Start where you are
Something just happened.
They stopped something.
Something is about to be decided.
Something is wrong with my employer, or my case.
Not sure which? Take the 2-minute triage → · En español · 한국어
What California workers' comp may cover
Every benefit depends on the facts of your claim. These are the categories the Labor Code provides, each with its statute.
Medical treatment →
All treatment reasonably required to cure or relieve the injury, with no co-pay — § 4600. Including up to $10,000 while the claim is still being investigated (§ 5402(c)), and the interpreter, mileage, and second-opinion rights most people are never told about.
Temporary disability →
Two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you cannot work, within the § 4453 floor and cap for your date of injury — $264.61 to $1,764.11 a week for 2026 injuries. Capped at 104 weeks, or 240 for nine listed conditions.
Permanent disability →
A rating that converts to weeks under § 4658(d), paid at a rate that has not moved since 2014. At 70% and above, a life pension follows. The rating is a string of numbers — and it is checkable.
Job displacement voucher →
$6,000 for retraining under § 4658.7 if you are not offered work within your restrictions, plus the $5,000 return-to-work supplement under § 139.48 — a separate application most people are never told to make.
Mileage reimbursement →
Every mile to treatment, therapy, the pharmacy, and medical-legal exams — at the rate in effect on the date you traveled, not your date of injury. 76¢ a mile from July 1, 2026.
Death benefits →
Paid by who depended on the person who died, not by fault — § 4702. And under § 4703.5, payments to totally dependent minor children do not stop at the maximum.
Life pension →
At a rating of 70% or higher, § 4659(a) pays about 1.5% of earnings for each point above 60 — per week, for life — after the permanent disability weeks run out. Most people are never told it exists.
Settlements →
Two structures, and they treat your future medical care oppositely. A judge must approve either. What decides which is right is the § 5410 five years — which run from the date of injury, not the award.
The claim, start to finish
The claim process, every deadline in one table →
Ten stages, every statutory deadline, and the three moments where cases quietly die.
The ten stages, in order
The injury.
A single event, or a condition that built up over years — cumulative trauma counts, and § 5412 sets its legal date. What counts.
Report it — in writing.
Written notice to your employer within 30 days (§ 5400). A text or email with a date is enough. If you didn't report right away.
The DWC-1 claim form.
Your employer must hand it to you within one working day (§ 5401). Filing it starts every clock in your favor. The form, and what it starts.
Treatment begins.
Up to $10,000 of treatment must be authorized within one working day of the claim form — while the claim is investigated (§ 5402(c)). How medical treatment works.
The insurer decides.
Accept, deny, or delay — 90 days, or the claim is presumed compensable (§ 5402(b)); 75 for public-safety presumptions. If it is denied.
Benefits flow, or don't.
Temporary disability at two-thirds of your wage, medical care through the MPN, mileage as you go. What you are owed.
Disputes.
Utilization review and IMR for treatment; the QME process for the medical questions the parties cannot agree on. The QME process.
Permanent and stationary.
The doctor declares maximum medical improvement, and the rating string that decides your money is written. Decode yours.
Settlement or trial.
Stipulations or a Compromise & Release, approved by a judge — or a hearing at one of thirteen Southern California district offices. Settlements. · Hearings.
After.
Five years from the date of injury to reopen if you get worse (§ 5410) — and the life pension, if the rating reached 70%. Already settled.
Free tools, nothing to sign up for
Eleven calculators and one triage. Every number carries its Labor Code section, and every tool tells you when your input is probably wrong — which is the part that changes outcomes. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
What am I owed? →
Temporary disability, permanent disability, the life pension, mileage, and the penalties for paying you late — with the statute beside every number.
Should you call a lawyer? →
Eight factual questions and an honest sort into three routes — including the one where the free state I&A officer can probably handle it.
Decode my rating string →
Paste 15.03.01.00 – 8 – [1.4]11 – 340G – 13 – 15 and we explain all six parts, check the arithmetic, and convert it to dollars. No other California firm publishes this.
What are my deadlines? →
Your date of injury in, every clock that applies to you out — sorted by urgency, including the two miscounted most often.
Your average weekly wage →
Every benefit multiplies out of this one number, and § 4453(c) gives four ways to compute it. The carrier picked one.
Permanent disability: weeks and dollars →
Your final percentage becomes weeks, each week pays a rate capped at $290 since 2014, and the tool says when the rating itself looks wrong.
What we actually know
Most workers' compensation websites are a phone number surrounded by reassurance. This one is a reference work.
We show the arithmetic.
Permanent disability is a rating string — impairment, adjustment, occupation, age — and it is checkable. We show you how to check yours.
We tell you when the answer is bad.
A rotator cuff tear has no impairment value in the AMA Guides. A successful repair can rate zero. We explain why, rather than pretending otherwise.
We keep it current.
SB 171 rewrote the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund in July 2026 and made Labor Code § 5909's transmittal trigger permanent on July 13, 2026 — twelve days after it had been scheduled to expire. The utilization review regulations were restructured on April 1, 2026. Most California workers' comp pages still describe the versions that were superseded.
And we tell you the parts that are not about us.
