What is a Compromise and Release?

The two structures

These are not two prices for the same thing. A C&R larger than a Stips offer may still be worth far less, because you are also selling your medical care.

Which one you signed is on the document. Look at the title.

When a C&R is usually wrong

In any case involving a prosthesis, an implanted device, a joint replacement that will need revision, ongoing medication, or a progressive condition, closing future medical without a professionally prepared lifetime cost projection is how a worker ends up paying for their own care later.

A young worker with a lower-limb amputation will need many prostheses over a lifetime. A knee replacement has a service life. A progressive lung disease gets worse by definition. Amputation. · Settlements.

When it can be right

Where future medical is genuinely limited, where you want to control your own care, where the case has intractable disputes, or where a lump sum solves a real problem.

It is a legitimate choice. It is just not a default.

Before signing, check

The rating string — checkable arithmetic. How.

Whether anything is missing — a body part, a cumulative trauma claim, the voucher, SIBTF (rewritten by SB 171 in July 2026), a third-party claim, a § 4553 petition, or unpaid § 4650(d) increases.

What comes out of it — attorney's fees, medical liens, EDD reimbursement, child support, and any Medicare Set-Aside. The gross is not the net. Every category.

And if you receive SSDI, how the settlement is prorated changes the size of the offset. Raise it before signing. More.

One true thing

A judge must approve any settlement and find it adequate, including for unrepresented workers.

But the judge decides on the record in front of them — which is usually the defense's record. A judge cannot value a body part nobody claimed.