Reference

The first 72 hours →

A printable checklist. Report it in writing, file the DWC-1 and keep the date, ask for the § 5402(c) $10,000, and photograph the equipment before anyone repairs it. Also in español.

Rates →

Every figure with its effective date and its source. 2026 temporary disability: $264.61 minimum, $1,764.11 maximum. Permanent disability, life pension, death benefits, mileage, and penalties.

Note the rule most rate pages get wrong: temporary disability uses the rate on your date of injury; mileage uses the rate on the date you traveled.

Every deadline in one place →

Twenty deadlines, each with its statute — and the two miscounted most often, both of which run from the date of injury rather than from anything that feels like a starting point.

What changed in 2026 →

§ 5909's sunset was deleted on July 13 and its transmittal trigger is now permanent. SIBTF was rewritten in July. The UR regulations restructured on April 1. Four treatment guidelines were replaced on January 2. Most California pages still describe the superseded versions.

Glossary →

Every acronym and term in one sentence each, with the statute where one applies — and the traps stated rather than hidden. Extremity percent is not whole person percent.

IMR overturn tracker →

What actually gets overturned on independent medical review, and what does not.

Every DWC form, and what it starts →

Which form you are holding and what clock it starts. The DWC 1 starts the 90-day presumption and the $10,000 treatment obligation. The DWC 9783 predesignation form only works before you are injured.

How to read your medical-legal report →

Ten things to check in the document your entire permanent disability is built from — and the one paragraph, usually four sentences long, that decides more of your case than any other.

For treating physicians →

What California requires of a workers' compensation report: the UR pathway, what makes an apportionment opinion substantial evidence, and the measurements that are routinely omitted and routinely matter.

What you're owed →

Temporary disability, permanent disability, life pension, mileage, and the penalties for paying you late — with the Labor Code section next to every number. It tells you when your input is probably wrong, which is the part that actually changes outcomes: capped earners, missing second-job wages, the 70% cliff, the mid-year mileage change.

Your deadlines →

Enter your date of injury and get every deadline that applies to you, sorted, with the statute for each. Including the two miscounted most often: the five years to reopen runs from the date of injury, not from your award — and in a repetitive-motion case the legal date of injury is often years after the symptoms started.

Rating string decoder →

Paste the string from your rating and we decode all six segments — what body part, what the 1.4 is, what your occupational group means and whether it is the right one, why age moved your number, and what the final percentage is worth in dollars. No other California firm publishes this. Free, nothing to sign up for, works on a phone.

What is my case worth? →

It will not give you a single figure, and the reason why is the most useful thing on the page. It separates the components a statute can compute from the one nobody can — future medical care, which is routinely the largest number in a settlement. Any site that hands you one total has either left it out or invented it.

C&R or Stipulations? →

The indemnity is the same figure under both settlements. What differs is future medical care and the § 5410 right to reopen — and that five years runs from the date of injury, not from the award, which is what decides how much the Stipulations column is actually worth.

Light duty pays less. What are you owed? →

Temporary partial disability is not two-thirds of your wage. It is two-thirds of what you LOST — Labor Code § 4654. The benefit people miss most often, because working at all feels like the end of the claim.

Permanent disability: weeks and dollars →

Your final percentage becomes weeks under § 4658(d), and each week pays a rate capped at $290 — unchanged since 2014. With the life pension at 70%+, the era tables for older injuries, and the three signs the rating itself is probably wrong.

Your average weekly wage →

Every benefit multiplies out of this one number, and § 4453(c) gives four ways to compute it — the carrier picked one. Second jobs aggregate. Overtime counts. The carrier's figure controls until someone challenges it.

Medical mileage →

The rate follows the date you traveled, not your date of injury — and 2026 changed mid-year, so a one-rate reimbursement of a mixed list underpaid one side of it. Handles a dated trip list exactly.

Should you call a lawyer? →

A 2-minute triage that refuses to give a verdict — no website can. Eight factual questions, the statutes they touch, the clocks probably running, and an honest sort into three routes, including "the free state I&A officer can likely handle this."

Death benefits →

§ 4702 pays by who depended on the person who died, not by fault. And under § 4703.5 payments to totally dependent minor children do not stop at the maximum — in a young family that is frequently worth more than the headline figure.