WCDefenseCA

Happy Wednesday, dear readers!

Your humble blogger has the distinct pleasure of bringing you some good news.

Previously, I had written a bit about (and duly condemned) Assembly Bill 1643 which Governor Brown vetoed because it would have prohibited apportionment of permanent disability to certain events or factors, primarily pertaining to menopause and childbirth.

Well, Assembly Bill 570 (“No percentage of an apportionment in the case of a physical injury occurring on or after January 1, 2018, shall be based on pregnancy, childbirth, or other medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth”) would have had effectively the same result, and, fortunately for California, Governor Brown has vetoed this one as well.

In his veto message, Governor Brown wrote “I am vetoing this bill for the same reasons that I vetoed similar measures Assembly Bill 1643 in 2016 and Assembly Bill 305 in 2015.”  The message continued “[t]his measure would extend the scope of the workers’ compensation system well beyond what it is meant to do: compensate injured workers who suffer a work related injury.”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to call opponents of measures such as AB 570 “sexist” or bigoted, but don’t let you distract that from the true issue – money.  This is purely about redistributing money from employers and insurers to a certain class of workers and, more importantly, a certain class of attorneys.

That is why you see CAAA throw a temper tantrum over this veto (it includes the term “mansplaining”), because lower exposure means lower attorney fees.

Everyone involved knows that it is improper to require employers to compensate workers for conditions that not related to a work injury.

I may have my issues with Governor Brown, but he is absolutely right on this – employers should not be liable for everything under the sun, just for the permanent disability caused by work injuries (and medical care, TD, etc., of course).