You have rights as an injured California worker. Let us defend them.
California's workers' compensation system is, on paper, supposed to be simple. You get hurt on the job, you report the injury, and the workers' comp insurance carrier pays for your medical treatment, your time off, and any lasting impairment. In practice, the system is one of the most heavily litigated and adversarial in the country — and the insurance carrier on the other side has an entire claims department whose job is to limit, deny, or delay what they pay you.
At Solov & Teitell, we have been fighting that fight since 1965. We have an institutional read on how Southern California claims adjusters operate, which independent medical examiners are reliable on which body parts, and what an actual fair settlement looks like for the injury you have. If you have been hurt at work in California, the first call you make should not be to the insurance company. It should be to us.
What workers' compensation covers in California
California workers' comp is a no-fault system codified primarily in Labor Code §3200 et seq. If you are an employee and you were injured "arising out of and in the course of" your employment, you are entitled to five core categories of benefit:
- Medical treatment — all reasonably required medical care to cure or relieve the effects of the industrial injury, with no co-pay or deductible, for as long as the treatment is required (subject to utilization review and the medical treatment utilization schedule).
- Temporary disability (TD) — wage-replacement benefits at two-thirds of your average weekly wage, subject to statutory maximums, while you are unable to work because of the injury.
- Permanent disability (PD) — payments based on a permanent impairment rating using the AMA Guides and the California permanent disability rating schedule.
- Supplemental job displacement benefit (SJDB) — a $6,000 voucher for retraining or skill enhancement if your employer cannot accommodate your post-injury work restrictions.
- Death benefits — burial expenses and ongoing payments to dependents if a worker dies as a result of an industrial injury.
What we handle
Our workers' compensation practice covers the full range of California workplace injuries:
- Traumatic brain injuries from falls, struck-by incidents, explosions, and assaults
- Construction accidents on residential, commercial, and infrastructure sites
- Scaffolding accidents and falls from height
- Industrial fires and explosions including burns and blast trauma
- Manufacturing accidents, machine guarding failures, and repetitive trauma
- Slip-and-fall and same-level fall injuries
- Third-party civil claims against non-employer defendants
- Fatal work accidents and survivor benefits
- Equipment, forklift, and conveyor injuries
What we charge
Workers' compensation attorney fees in California are regulated by the WCAB and capped at 15% of the disability benefits we recover. The fee is paid out of the settlement or award — not out of your ongoing weekly disability checks. If we don't recover anything for you, you owe us nothing.
What to do right now
If you have just been hurt on the job in California, three things matter most in the first 48 hours:
- Get medical attention — and tell every provider you see that the injury happened at work. The phrase "industrial injury" needs to land in your medical record from day one.
- Report the injury to your employer in writing within 30 days. The clock for filing a DWC-1 claim form starts the moment your employer knows about the injury.
- Talk to a lawyer before you give any recorded statement to the workers' comp insurance carrier. Anything you say in that statement can — and will — be used against your claim later.