Grinberg: In-Person Walk-Throughs Are Back

Tuesday, August 23, 2022 | 0

The news I bring today isn’t happy news at all, at least as far as I am concerned. The Department of Industrial Relations has announced the return of in-person walk-throughs, effective Sept. 6 (except in Eureka), and the end of the Lifesize virtual walk-through.

Gregory Grinberg

Next month, we will be doing our walk-through as we did many years ago: Putting on not just suit jackets and ties, but pants and socks and shoes as well. We’ll also have to travel down to the boards themselves.

Of course, the option remains to e-file the settlements NOT as a walk-through, but I must object to this shift. Settlements are not meant to be contentious or litigation. They represent a resolution of a dispute — musical chairs with enough chairs for each player. Everyone’s a winner.

With remote walk-throughs, parties had an efficient way of getting settlements approved promptly. This was done without the added cost of a physical appearance and travel. It was done without the risk of spreading COVID, catching COVID or adding to the statistics for car break-ins and spiraling violent crime in the Bay Area. 

Hopefully, the DIR will see that remote walk-throughs were significantly more efficient and ended up with more file closures, and return to virtual walk-throughs. At the very least, I respectfully submit that virtual walk-throughs should remain an option.

The only bright side to all this, as far as I am concerned, is that now we have the option to walk through more than just settlements; petitions to compel depositions and QME examinations are also open. Further, appearing in San Francisco will give me an excuse to visit the very best Chinese food restaurant in the known world, Henry’s Hunan.

Gregory Grinberg is managing partner of Gale, Sutow & Associates’ S.F. Bay South office and a certified specialist in workers’ compensation law. This post is reprinted with permission from Grinberg’s WCDefenseCA blog.