New Board Rules for Applications for Board Review
Effective October 3, 2016, new Board rules provide that carriers and self-insured employers will no longer be able to stay payment of awards upon the filing of an Application for Mandatory Full Board Review. The new Rules published in the State Register last week will impose this and other new restrictions on parties filing Applications for Board Review, Applications for Full Board Review and Requests for Reconsideration. A key concern is the exclusion of third-party administrators in the definition of “necessary parties of interest.” As a result, claimants will have no obligation to serve an application for review on the TPA administering the claim; instead, compliance with the rules will occur if the underlying carrier or self-insured employer is served.
Other key changes include:
- Strict formatting and page limitations on briefs for ABRs and Rebuttals
- Duplicate filings of applications subject Appellants to §114-a(3) penalties
- Requirement for objections/exceptions to rulings, awards, admissibility of evidence or witness qualifications
- New requirement for sworn Affidavit for submission of new evidence
Rebuttals may be filed by a party “adverse” to the Appellant in the Application for Board Review and must otherwise follow all of the same format and page limitation rules applicable to Applications for Administrative Review.
The Rules provide that the Board may deny review if the application is not compliant with the proper format, is not timely and “properly” filed, or fails to include proper proof of timely service on all “necessary” parties. Review may be denied if the application attaches any documents that are contained in eCase at the time of filing even though there is often a delay between filing and the ability to review it in eCase. While prior court decisions did not require that parties note exceptions, the new rules permit the Board to deny review if objections/exceptions are not preserved in the record.
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