, she reported that as one of the tenants of the building, she easily complied with this time constraint, and her office was fully functional at home by the next day. Prior to the pandemic Floyd Skeren had installed advanced case management technology across all offices statewide. The technology, along with gigabit fiber internet connections between offices supported a seamless transition for the entire firm to stay-at-home work when required.

All of the firm’s staff and attorneys have been fully functional and productive, with essentially no disruption of work flow.

Bernadette O’brien, the firms employment law partner, has held webinars for the firms employment law clients every few weeks. She says that new COVID-19 regulations, both state and federal, are rapidly evolving day by day in response to pandemic. The webinar is updated regularly. and virtually provided for several hundred employers who attend this program for up-to-the-minute compliance guidance.

John Floyd, the firms founding partner, has organized a COVID-19 workers’ compensation defense team within his firm. All COVID-19 claims will be handled only by members of this team.

Mr. Floyd has several physicians doing forensic research for his team, identifying and obtaining the medical studies published every few days about the disease. The studies are reviewed, cataloged and circulated to his team.

This science is evolving, and will be used as a standard to review the medical evidence in these claims. The catalog of studies include many topics, such as the effectiveness of various protective gear, the incubation window between symptoms and infection to help identify the best time frame for the infection to have occurred, and other risk factors other than work for purposes of apportionment.

The COVID team has also done considerable legal research on the validity of Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-62-20 which created a temporary presumption of industrial causation for some of the workers’ who file COVID-19 claims. The team is now filing briefs in COVID claims across the state, requesting a finding that N-62-20 is unlawful, and invalid as it exceeds the Governor’s authority under the California Emergency Services Act.

The brief then argues in the alternative, that if N-620-20 is found to be a valid exercise of emergency authority, then the costs of the presumption claims should be paid by the State of California, as it would constitute a “taking” for which the California Emergency Services Act requires compensation to be paid by the State to the employer for these claims.

Mr. Floyd concluded by saying that if anyone is interested in more details about how the COVID-19 defense team is responding to these claims, they may contact him by phone or email.

Even with proper PPE (personal protective equipment), frontline healthcare workers battling the coronavirus day in and day out are still at a three times higher risk of testing positive for COVID-19 in comparison to the general population. That’s the main conclusion drawn from a recent study conducted at King’s College London and Harvard University, and then published in Lancet Public Health..

Predictably, healthcare workers treating patients without adequate PPE are at a greater risk of coronavirus infection. Not as predictable, however, was the finding that BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) healthcare workers are at even greater risk of contracting the coronavirus while wearing proper PPE than their white counterparts.

According to researchers’ calculations, BAME frontline workers are at least five times more likely to test coronavirus positive than the non-Hispanic, white general population.

“The findings of our study have tremendous impact for healthcare workers and hospitals. The data is clear in revealing that there is still an elevated risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection despite availability of PPE,” explains senior study author Sebastien Ourselin, a professor at King’s College London, in a release. “In particular we note that that the BAME community experience elevated risk of infection and in some cases lack access to adequate PPE, or frequently reuse equipment.”

The research team analyzed a huge dataset of both American and British adults (2,035,395 individuals in general and 99,795 frontline healthcare workers). For every 100,000 healthcare workers, 2,747 tested positive for coronavirus. Meanwhile, for every 100,000 members of a general community, only 242 tests came back as COVID-19 positive.

Also, while just over 20% of healthcare workers reported feeling at least one coronavirus symptom (fatigue, loss of smell, loss of taste, etc), only 14.4% of the general population said the same.

This study indicates that PPE, while certainly important, is only a portion of the answer when it comes to protecting doctors and nurses. Besides just making sure healthcare workers have proper access to PPE, the authors say it may be time to start considering additional protection strategies.

Also, equally as important as providing PPE is making sure it is used correctly and properly cleaned before reuse. It’s probably a good idea for frontline workers to avoid reuse of PPE altogether, researchers say.

“The work is important in the context of the widely reported higher death rates amongst healthcare workers from BAME backgrounds. Hopefully a better understanding of the factors contributing to these disparities will inform efforts to better protect workers,” says joint first study author Dr. Mark Graham.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged a San Jose police officer with using his private security company to commit insurance fraud, tax evasion, wage theft, and about $18 million in money laundering.

Robert Foster, 47, the Morgan Hill owner of Atlas Private Security, self-surrendered and will be arraigned on November 30th, at the Hall of Justice in San Jose on felony charges. Foster’s wife and eight other company employees are being charged with four counts of felony conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, unemployment insurance fraud, money laundering, and wage theft, and 39 additional felonies, including extortion and a white-collar crime enhancement. They face prison time, if convicted.

The officer and his co-defendants allegedly reduced insurance premiums and taxes by reporting false and inaccurate payroll, underreporting headcount, paying employees off-the-books, and underreporting employee injuries. In one case, an employee was allegedly threatened with deportation if she continued to speak attorneys about her rights under worker’s compensation laws after suffering a workplace injury.

The six-month investigation was spearheaded by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office Bureau of Investigation in close collaboration with the California Department of Insurance, Employment Development Department, California Department of Justice Bureau of Medical Fraud and Elder Abuse and United States Department of Labor.

The probe showed that Foster allegedly hid approximately $8.09 million in payroll over three years, avoided approximately $578,716.56 in tax liability and $560,293.15 in insurance premiums.

To carry on their fraud scheme, the Atlas officials allegedly laundered approximately $18.20 million. The co-conspirators used and traded on Foster’s position as an active-duty San Jose Police Officer and self-described expert in lie detection to further their business interests. Yet, Foster allegedly failed to disclose to SJPD that he owned and operated Atlas or that such ownership could result in ethical conflicts.

The arrest comes just days after District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced a series of social justice reforms that included creating a Workers Exploitation Task Force that will investigate cases such as this one.

“This Office will root out and prosecute anyone – whether they wear a badge or not – taking criminal advantage of workers,” District Attorney Rosen said. “Our new task force will protect and heal the victims of labor trafficking, wage theft and illegal exploitation and raise awareness about how these insidious crimes are attacks on our communities of color.”

U.S. News announced the 2020-2021 list of Best Hospitals in the country.

It analyzed data from nearly 5,000 medical centers and survey responses from more than 30,000 physicians to rank hospitals in 16 adult specialties including cancer, cardiology, diabetes, rheumatology and more. Survival rates, patient experience, specialized staff and advanced technologies were among the factors weighed.

Nationally, only 134 hospitals ranked in at least one of the specialties in 2020-2021. The Honor Roll recognizes 20 hospitals for their exceptional care for complex cases across these specialties, as well as recognizes hospitals by state, metro and regional areas for their work in ten more widely performed procedures and conditions, including hip and knee replacement, cancer surgery, heart bypass and more.

With a specialty score of 100/100, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York topped the annual Best Hospitals for Orthopedics rankings, which included 1,683 orthopedic hospitals nationwide.

Mayo Clinic Rochester, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital and Rush University Medical Center rounded out the top five Best Hospitals for Orthopedics.

However, overall, California hospitals had a respectable showing on the Orthopedic Hospital list, with seven hospitals ranking in the top 30.

#3 – Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,Los Angeles,
#7 – Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center and Orthopedic Hospital
#10 – Scripps La Jolla Hospitals
#12 – Stanford Health Care – Stanford Hospital
#15 – UCSF Medical Center
#26 – John Muir Health – Walnut Creek
#30 – Keck Medical Center of USC