01 · Research scope
Start with the issue and the record
A useful comparison requires more than the same injury or statutory citation.
California workers’ compensation research often requires decisions involving a closely related record: a similar medical-report defect, the same evidentiary conflict, a comparable procedural posture, or a fact that changed how the legal standard was applied.
SimilarCase structures those dimensions so researchers can move from a fact pattern to candidate decisions, then verify each candidate against the official source.
02 · Decision types
Authority is part of the comparison
En banc decisions
Authority status must be identified and reviewed before relying on the decision.
Significant panel decisions
Published in a distinct WCAB collection and evaluated with their stated status.
Panel decisions
Useful for fact-pattern research, but nonbinding and described by WCAB as potentially persuasive.
Judicial review
Appellate authority belongs in a separate authority layer rather than being blended with panel outcomes.
Official starting points include the WCAB panel decision index and the WCAB’s published decision collections. Researchers should confirm current status, subsequent history, and citation rules before relying on any result.
03 · Factor map
What SimilarCase compares
- The disputed issue and the outcome on that issue.
- Medical opinions, the weight assigned to them, and the reason for that treatment.
- Outcome-determinative and evidentiary facts supported by the decision text.
- The legal standard and how the decision applies it to the record.
- Procedural posture, decision type, tribunal, date, and disposition.
04 · Source discipline
Official text in, official source out
The product builds its own structured research layer; it does not copy commercial headnotes.
Corpus acquisition is limited to official government publication and approved public-data channels. Third-party editorial summaries, commercial headnotes, and paywalled database compilations are not used as product content.
Source links, derived metadata, short excerpts, and public release are governed separately. A record can be technically parsed and still remain unavailable to public users until its source and release checks are complete.
05 · Limits
Research assistance, not a prediction
Useful for
Finding candidate decisions, comparing records, and creating a source-review queue.
Not designed for
Predicting a case result, calculating value, or replacing citation and authority checks.