Brandi Brown vs. Amg Pipeline, Inc; State Compensation Ins

In this case, Brandi Brown, an employee of AMG Pipeline, Inc., was injured while working as a traffic flagger. The Workers' Compensation Appeals Board denied the defendant's petition for reconsideration of the April 23, 2010 Findings and Award, which found that Brown was entitled to medical treatment, including spinal surgery, to cure or relieve the effects of her injury. The Board found that the defendant was required to undertake a utilization review of the second request for spinal surgery after Brown had quit smoking, and that the defendant had failed to meet the 10-day timeline or comply with the Administrative Director Rules.

AMG Pipeline, Inc; State Compensation INs Brandi Brown  WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARDSTATE OF CALIFORNIA BRANDI BROWN, Applicant,vs. AMG PIPELINE, INC.; STATE9 COMPENSATION INSURANCE FUND,Defendant(s).Case No. ADJ6696983 OPINION AND ORDER DENYING RECONSIDERATION Defendant seeks reconsideration of the April 23, 2010 Findings and Award issued by theworkers’ compensation administrative law judge (WCJ) wherein the WCJ found that applicant, while employed as a traffic flagger, sustained industrial injury to her neck, back, legs, head, andankle.’ The WCJ further found that applicant is in need of further medical treatment to cure orrelieve from the effects of her injury including spinal surgery as recommended by James Kohut, M.D. Defendant contends that that the WCJ erred in finding that applicant is entitled to spinalsurgery and that defendant complied with the utilization review procedures in denyingapplicant’s request. Applicant filed an answer, and the WCJ issued a Report and Recommendation on Petition forReconsideration (Report) recommending that we deny reconsideration. 1 The record does not contain any stipulation by the parties or any finding by the WCJ as to the date of injury.26 However, this appears to be an oversight as defendant is providing benefits. In her Application for Adjudication ofClaim, applicant alleges an August 15, 2008 date of injury. ,  We will deny reconsideration based on our review of the record, and for the reasonsdiscussed below, as well as for the reasons discussed by the WCJ in his Report, which we adopt and incorporate herein, except for his citation to our en banc decisions in Sandhagen v. Cox & Cox Construction, Inc. (2004) 69 Cal.Comp.Cases 1452 (Appeals Board en banc) (Sandhagen I) and Sandhagen v. Cox & Cox Construction, Inc. (2005) 70 Cal.Comp.Cases 208 (Appeals Board en banc) (Sandhagen II) which were overruled by the Supreme Court’s decision in State Comp.Ins. Fund v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (Sandhagen) (2008) 44 Cal.4t

To continue reading ... start a FREE Trial for 10 days

Discover the cases you didn’t know you were missing!

Copyright © 2023 - CompFox Inc.