Time Warner Cable; ESIS Kai Christopher WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARDSTATE OF CALIFORNIAKAI CHRISTOPHER, Applicant,vs.TIME WARNER CABLE; ESIS, Defendant(s).Case No. ADJ6816825OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING PETITION FOR REMOVAL ANDDECISION AFTER REMOVAL Defendant has filed a timely, verified petition for removal, requesting that the Appeals Board rescind the Order dated March 9, 2010, wherein the workers’ compensation administrative law judge (WCJ) denied defendant’s request for an order that the Medical Director produce a panel of qualified medical evaluators (QMEs) on the ground that defendant had previously denied that applicant had sustained an industrial injury. Defendant contends that it was error for the WCJ to deny its request for a panel of QMEs without a full hearing. We have not received an answer from applicant. Administrative Director (AD) Rule 30(d)(3) (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 30(d)(3)) provides in relevant part: “Whenever an injury or illness claim of an employee has been denied entirely by the claims administrator, or if none by the employer, only the employee may request a panel of Qualified Medical Evaluators, as provided in … Labor Code sections 4060(c) and 4062,2.” On June 3, 2010, we filed our en bane opinion in Mendoza v. Huntington Hospital 75 Cal.Comp.Cases _. We held that “AD Rule 30(d)(3) is invalid because it conflicts with [Labor Code] sections 4060(c) and 4062.2 and exceeds the scope of secton 5402(b). Neither section 4060 nor section 4062.2 provides that ‘only the employee may request’ a QME panel after an employee has denied the compensability of a claimed injury. To the contrary, those sections when read together specifically provide that ‘either party’ may make a QME panel request ‘at any time’ after , the filing of a claim form. Furthermore, nothing in section 5402(b) provides that a defendant must request a QME panel before it denied liability for an injury, even if that denial is based on
