San Bernardino County

Which office hears your case

San Bernardino — 464 W. Fourth Street, Suite 239 (the Rosa Parks Building), (909) 383-4341.

Parking is $5 a day — plus a free public lot one block away. Photo ID is mandatory and all visitors sign in.

Some western county ZIP codes may be assigned to Pomona. In practice venue follows ZIP code, but § 5501.5(a) is the rule and gives three options.

Those options are counties, and San Bernardino County shares a metro area with Riverside County. The law lets a case be filed in the county where you live, where the injury happened — in a cumulative traumaCT — Cumulative trauma Injury from repeated exposure over time. The largest injury category in California and the least claimed. case, where the last injurious exposure was — or, if you have a lawyer, where your attorney’s principal place of business is. Your written consent is required, and if the attorney’s county is chosen, the employer has 30 days to object. A worker who lives in Rancho Cucamonga and was hurt at a warehouse in Jurupa Valley, across the line in Riverside County, can have the case heard in either county. 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 locator only tells you which office normally serves an address.

A day in court in San Bernardino. The lobby opens at 8:00 a.m.; hearings run in two sessions, 8:30 to noon and 1:30 to 5:00, and cases are called in turn — plan on half a day, a full day for a trial. Everyone who comes with you signs in and shows a picture ID too. The first-floor café is take-out only. Most conferences are now held by video — the link is on your hearing notice — but trials, expedited hearings and walk-throughs are in person. The San Bernardino office, in detail.

Who works here

By where people live, the American Community Survey (2020–2024) counts 972,221 employed residents in San Bernardino County:

For comparison, transportation and warehousing is 7.0% of employed residents in Riverside County.

By where the jobs are, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 846,000 jobs in the county in March 2026, up 0.7% in a year.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties share one metro area, so BLS’s metro-level industry figures describe both counties together. The figures here are for San Bernardino County alone.

The three issues that define this county

1. Warehouse and logistics

This is the distribution heart of Southern California. Warehouse work produces rate-driven lifting, reaching, and walking injuries that accumulate rather than happen — and the claim nobody files is the cumulative trauma claim, because there is no incident. The date of injuryDate of injury For a cumulative or occupational disease claim, the law sets it as when you first suffered disability and knew or should have known it was work-related — not when the wear began. Almost every deadline runs off this. is when you first had disability and knew, or should have known, it was work-related — usually far more recent than people assume. How.

Truck and delivery driving runs alongside it, with its own classification question under AB 5.

2. Staffing agencies

Warehouse and logistics work in this county runs heavily through labor contractors, which means the § 2810.3 question comes up constantly: the client employer shares liability where the staffing agency failed to secure workers’ compensation coverage.

Do not accept a denial that turns on which entity employed you. You may have two employers. Report the injury to both, in writing, the same day. How this works.

3. Heat

Inland summers here are severe. The law requires shade above 80°F and high-heat procedures at 95°F for named industries including construction and landscaping. And warehouses have been covered by 8 CCR § 3396 since July 23, 2024.

Indoors, § 3396 starts at 82°F with employees present. Its full requirements — assessment and control measures — apply at 87°F, by temperature or heat index, and cool-down areas must be kept below 82°F unless the employer demonstrates that is infeasible.

Cal/OSHA’s July 21, 2026 heat warning named San Bernardino County among six Southern California counties under heat advisories, with triple-digit temperatures expected July 22–27.

The heat closed the courthouse, too. The DWC shut the San Bernardino district office on July 22, 2024, for about six to eight weeks, “due to excessive heat and needed repairs to a currently inoperable air conditioning system.” In-person filings and walk-throughs went to Riverside or Pomona until it reopened in September 2024.

There is no heat illness presumption — AB 1336 was vetoed October 13, 2025. Causation must be proved; a regulatory violation is strong evidence. Heat illness claims.

The rest of the docket

In 2024, San Bernardino County employers and insurers filed 41,786 first reports of occupational injury — 6.15% of California’s total (DWC, Workers’ Compensation Information System). Those are reports, not lawsuits; most never become an Appeals Board case.

Languages

In San Bernardino County, 35.8% of residents five and older speak Spanish at home, 11,847 speak Korean, and 15.3% speak English less than “very well” (American Community Survey, 2020–2024).

You are entitled to an interpreter at no cost — at treatment, at medical-legal exams, at depositions, and at hearings. At a hearing, the claims administratorClaims administrator / adjuster The person handling your claim for the insurer or self-insured employer. pays, and if you have no lawyer, the defendant must arrange the interpreter. Your interpreter rights.

Immigration status does not affect eligibility for California workers’ compensation.

Free help in San Bernardino County

Information & Assistance, San Bernardino: (909) 383-4522. Free help with questions, forms and the steps of a claim. I&AI&A Information & Assistance officer. Free help with questions and forms at every district office. Underused. officers do not represent you — but for an accepted claim with a procedural question, they are often the right first call.

Disability Evaluation UnitDEU Disability Evaluation Unit. Produces formal ratings from medical reports., San Bernardino: (909) 383-4522 — DIR lists the same number for both units. The DEU is where a medical report’s findings become a permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week. rating. For the DWC’s statewide line, call 1-800-736-7401.

If your case is at Pomona, its I&A number is (909) 706-4691.

Cal/OSHA, San Bernardino district office: 464 W. 4th Street, Suite 332 — the same building — (909) 383-4321. Cal/OSHA enforces workplace safety; the DWC decides benefits. Unsafe work and your rights.

The DWC’s free workshops for injured workers run by Zoom at 3 p.m. — the first Friday of each month in English, the third Friday in Spanish. Registration is required.

What to do this week

• Get medical care, and say it happened at work. If heat made you sick, get care that day and tell the doctor where you were working and how hot it was.
• Tell every possible employer in writing — the staffing agency that pays you and the company whose warehouse you work in — the same day, and keep copies. The client employer can share responsibility for workers’ compensation coverage.
• File the DWC-1DWC-1 The claim form. Filing it starts the 90-day presumption and the $10,000 treatment obligation. claim form and keep proof of the date. That date starts the 90-day clock and the employer’s duty to authorize up to $10,000 in treatment while it decides.
• Write down the conditions: the rate you were held to, the weights, the temperature, and whether there was water, shade or a cool-down area. Dates matter.
• Ask for an interpreter wherever you need one. It costs you nothing.

The first 72 hours, in order.

The deadlines that do not move

For a cumulative trauma claim, the date of injury is the § 5412 date — and the clocks run from there. Every deadline, counted from your date.