Hurt at work in Pasadena?

Where we are

Our office is in Los Angeles, at 1625 W. Olympic Blvd, Suite 802. We do not have an office in Pasadena.

What that means for you:

• The consultation is a phone call, in English, Spanish or Korean. It is free.
• The case runs by phone, mail and e-filing. You do not need to come to our office.
• Most conferences are held by video, and the link is on your hearing notice. Trials, expedited hearings and walk-throughs are in person at 320 W. 4th Street, and we appear there for our clients.
• If you cannot come to us, we come to you. We make home and hospital visits. Say so when you call.

Your case will be heard at 320 W. 4th Street

Every Pasadena ZIP code goes to Los Angeles. There is no split. The Division of Workers’ Compensation publishes the list behind its ZIP code locator, and every ZIP code on it that begins 911 is assigned to the Los Angeles office, including the ZIP codes that cover most of the city (91101 and 91103 through 91107), Caltech’s 91125 and JPL’s mailing ZIP code, 91109. The neighbors at the city’s edges go the same way: Altadena (91001), La Cañada Flintridge (91011) and San Marino (91108). None of the 41 ZIP codes the list assigns to Pomona is a Pasadena code.

The rule behind the list is Labor Code § 5501.5. Your Application for AdjudicationApplication for Adjudication Opens your case at the Appeals Board. One year. may be filed in the county where you live on the date of filing, the county where the injury occurred (for cumulative traumaCT — Cumulative trauma Injury from repeated exposure over time. The largest injury category in California and the least claimed., where the last injurious exposure occurred), or, if you have a lawyer, the county where the lawyer maintains a principal place of business. Your written consent to the venue is filed with the application. If the attorney’s county is chosen, the employer may object within 30 days, and the case then goes to where you live or where you were hurt. The DWCDWC Division of Workers’ Compensation, part of the Department of Industrial Relations. Administers the system. Information Services Center: 1-800-736-7401.’s ZIP code list shows which office serves each ZIP code. After filing, venue changes only by petition for good cause.

For most Pasadena workers, every option points to the same county. If you live and work in Pasadena, home, injury and our office are all in Los Angeles County. The choice opens up at the county line. If you live in Pasadena and the last year of a back injury was at a warehouse in Ontario, the case can be heard in Los Angeles County or in San Bernardino County. Trials are in person at whichever office has the case.

Most of a case happens by video. Status conferences, mandatory settlement conferences, priority conferences, rating MSCs and lien conferences are held remotely. Trials, expedited hearings and walk-throughs are in person; the DWC lists walk-throughs from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Everyone who is not staff goes through a metal detector, and belongings through an x-ray machine, so allow extra time. Parking, food and the rules on the 9th floor.

Getting there from Pasadena

Take the A Line to 7th Street/Metro Center, then one stop on the B or D Line to Pershing Square. Metro’s A Line stops at Sierra Madre Villa, Allen, Lake, Memorial Park, Del Mar and Fillmore, and runs through Union Station to 7th Street/Metro Center, where it meets the B and D Lines. Pershing Square is the next B and D Line stop. The DWC’s directions: take the 4th Street stairwell, and you come up directly across the street from the court.

Plan on about half an hour on the A Line, plus the transfer and security. On Metro’s weekday timetable, morning trains leaving Memorial Park at 7:56, 8:06 and 8:18 reach 7th Street/Metro Center at 8:28, 8:38 and 8:50. A morning session starts at 8:30.

Pasadena, by the numbers

Census figures are 2020–2024 American Community Survey estimates, with margins of error. The City’s report notes that its employer counts rely at times on third-party sources.

Who works here, and how they get hurt

The City’s list of its largest employers is a laboratory, a university, a college, a hospital, a health system, the school district and City Hall. The claims follow that work.

JPL and Caltech

If you work at JPL, Caltech is your employer. JPL’s careers site: “JPLers are Caltech employees and are considered Federal Contractors.” That makes a JPL injury a California workers’ compensation claim, not a federal one. The federal system, FECA, covers people the United States employs: the law reaches “a civil officer or employee in any branch of the Government of the United States.” California’s Labor Code covers every person in an employer’s service under any contract of hire. I work for the federal government.

If a subcontractor placed you at JPL, your claim is usually against that company’s coverage. JPL counts “approximately 5,500 employees and on-site subcontractors.” Who employs you decides it. Check your pay stub.

JPL has two addresses, and both go to the same court. For maps it gives 4800 Oak Grove Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011; for mail, Pasadena, CA 91109. The DWC sends both ZIP codes to Los Angeles, and Cal/OSHA’s locator sends both to its Los Angeles district office.

