Expedited Hearings in Virginia: The Crisis That Wasn't

Published on: 6/04/2004

June 4, 2004

Before joining Sands Anderson a few weeks ago, one of our former attorneys worked for the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission for five years as a staff attorney and mediator. While there, he was given the dubious honor of managing the Commission's year-long effort to comply with the General Assembly's requirement that it create an expedited hearing docket for injured employees who establish that delay will cause them to suffer severe economic hardship. The result was Rule 2.3 of the Rules of the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission.

Before Rule 2.3 was adopted, however, there was much hand-wringing by those people representing the interests of employers, insurers and even claimants' attorneys. The employers and insurers predicted that establishing an expedited docket would result in a flood of requests for hearings sooner than already provided under Virginia 's relatively speedy system. Insurer and self-insurer lobbyists cried out that their clients' due process rights would be trampled in the rush to the Commission's courtroom. Attorneys representing injured workers had occasion to represent injured workers whose financial situation was desperate enough to warrant an expedited hearing, but many were concerned that having this two-track hearing system would push some cases to the front of the line at the expense of all the other claimants.

This month marks approximately one year since the Commission adopted Rule 2.3. What happened to the crisis? Since July 1, 2003, the Commission has received only 110 requests for expedited hearings. By contrast, the Commission referred approximately 11,300 cases to the hearing docket in calendar year 2002. So, less than 1% of the Commission's hearing caseload has tried to take advantage of the new procedure. According to Director of Claims/Deputy Commissioner Mayo, only 6 of those requests have resulted in an expedited hearing. He says that the number of requests has dropped off significantly, speculating that this is "most probably due to the extraordinary circumstances that must exist before a request can be granted." With regard to those few applications that meet the requirements of Rule 2.3, Mayo says: "[s]urprisingly or not, most defense counsel have agreed to the requests." His impression is that the "program does not appear to favor either claimants or employers," noting that injured workers can actually delay their ordinary hearing date by trying to appeal a denial of an expedited hearing.

It is always your best policy to make every effort to immediately investigate the circumstances of your case, and be ready to accept or deny the claim as soon as possible. However, it appears that the expedited hearing process in Virginia is being reserved only for the most dire of emergency cases and should not be a problem for most employers and insurers. If you are faced with one, and you would like some help, please give us a call as soon as you are aware of it.




This was written by: