An Antioch sheet metal worker who fell off a ladder while working on a roof and severely injured his back in 2007 finally saw justice rendered in his case last month in front of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board in Oakland. His $1.4 million award came in a settlement negotiated by Bert Arnold, a Boxer & Gerson, LLP Partner and Certified Workers’ Compensation Specialist. Arnold took the case on in August, 2009 after the man had come up empty in previous attempts to be compensated for his workplace injury. He was 49 at the time, and the decade that had passed between his injury and the award stood as final vindication for the many difficulties he had endured.
“He was terribly disabled, so he couldn’t work at his old job anymore, and he didn’t have much else by way of employable skills,” said Arnold. “The chances of anyone hiring him again were slim, and the Qualified Medical Evaluator employed by the state to review his injury hadn’t done him justice. We had to call doctors, vocational experts and others to report about how severe his situation was. It was a complex case that went longer than most, but we finally got him the compensation he deserved.”
Arnold’s legal career began in 1986 after his graduation from San Francisco School of Law. He joined Boxer & Gerson in 1999 and became a partner in 2005.
His wider activity in the legal field includes serving as president of the California Applicants’ Attorneys Association (CAAA) in 2015. The organization works to reform the state’s workers’ compensation system and thereby help injured workers obtain just compensation and return to work whenever possible. More recently, he took on the role of the organization’s legislative chair, which promotes the interests of injured workers among Sacramento lawmakers.
Regularly named as a Northern California “Super Lawyer” in surveys by San Francisco magazine, Arnold also makes regular presentations at conferences and seminars for attorneys, doctors and other groups, for whom he details the intricacies of workers’ compensation law and the ever-changing legislation and case law that shapes its application.
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