What the panel ordered
Petition for Reconsideration dismissed as June 24, 2025 Findings and Order was not a final order; Petition for Removal denied for failure to show irreparable harm or substantial prejudice.
Petition for Reconsideration filed by applicant seeking review of June 24, 2025 Findings and Order; WCJ Report recommended denial of reconsideration.
This docket was decided more than once. Shown here is the latest released decision; we also hold May 16, 2024.
What was disputed, and how it came out
Each issue the panel decided, with the reasoning it gave. An outcome is what this panel did on this record — not a rule, and not a prediction.
The panel found that the QME process under sections 4060 and 4062.2 applies because the applicant's date of injury for cumulative injury claims is determined under section 5412, which depends on the date the applicant first suffered disability and had knowledge, not the last date of injurious exposure in 1985. The claim was filed in 2013, so the current QME process applies. The applicant did not show irreparable harm or substantial prejudice from applying the current QME process.
From the decision · page 1Applicant seeks reconsideration of the "Findings and Order; Opinion on Decision" (F&O) issued on June 24, 2025, by the workers' compensation administrative law judge (WCJ). The WCJ found that the parties were required to obtain a qualified medical evaluator (QME) pursuant to Labor Code1 sections 4060 and 4062.2.
The facts that decided it
What the panel treated as outcome-determinative, and which side it favoured.
Applicant filed his claim in 2013, after the enactment of the current QME process in 2005.
Favours Defendant prevailed
This means the current QME process under Labor Code sections 4060 and 4062.2 applies, not the older process in place in 1985.
From the decision · page 2Applicant was employed as a professional baseball player during the period of June 5, 1973, through September 1, 1985, when he claims to have sustained a cumulative injury to multiple body parts. (Minutes of Hearing and Summary of Evidence, May 30, 2019, p. 2, lines 14-20.) Applicant filed his claim in 2013.
The rules the panel named
Authorities as the decision cited them, with how this panel applied each one.
Lab. Code, §§ 5900(a), 5902, 5903; Rymer v. Hagler (1989) 211 Cal. App. 3d 1171; Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (Pointer) (1980) 104 Cal. App. 3d 528; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (Kramer) (1978) 82 Cal. App. 3d 39; Maranian v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2000) 81 Cal. App. 4th 1068
A petition for reconsideration may properly be taken only from a "final" order, decision, or award.
The panel dismissed the petition for reconsideration because the June 24, 2025 Findings and Order was not a final order, as it only addressed evidence gathering and did not decide substantive rights or liabilities.
Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10955(a); Cortez v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 596; Kleemann v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 274
The Appeals Board will grant removal only if the petitioner shows that substantial prejudice or irreparable harm will result if removal is not granted, and reconsideration will not be an adequate remedy if a final decision adverse to the petitioner ultimately issues.
The panel denied the petition for removal because the applicant did not demonstrate irreparable harm or substantial prejudice from the QME process order, and reconsideration was an adequate remedy if a final decision issues.
From the decision · page 5Removal is an extraordinary remedy rarely exercised by the Appeals Board. (Cortez v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 596, 600, fn. 5 [71 Cal.Comp.Cases 155, 157, fn. 5]; Kleemann v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 274, 281, fn. 2 [70 Cal.Comp.Cases 133, 136, fn. 2].) The Appeals Board will grant removal only if the petitioner shows that substantial prejudice or irreparable harm will result if removal is not granted. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10955(a); see also Cortez, supra; Kleemann, supra.) A petitioner must also demonstrate that reconsideration will not be an adequate remedy if a final decision adverse to the petitioner ultimately issues. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10955(a).)
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About this page
- A published decision of the California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, taken apart by what it turned on. The Board publishes the decision itself; this page adds the extraction and quotes the passage behind every claim.
- The injured worker is not named here, and the case caption is not printed. Physicians appear as the decision names them, because a medical opinion is an act in a public proceeding.
- Issues, outcomes and weights were extracted by AI and released only where the source passage checked. Read the official decision before relying on anything here. Not legal advice.
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