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The Center for Investigative Reporting recently published another revealing story on questionable workers’ comp claims handling at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California. This April 2019 piece (see link below), by investigative journalist Will Evans, focuses on a cozy relationship between Tesla and Dr. Basil Besh, a prominent Bay Area orthopedic upper-extremity specialist. The article [...]

According to a joint investigation by ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times, at least 22 people have died and another 250 have been injured and following a Border Patrol pursuit — in the last four years alone. It seems that an unfortunate side effect of the Trump administration’s current immigration policy (coupled with what the report describes [...]

Joey Lee Bailey drank at least two 22-ounce beers and three double White Russians at Roosters Wings in Georgetown, Kentucky last January. He then drank at least one more beer and four more double White Russians at Horseshoes Kentucky Grill & Saloon in Lexington that same night. Bailey then hopped on Interstate 75 with a [...]

They’re not stories you hear often, but when you do, they sound horrific. JetBlue is being sued by two flight attendants who claim two pilots drugged both and raped one during a layover. The women claim the airline did nothing when they reported the assault and are suing for sex discrimination and civil rights violations, along [...]

After the 2012 reforms most of the attention went to IMR and the huge volume of UR disputes that wound up on the doorstep of Maximus, the DWC’s IMR provider. IBR, on the other hand, has gotten almost no attention. One would have thought that there was little friction between payors and medical providers over [...]

Most of California’s major newspapers have covered the controversy surrounding former DIR head Christine Baker and the report of the California State Auditor which I outlined in my last post (see some links to the newspaper coverage below). According to a LA Times report, Governor Newsom’s office and new Insurance Commissioner Ricard0 Lara are not happy. The [...]

Sharp Grossmont Hospital in El Cajon, California claims it was investigating employee theft of anesthesia drugs. So it installed motion-activated cameras on drug carts in three operating rooms at the facility. The only problem? Those three rooms were part of the women’s health center, and the secret cameras recorded some 1,800 patients in various stages [...]

The makers of the blood-thinning drug Xarelto, Bayer and Johnson & Johnson, have agreed to settle the 25,000 consolidated cases against them for $775 million. The massive mass tort settlement resolved the cases by creating a fund that the individual plaintiffs in each case can seek compensation from. Curiously, in six of the trials of individual [...]

Last week, a California jury determined Monsanto’s popular Roundup weed killer was a “substantial factor” in causing a longtime customer’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma. What was left to figure out was how culpable the company was in creating a dangerous product and failing to warn consumers. We now have our answer. In phase two of Edwin Hardeman’s trial, [...]

With yesterday’s release of a report by California State Auditor Elaine Howle, lingering questions have now been answered about the 2018 sudden departure of Christine Baker from her post as Director of the California Department of Industrial Relations. Howle’s report details a pattern of nepotism, lies, favoritism, manipulation, retaliation, creation of a culture of fear [...]