Off The Record – Workers’ Comp – Administrative Decisions

Video Transcript

Hi, everyone, Craig Rosasco again, Turley Redmond & Rosasco. Today we’re going to talk about… What are we going to talk about? Let’s think about this for a second. Let’s talk about administrative decisions at the Workers’ Compensation Board. So you go to a workers’ compensation hearing with your attorney, like me, call me, I will help, and we get an adverse decision against us that we don’t like. The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board will then kick out a decision approximately two to three business days later. It’ll be dated on the bottom right-hand side. It’ll say “Date duly filed.” You then have 30 days from that date to file an RB-89.1 to appeal that decision if you’re not happy with it.

What happens when the appeal goes in? I file my appeal within 30 days. The insurance company, of course, has the right to respond and rebut my allegation and my appeal, right? And then it goes before the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board in Albany. There’ll be a three-board panel member review of that decision, and they’ll issue what’s called a Board Panel Review, okay? And in that, they’ll review it.

And typically, when can we see an overturn of a lower-level decision? Is where there’s an error of law. Typically errors of facts are not reversible because it’s factual. They say, “The judge heard the testimony. They were in the best position to make the determination as to who is credible.” Albany will not overturn those things.

They will, however, overturn if the judge made an error of law. So if it gets to that level and comes back down and you’re still not happy, you do have the right to appeal to what’s called the Appellate Division. That’s the second-highest court in the state of New York. There are four different divisions in the state of New York. It would go before the Third Department because the Workers’ Compensation Board is housed or works out of Albany. So it would go before the Third Department, Appellate Division.

If you lose at that level, there’s always the Court of Appeals, which is the highest court of the state. You have to get permission to go there. And it very, very, very rarely happens, but some cases have gotten there.

If you’ve got a decision and you’re not happy with the results, you do have appellate rights. You’re going to need an attorney like myself, so give us a call. Let’s see if we can help you out. 516-745-5666. We’ll give you a free consultation review and see if it’s worth it to go to Albany on this issue. We’ll talk to you soon.