Santa Ana WCAB District Office

Parking runs up to $18 a day — the highest of the Southern California WCABWCAB Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The court system that decides these cases. 23 district offices statewide. offices.

Additional lots at 3 MacArthur Place and the nearby DoubleTree.

Rail does not really work here. The Metrolink station is about four miles away and not walkable. OCTA buses serve the area.

If you do not drive, arrange the trip in advance rather than on the morning of a hearing. Anaheim is the better-connected Orange County option: free parking, and a Metrolink station behind the building. The Anaheim office.

Food: a café across the courtyard at 1 MacArthur Place with outdoor seating, plus restaurants at Hutton Center. No food or drink in the waiting room or hearing rooms.

Your hearing notice gives a session, not a time. Cases are set in the morning or afternoon block and called in turn. Plan on half a day for anything in person, and a full day for a trial — and budget parking for the whole of it.

What to bring:

• Your notice of hearing. It carries your case number and, for a conference, the video link.
• Government photo ID. DIR publishes no screening or check-in procedure for this building, but the San Bernardino and Riverside offices require photo ID at the door. Bring it.
• Every letter from the claims administratorClaims administrator / adjuster The person handling your claim for the insurer or self-insured employer. and every medical report on the issue being heard.

House rules. DIR asks everyone to silence cell phones on entering, and allows no food or beverages in the courtrooms, the waiting room, or the reception areas. Eat and drink at the café across the courtyard, which has outdoor seating between the two buildings.

Children should not be brought to court — the office’s own page says so, and there is no childcare. If you cannot arrange care, tell your attorney before the hearing date, not at the door.

Filing in person. Documents are stamped and filed by the counter clerks at the front counter. DIR does not publish the counter’s hours, so call (714) 558-4121 before a late-day filing. Keep your stamped copy — it is your proof of the filing date.

If you need an interpreter, you do not pay for it. The claims administrator pays for a certified interpreter at an Appeals Board hearing. If you have a lawyer, your lawyer arranges it. If you do not, the defendant must — that is the DWCDWC Division of Workers’ Compensation, part of the Department of Industrial Relations. Administers the system. Information Services Center: 1-800-736-7401.’s own rule for unrepresented workers. Ask in writing, as early as you can.

If you have a disability, the DWC’s district office accommodation coordinator is at 1-866-681-1459. Ask at least five days before the hearing for an assistive listening device or computerized translation, and make a separate request for each hearing date.

Remote by video: status conferences, mandatory settlement conferences, priority conferences, rating MSCs, and lien conferences.

In person: trials, lien trials, expedited hearings, and walk-throughs.

Walk-throughWalk-through Presenting a matter directly to a judge, usually for settlement approval. hours: the standard 8:00–11:00 a.m. and 1:00–4:00 p.m. window.

The video link is on your hearing notice. Each judge has a virtual courtroom on the CourtCall platform, and every courtroom also has a call-in number. It runs in a browser; nothing to install. On a phone, turn off battery saving — it is the usual reason people drop out mid-hearing.

An in-person hearing can sometimes be heard by video, but only if the judge agrees. A party may petition for it, and the DWC says those requests are decided case by case. Ask early; do not assume.

Every DWC courtroom has public Wi-Fi, added when conferences moved to video in March 2025. A conference by video also means no $18 parking.

Most cases end at the mandatory settlement conferenceMSC Mandatory Settlement Conference. Where most cases end — and where discovery closes., and at this office it is held by video. It is also where discovery closes: evidence not disclosed by then is generally inadmissible at trial. Once either side files a Declaration of Readiness to ProceedDOR Declaration of Readiness to Proceed. Forces the calendar. You have 10 calendar days to object, or objections to proceeding on its issues are waived., these are the days that follow.

A case review is worth the most before the settlement conference, and much less afterward. After that date, what the file is missing stays missing.

Not every hearing needs a lawyer, and if yours does not, we will tell you on the phone. These are the moments at this office when one usually matters.

• A Declaration of Readiness arrived.

  The time to object is 10 calendar days from service. A party who does not object waives its objections to proceeding on the issues in it, absent extraordinary circumstances.

• Your settlement conference is set.

  Discovery closes that day, and a missing report, an un-deposed evaluator or an unclaimed body part becomes permanent at it.