The injuries here are mostly the slow kind. Engineering, research and office work wear out necks, shoulders and wrists over years, and a laboratory or shop adds exposures. Manufacturing and aerospace · Office and remote workers · Carpal tunnel and repetitive strain · Neck

Hospitals and health care

Kaiser Permanente and Huntington Memorial Hospital together employ more than 8,300 people in the city (the City’s counts, our sum), and education, health care and social assistance is where more than one employed resident in four works. California wrote two regulations for this work. The law requires acute care hospitals to replace manual patient handling with lift equipment and lift teams, and gives you the right to refuse an unsafe lift. The law requires a workplace violence prevention plan and a Violent Incident Log. A documented failure under either is evidence. Healthcare worker claims.

Schools and Pasadena City College

If a school district or a community college district employs you, you may be owed full salary, not two-thirds, for at least 60 days. At Pasadena Unified, Education Code § 44984 (certificated) and § 45192 (classified) provide industrial accident and illness leave of not less than 60 days, paid so that, added to temporary disabilityTD / TTD / TPD Temporary Disability, Total or Partial. Wage replacement while recovering. Two-thirds of average weekly earnings; 2026 maximum $1,764.11/week., it brings you up to your full salary or normal wage. At Pasadena City College, the community college versions apply: § 87787 for academic employees and § 88192 for classified employees, each with the same 60-day floor for the same accident in a fiscal year. Ask the district for industrial accident leaveIndustrial accident leave At least 60 days at full salary for school employees. by name. These sections bind school and community college districts, not private employers. School employees. · I work for a school.

The City of Pasadena

The City counts 2,380 employees, seasonal workers included. If you are a city police officer or firefighter, different rules apply, including full salary and presumptions that shift the burden of proof. Public employees. · I’m a firefighter or police officer.

Working from home, and the rest of the city’s work

More than one Pasadena worker in four worked from home, against about one in six countywide, and 58.6% of employed residents are in management, business, science and arts occupations (42.0% countywide). An injury at home while you are working can be a claim. Report it the same day, in writing, and note what task you were doing. I got hurt working from home. · Cumulative trauma, when nothing happened on one day.

Free help, and the safety agency

Information & Assistance for Pasadena is downtown, in the court building. The DWC’s ZIP code locator names the Los Angeles unit, 320 W. 4th Street, 9th Floor, (213) 576-7389, for every Pasadena ZIP code. I&AI&A Information & Assistance officer. Free help with questions and forms at every district office. Underused. officers answer questions and help with forms at no cost. They do not represent you. The DWC’s statewide line is (800) 736-7401; its free workshops run by Zoom at 3 p.m., the first Friday of the month in English and the third in Spanish.

Unsafe work goes to Cal/OSHA’s Los Angeles office, in the same building. Cal/OSHA’s locator sends every Pasadena ZIP code it recognizes, and the city name itself, to its Los Angeles District Office, 320 West 4th Street, Suite 820, (213) 576-7451, not to Monrovia, the office it names for Pomona. Cal/OSHA enforces safety; the DWC decides benefits. Unsafe work and your rights.

Languages

One Pasadena resident in four speaks Spanish at home: 31,629 people, of whom 11,481, more than a third, told the Census Bureau they speak English less than “very well.” Of the 7,222 who speak Chinese at home, 3,644, about half, said the same. Across the city it is 15.0%, against 23.4% in Los Angeles County as a whole.

The claim form comes in your language. The DWC publishes the DWC 1 claim form in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese, as well as English. The DWC’s forms page.

An interpreter is your right, at no cost to you: at treatment, at medical-legal exams, at depositions, and at hearings. Do not accept a family member or a coworker as your interpreter at a medical-legal exam. Your interpreter rights.

Spanish- and Korean-language services are provided by attorneys and staff of this firm who are fluent in those languages. Ask for Spanish or Korean when you call.

¿Vive o trabaja en Pasadena? Su caso normalmente se tramita en la oficina del WCAB de Los Ángeles, en 320 W. 4th Street. Consultas gratis en español. En español → · 한국어 무료 상담. 한국어 안내

Talk to us

Free consultation in English, Spanish, or Korean. No fee unless we recover. The attorney fee in a workers’ compensation case is set by a workers’ compensation judgeWCJ Workers’ Compensation Judge. Decides your case. There is no jury. and paid from the recovery. You are not responsible for costs we advance if there is no recovery. What a lawyer costs.