Sometimes you do not need a lawyer, and the state's Information & Assistance officers are free. When you probably don't need one.
The things most people are never told
§ 5402(c)
$10,000 in medical treatment
Your employer must authorize within one working day of your claim form, while your claim is being investigated or denied. More.
§ 4650(d)
An automatic 10%
Added to any late indemnity payment, "without application." You do not have to ask. It is routinely not added. More.
§ 4656(c)(3)
240 weeks instead of 104
Of temporary disability for nine listed conditions. 136 extra weeks. Up to about $240,000. More.
§ 4553
One-half more, paid by the employer personally
Where the employer knew about the danger. Twelve-month deadline. More.
And the third-party claim.
Workers' compensation pays nothing for pain and suffering. A case against anyone other than your employer does, and it is frequently the larger of the two. More.
Where your case is heard
Representing injured workers in Southern California since 1965. Venue is assigned by ZIP code, and we publish a practical guide to every district office — parking, transit, security, and the local rules that catch people.
Los Angeles County →
Our office is here. Five district offices — Los Angeles, Van Nuys, Marina del Rey, Long Beach, Pomona — and the largest workers' comp court in California.
Orange County →
Santa Ana and Anaheim. Santa Ana has the most expensive parking in the system; Anaheim is free, with Metrolink behind the building.
Riverside County →
The Riverside office, and the Inland Empire's warehouse and logistics workforce.
San Bernardino County →
San Bernardino — the cheapest parking in the system — and the trucking, logistics, and manufacturing injuries of the Inland Empire.
San Diego County →
The San Diego office — free parking, no food in the building — and the two threshold questions this county raises: tribal gaming and maritime work.
Ventura County →
The Oxnard office, and one of California's most significant agricultural regions alongside a coastal and industrial economy.
Kern County →
Bakersfield: no calendar on Mondays, and an unrepresented worker cannot get past the lobby without an escort.
Santa Barbara County →
The office moved from Santa Barbara to Goleta on January 22, 2026 — and a great deal of published material still lists the old address.
Recoveries that changed lives
Four representative recoveries, as published by the firm. Every case is decided on its own facts and law. Nothing here predicts what will happen in yours.
- $3,500,000Roofer · traumatic brain injury. Client fell from height on a Southern California residential roofing project and sustained a traumatic brain injury requiring a full year of inpatient rehabilitation.
- $1,800,000Catastrophic injury · lifetime home care. Client's industrial injuries left them requiring twelve hours a day of in-home attendant care for life.
- $850,000Failed back syndrome · upper-extremity surgeries. Client developed failed back syndrome and underwent two unsuccessful upper-extremity surgeries.
- $725,000Back surgery complications. Client underwent back surgery that resulted in an incisional hernia and progressive deterioration.
Required disclosure — Business and Professions Code § 6158.3. The result portrayed in this advertisement was dependent on the facts of that case, and the results will differ if based on different facts.
Who we are
Law Offices of Solov & Teitell, APC. Founded in 1965. Los Angeles.
#29450
Lessing Charles Solov
California State Bar — a five-digit number, issued in 1959, six years before the firm existed.
#183718
Jamey Alan Teitell
California State Bar, Partner and Trial Attorney. Selected to Super Lawyers, 2026
The library
Three languages, every figure with its source, organized by where you are in the claim rather than by legal topic.
Benefits and process →
Every benefit, every stage, every deadline — the claim from the first 72 hours to the five-year reopening window.
Injuries →
How California rates each body part, and where the AMA Guides leave value on the table.
Your job →
Construction, warehouse, delivery, healthcare, restaurant, hotel, garment, agriculture, port, staffing — the rule that applies to your work.
Answers →
Common questions answered in sixty words, ordered by where you are in the claim.
Articles →
Timely analysis of what changed in the law, what the rates pay, and how the system actually works.
Rates, deadlines, forms, glossary →
The references we use ourselves — every rate with its effective date and its DWC Newsline.
Not sure what to do next?
(213) 380-931024/7 intake (213) 463-6469
Free case review. No fee unless we recover. You are not responsible for costs we advance if there is no recovery. English, Spanish, and Korean.
Or tell us what happened — seven questions, no obligation, and a person calls you back within one business day.
Consultas gratis en español. · 한국어 무료 상담.
We make home and hospital visits. If you cannot come to us, say so when you call.
Law Offices of Solov & Teitell, APC
1625 W. Olympic Boulevard, Suite 802
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. · 24/7 intake line answers outside those hours.
On the map link. It points to the firm's Google Business Profile, which is claimed and verified. The
LocalBusinessschema carries the same canonical URL inhasMapandsameAs, plus the coordinates from the listing itself rather than a geocode of the street address. Corrected 2026-08-23: this note previously said the firm had no linkable profile. That was wrong — the profile existed and had not been found.
General information about California law, not legal advice about your case.
Impairment values described are from the AMA Guides, 5th Edition as applied under the California rating schedule; the Guides are a copyrighted medical text and figures here are summarized rather than reproduced. Your rating depends on your own examination findings.
Law Offices of Solov & Teitell, APC · (213) 380-9310 · 24/7 (213) 463-6469
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