In the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund reforms that Gov. Gavin Newsom is pitching, proposed Labor Code Sections 4754.1(c), (g) and (e) collectively provide as follows:

1. 

   Arthur L. Johnson

   A claim for SIBTF benefits pursuant to this article shall be supported only by medical-legal evidence obtained in the course of the claim for the subsequent industrial injury.
2. Any new medical-legal evidence in a claim for SIBTF benefits pursuant to this article shall not be used to establish the liability for a subsequent industrial injury or the level of the subsequent industrial injury disability.
3. Vocational rehabilitation reports or other vocational evidence, obtained solely for proceedings pursuant to this article that were not obtained for use as evidence in the proceeding for compensation for the subsequent industrial injury, are not admissible, and the cost of those reports shall not be reimbursable in proceedings under this article.

Those proposed procedural changes will require:

1. Joinder of every SIBTF case with the basic case for all proceedings.
2. There can be no development of the record (medically or vocationally) after the basic case is finalized.
3. Therefore, development of the record (medically and vocationally) will occur contemporaneously only in the basic case workup.
4. These evidentiary complexities will certainly require very complex pretrial hearings as to how this evidence is going to be obtained contemporaneously, and who is going to pay for the development of the record to obtain that evidence.
5. All our cases will be very substantially delayed due to such procedural and evidentiary complexities.
6. All SIBTF cases will have to be tried with the basic case. This is because if the judge needs “further development of the record,” that can occur only before the basic case is finalized.

So, there will be no SIBTF trial after the basic case because all evidentiary decisions will have to be made contemporaneously with the handling of the basic case.

The legal and procedural morass this law mandates will immensely burden the workers’ compensation system. It will cause interminable delays. It will force joinder and trial together of all SIBTF cases with the subsequent industrial injury itself. The complexities will be immense. The delays will be interminable. The effect on our judges will be an increased workload. The effect on our clients will be extremely adverse.

Arthur L. Johnson is a founding attorney for Johnson Law Firm, a workers' compensation and Social Security disability law firm in San Jose. This opinion appears here with permission.