Sacramento, CA - Injured workers' advocates today questioned the Schwarzenegger Administration's "highly irregular and inappropriate" attempts to influence the outcome of a pending Workers Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) decision allowing injured workers to challenge the administration's permanent disability rating schedule.

"The WCAB's recent decisions are necessary clarifications of the 2004 statutory changes. The letter from John Duncan, a political appointee of the governor, to the WCAB commissioners, who are also all (except one) appointees of the governor, smacks of an attempt to interfere with the judicial process by exerting improper political pressure on the board to change their unanimous decision interpreting the law," said Todd McFarren, president of CAAA, whose members represent workers injured on the job.

McFarren said the board's recent decisions in the combined Almaraz/Guzman cases and the Ogilvie case "allow judges to fairly assess injured workers' actual permanent disabilities and lost wages, because the decisions allow the court to look at all the factors of disability."

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