Public Entity Practice Group
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Through our representation of these governmental and public agency clients, we have developed an expertise in litigating the special issues associated claims involving presumptions for safety officers.
An area that distinguishes Hanna Brophy as the leading workers’ compensation legal defense representative in California for public entities is our expertise in defending Industrial Disability Retirement claims. CalPERS Industrial Disability Retirements (IDRs) are granted to qualified safety-class members and can be very costly to a municipality, as well as CalPERS. The Claims Professionals who handle workers’ compensation claims for safety officers need to be intimately familiar with the requirements of an IDR when a safety officer suffers a serious injury that may render him or her unable to return to regular duty.
In such cases, the defense of the workers’ compensation case must be handled with an eye toward the defense of the potential IDR. On March 30, 2017, CalPERS issued Circular Letter 200-018-17, which radically changed the way CalPERS handles the processing of IDR Applications. All personnel involved with the handling of safety officer workers’ compensation claims must become intimately familiar with these new CalPERS IDR requirements and procedures so that IDR Applications can be handled in the most efficient and effective manner for every local agency.
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Defense of IDR
As the leading expert in IDR, Hanna Brophy takes an integrated approach between workers’ compensation and IDR law from the inception of the workers’ compensation case to increase the likelihood of a favorable outcome with respect to the likely application for an IDR. The assigned attorney and Claims Professional should partner and discuss these types of workers’ compensation claims to determine whether a specialized course of action is necessary and proactively address the potential of an IDR filing. Some public entities do not defend applications for IDR, but the resistance to granting IDR has a positive deterrent effect on future filings and can result in a substantial cost savings for the public entity. We have had much success in our partnership with multiple public agencies across California in defending their interests on IDR matters.
In addition to handling workers’ compensation and IDR claims, all Hanna Brophy partners have extensive experience in Labor Code §132 and serious and willful misconduct claims.
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