What was disputed, and how it came out
Each issue the panel decided, with the reasoning it gave. An outcome is what this panel did on this record — not a rule, and not a prediction.
Section 4661.5 requires application of current TD rates to payments made >2 years post-injury but does not mandate recalculation of average weekly earnings or earnings capacity based on 2023 minimum wage.
From the decision · page 9Accordingly, we find that because the local minimum wage in 2023 was not a reasonably anticipated factor in 1992, applicant has not established through specific, demonstrable evidence that the wage capacity analysis based on current minimum wage is an appropriate basis for a wage capacity determination.
The facts that decided it
What the panel treated as outcome-determinative, and which side it favoured.
It is inherently speculative to assert that the prevailing local minimum wage in the City of Los Angeles in 2023 was a reasonably anticipated factor at the time of applicant’s injury in 1992, some 31 years earlier.
Favours Defendant prevailed
Applicant failed to establish through specific, demonstrable evidence that wage capacity analysis based on current minimum wage is appropriate.