WCAB Decision Upheld Where Insurer Identified Early On And Defective Notice Corrected
In the unpublished case of Krause v. Workers’В Compensation Appeals Board and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. F058788 (July 23), the Fifth Appellate District was asked to review Krause’s contention, on a petition for a writ of review, that the WCAB erred by adding an employer’s workers’ compensation insurer as a party defendant to a prior award and by failing to treat notification errors regarding a medical provider network as a basis for the employee to treat outside the MPN.В The Court denied the petition.В For her first contention, Krause relied on Coldiron v. Compuware Corp. (2002) 67 Cal. Comp.Cases 289, where there was a six-year delay in disclosing to the WCAB that the employer was actually insured.В Here, in contrast, American Home Assurance Company appeared very early in the process and there was no basis for concluding Krause was aggrieved by what little delay there was.В The Court also rejected Krause’s second contention.В Here the notice with respect to the provider network was technically deficient in that it was not sent in Spanish, but the notice was subsequently corrected and there was no reason to believe that Krause had relied on the defects that did exist.
July 23, 2010
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