Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

It depends upon the date of injury and the type of settlement. If you have an open medical award and it is not five years from the date of injury, you can petition to reopen the award. Otherwise, labor code section 5410 is going to prevent you from re-opening the award unless there was some type of fraud involved in drafting the settlement, or both parties were mistaken.

Or, if you still work for the same employer, you can file a new claim if your treating physician substantiates your claim to a new injury.

How did you "settle"?

A Settlement by STIPULATIONS WITH REQUEST FOR AWARD can be re-opened for New & Further Disability (when you have medical evidence of a new level of disability within 5 years of the date of injury).

So: if you were injured in 2008 and you settled with Stipulations in 2010, you can reopen RIGHT NOW (before 2013!!!) to show New & Further Disability stemming from that old 2008 injury.

IF YOU RESOLVED the old claim with a Compromise & Release Agreement, you cannot try to reopen.

You can file a NEW claim, but you need the Treating Doctor to clearly write that the problems you have now are different and far in addition to the disability and complaints you had two years back.

and, if you file a new claim on a body part previously injured, don't be hurt and shocked when the insurance company issues a denial and you have to prove the new injury at a trial.

Don't be afraid of proving a new injury at trial, go ahead and file if the old claim was closed by Compromise & Release and you're having new problems...just be prepared for a tangle.

Hope that helped!