• A settlement is ready to be walked through.

  A Compromise and ReleaseC&R — Compromise and Release A lump sum that closes future medical treatment permanently. can go before a judge here the same day, and it closes future medical care for a lump sum. Read it before it reaches the judge.

• Your case is set for trial.

  It is in person, at 2 MacArthur Place, so plan on a full day and budget parking for all of it, up to $18.

• You cut or polished engineered stone.

  That work has produced a severe cluster of accelerated silicosis in young Southern California workers. If a lung illness followed it, tell the doctor what the work was.

• You need an interpreter.

  The claims administrator pays for a certified interpreter at a hearing, whatever the language. Without a lawyer, the defendant must arrange it, so ask in writing, as early as you can.

Call the same day if the claim was denied, you were fired or punished for filing, or more than a year has passed with nothing paid. Those involve deadlines that cannot be fixed once missed.

And when you probably do not need us. If the claim was accepted, treatment is being authorized, payments are arriving every two weeks, and there is no permanent impairment, you probably do not. Information & Assistance is in this building, and it answers questions and helps with forms at no cost. We will tell you that on the phone, too.

Whatever is not on the exhibit list at the settlement conference does not come in at trial. So the work happens before it.

1. We read the file before the settlement conference. A missing supplemental report, an un-deposed evaluator, an unclaimed body part, an unraised apportionmentApportionment Dividing permanent disability between industrial and non-industrial causes. It is to disability, not to findings on an image. defect: each can be dealt with before that date, and becomes permanent at it.
2. We list every witness and every exhibit. The joint Pretrial Conference StatementPretrial Conference Statement The joint document listing issues, stipulations, proposed ratings, witnesses, and every exhibit. What is not on it does not come in. sets out the issues, the stipulations, each side’s proposed permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week. rating, every witness, and every exhibit, with the author, date, and title of each document.
3. We prepare you for the day. Whether you will be on video or in this building, which session you are set in, and how to get here when parking runs up to $18 a day and the train is not practical. If the facts are disputed, you will testify, briefly: tell the truth, answer only what is asked, do not guess, and describe your limits accurately, including the good days.
4. We watch the clocks after the decision. A Petition for ReconsiderationPetition for Reconsideration Appeal from a final order. 20 days. A non-final order takes a Petition for Removal instead. has 20 days, and only from a final order. A non-final order is challenged by Petition for Removal instead, and filing the wrong one wastes the deadline.

A walk-through puts a document in front of a judge the same day, without a Declaration of Readiness and without waiting for a hearing to be set. The rule is 8 CCR § 10789.

What can be walked through:

• a Compromise and Release
• Stipulations with Request for AwardStips — Stipulations with Request for Award An agreed percentage paid over time, with future medical left open, and reopening available within five years of the date of injury. These are not two prices for the same thing.
• a petition for attorney’s fees for representing the worker at a deposition
• a petition to compel attendance at a medical examination or deposition
• a petition for costs

When: in DIR’s words for this office, “Walk-through hours are 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.” First come, first served; there is no appointment system.

The one advance deadline: a settlement that opens a new case — there is no case number yet — must be submitted by noon the court day before. Every other walk-through document comes with you on the day.

In person only — DWC ended virtual walk-throughs in September 2022.

How it works: you check in with the staff member the presiding judge has designated, who assigns the document to a judge, and then you appear before that judge. If that judge is unavailable, the presiding judge may reassign it. The judge can approve it, disapprove it, or take it for later review — you will not always leave with a signed award.

Santa Ana can act only on a Santa Ana case. A walk-through may be acted on only by a judge at the district office that has venue. Both offices are in Orange County, but a case venued in Anaheim is walked through in Anaheim.

Information & Assistance and the Disability Evaluation UnitDEU Disability Evaluation Unit. Produces formal ratings from medical reports. share one number: (714) 942-7576, in Suite 600.

I&AI&A Information & Assistance officer. Free help with questions and forms at every district office. Underused. officers help injured workers, free, with questions, forms, and the steps of a claim, and they can hold an I&A conference with the claims administrator. An interpreter at an I&A conference is paid by the claims administrator too. I&A cannot represent you. DIR publishes no I&A hours and does not say whether it takes walk-ins, so call before you go. When you don’t need a lawyer.

