by vampireinthenight on Mon Jun 17, 2019 8:38 am
Rose, what you are proposing is perfectly reasonable and makes total sense. However, the concept of reasonable, expeditiously efficient discovery will likely be lost in the mire of lame platitudes like, "Interrogatories aren't allowed in workers' comp!". Which, of course, isn't true but you will be doing something outside the box and that is usually not received well at the WCAB. The 5710 fee was never supposed to be a fee generator but, as LA points out, it has become one so you will have to deal with that mis-perception as well.
Here's an anecdote for you. I had flown an IW in from out of state for depo. He refused to answer questions about criminal convictions and the AA could not provide a reasonable objection to the questions. I got an order compelling the answers. I also asked to submit my questions via interrogatories since he was out of state and there were only a few questions remaining. Denied. Because: "Interrogatories aren't allowed in WC". So I had to schedule and fly him back out to answer questions he should have answered in the first place.
Good luck.