The DEU turns a medical report’s impairment findings into a permanent disability rating. For an unrepresented worker, the rating on a QME report comes from a DEU. How to read your report.

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

Cal/OSHA is in this building: its Santa Ana District Office, Suite 720, (714) 558-4451 — the only Cal/OSHA enforcement office DIR lists in Orange County. The DWC decides benefits; Cal/OSHA enforces safety. DIR’s lookup matches your job site’s city or ZIP code to the office that covers it. Unsafe work and your rights.

Santa Ana serves central and southern Orange County by ZIP code — Santa Ana, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Westminster, Huntington Beach, Mission Viejo, and the surrounding communities. North county generally goes to Anaheim — and so, on the DWC’s ZIP list, do Newport Beach (92657, 92660–92663) and Garden Grove (92840, 92841, 92843, 92844); one Irvine ZIP code, 92617, is listed for Riverside. Irvine explains what that means for a filing.

The docket: healthcare, hospitality and tourism, restaurants, manufacturing and medical devices, construction, warehouse and logistics, landscaping, and engineered stone fabrication — which has produced a severe cluster of accelerated silicosis in young Southern California workers.

More on Orange County claims.

The ZIP code locator is a convenience; the statute is county-based. The law lets an Application for Adjudication be filed in the county where you live, the county where the injury happened (in a cumulative trauma case, where the last injurious exposure was), or — if you have a lawyer — the county of your attorney’s principal place of business. The law requires your written consent to the venue chosen.

Orange County has two offices, and the statute does not choose between them. The law names a county, and the law allows filing at any Appeals Board location in a county that has more than one; in practice, inside Orange County, the DWC’s ZIP code locator is what sends a case to Santa Ana or to Anaheim. A county line is different. Take a worker who lives in Irvine and was hurt on a job in Long Beach: the case may be filed in Orange County, where they live, or in Los Angeles County, where the injury happened. Either is allowed. Choose knowingly, because trials are held in person at whichever office has the case.

If the attorney’s county is the one chosen, the employer can undo it. It has 30 days from receiving notice of the case number and venue to object, and a timely objection moves the case to where you live or where you were hurt.

After that, venue moves only for good cause. A petition must set out the reasons specifically — and, if it is for the convenience of witnesses, their names, addresses, and what they would say. It is filed at the office that currently has venue; objections are due within 10 days, and the presiding judge rules, or sets a conference, within 30 days.

Santa Ana is an Orange County office. In the county, 24.3% of residents five and older speak Spanish at home, 191,572 speak Vietnamese, 79,078 speak Korean, and 18.3% speak English less than “very well” (American Community Survey, 2020–2024). Korean is spoken at home by 2.6% of Orange County residents — a larger share than in Los Angeles County. The interpreter rules above apply whatever the language, and we take calls in English, Spanish, and Korean.

Valley fever is not only a Central Valley illness. The California Department of Public Health counted 271 confirmed cases in Orange County in 2024. It says construction workers and others who work outdoors are at risk, especially if they dig or disturb soil, operate heavy machinery, or work under windy conditions. If a lung illness followed that kind of work, tell the doctor what the work was.

All of Orange County.

By rail: Metrolink’s Santa Ana station, 1000 E. Santa Ana Blvd, is served by the Inland Empire–Orange County and Orange County lines. DIR puts it about four miles from the office.

By bus: OCTA Route 53 (Anaheim to Irvine via Main St) lists a timepoint at MacArthur Blvd & MacArthur Pl — the office complex’s street — in its schedule effective August 9, 2026. OCTA does not tie a stop to 2 MacArthur Place, so check the stop before the day of a trial.

Parking: around the building, up to $18 a day. Paid lots across the street at 3 MacArthur Place and about half a block away at the DoubleTree Hotel.

The firm appears at district offices throughout Southern California, and our own office is in Los Angeles, at 1625 W. Olympic Blvd. If your case is set here, ask on the call — the answer will be specific.

A case review is worth the most before the settlement conference, and much less afterward. Tell us when your case is set at this office, and we will tell you what to expect here, down to where to park. The first call is free and takes about fifteen minutes, in English, Spanish, or Korean. There is no fee unless we recover, and you are not responsible for costs we advance if there is no recovery.