Frequent Hearing Delays Frustrate Injured Workers

Justice Delayed (and Denied)

It is common for a hearing date in a workers’ comp claim to be reset three or even four times in a single case (or more). The postponements can often stetch out the process for over a year.

Many injured workers find it frustrating to have their hearing date postponed over and over again. They are often left wondering if they will ever get a chance to present their case. As workers’ compensation attorneys for injured workers’, we frequently object to hearings being postponed. The majority of the time, the insurance company is the one requesting the postponement. In recent years, the State Board of Workers’ Compensation has liberally granted these requests from insurance companies, often without any strict legal justification to postpone the hearing.

The cumulative effect of Georgia’s lax postponement regime is that many claims never reach a prompt resolution on the merits. A striking indicator is the sharp decline in the number of workers’ comp hearings that actually go to trial in Georgia. In the late 1980s, there were roughly 2,500 workers’ compensation cases tried annually; by 2024, that number had plummeted by over 90%, to only 242 trials in the entire state. Georgia’s population and workforce have grown in that time, so one would not expect such a dramatic drop if claimants were still finding it worthwhile to pursue hearings. While multiple factors could account for this trend (including increased settlements and use of mediation), one likely explalanation is that the difficulty and delay in getting a timely hearing has contributed to the decline. In short, if the system makes it too slow and arduous to obtain an award, many injured workers will settle for less or abandon claims, meaning the rights guaranteed by the statute exist more on paper than in reality. This represents a fundamental failure of the system’s promise of a swift, sure remedy.

Original Intent – A Swift Remedy

Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act was enacted in 1920. Workers’ compensation was designed as a “no-fault” alternative to tort lawsuits, meant to provide quick and sure benefits to injured workers without the delay and expense of civil trials. Before the Workers’ Compensation Act, injured employees often had no recourse or faced long, costly litigation; the new system promised a swift and certain remedy for lost wages and medical costs. This intent is reflected in the State Board’s mission statement to ensure “efficient processing and swift, fair resolution of claims”. In short, the grand bargain of workers’ comp traded the workers’ right to sue for the employer’s guarantee of prompt benefits. Unfortunely, the system has strayed from this original intent.

Perhaps the most pernicious abuse is using time as a weapon. If an injured worker is not receiving weekly benefits (either because the claim was initially denied or benefits were cut off), the employer/insurer knows the worker may be desperate for income. Dragging out the hearing date amplifies that desperation.

Although a judge could award attorney’s fees and penalties for unreasonable delays, the reality is that only a very small percentage of cases will ever make it to a hearing in front of a judge. This means that the insurance companies can often delay hearings without any real consequences. Any attorney fees penalties assesed against the employer are so small compared to the amount of money they save by systematically delaying hearings, that it is not a real deterrent.

The Workers’ Comp System Lacks Clear Guidelines for Hearing Postponements

Under Georgia law, once a workers’ compensation hearing is requested (typically via Form WC-14), the State Board must schedule it “as soon as practicable,” with the hearing date not less than 30 days and not more than 90 days from the notice. O.C.G.A. § 34-9-102(a) provides that: “The hearing shall be held as soon as practicable; provided, however, no hearing shall be scheduled less than 30 days nor more than 90 days from the date of the hearing notice.” Pusuant to Board Rule 102(C)(1)(a) “[A] hearing shall be postponed only upon strict legal grounds, or at the discretion of the Board or an Administrative Law Judge.”

Although the hearing is supposed to take place as soon as practicable, in practice, workers’ comp cases are frequently postponed over and over. The Board has, as a matter of policy, allowed the “first setting” of the hearing to be postponed automatically. And in virtually every case, the hearing is postponed on the first setting at the request of the insurance company. Over a decade ago, there was an informal rule (not written down but often followed) that a hearing could only be postponed one or two times. Further requests for postponement by the insurance companies would often be denied. That is not the case today. Now, we rarely see pressure from the Board to move forward with a hearing unless it has been pending over a year.

The reason for the frequent delays is a lack of clear guidelines for postponements. The Board has not established a clear standard for what constitutes “strict legal grounds” for postponement, or what standard the ALJ should use to exercise their discretion to postpone the hearing. This has led to a situation where the insurance companies can request postponements for a wide variety of reasons, and their requests are often granted.

Strategic Delay is Weaponized by Insurers and Permitted by the Board

By way of example, we have seen the rise of strategic delay in discovery by the employers and insurance companies. Counsel for the insurance company are intentionally structuring their discovery requests to delay cases for a year or even longer. Insurance companies have learned that they can delay hearings by frivolously requesting more discovery or waiting to send out requests.

In a typical scenerio, the first hearing gets continued automatically; by the time the second hearing date approaches, the insurer may still be waiting on a doctor’s IME report or “clarification” from a physician, and thus requests yet another continuance. At the next setting, the Employer may request more medical records. We have seen cases where the insurance company requests gynocological records for a neck injury claim, or colon and rectal records for a hand injury. Often times, these tactics are indended as a strategy to delay the hearing, rather than to obtain relevant information.

Pending discovery should not be used as a weapon to strategically delay hearings

In ordinary civil litigation, Georgia law explicitly requires that any party seeking a continuance must show they have exercised “due diligence” in preparing their case. This principle – codified at O.C.G.A. § 9-10-166 – underscores that delays should not reward lack of preparation. The Georgia Superior Court Rules also require that any party seeking to extend the discovery period past the 6 month window must show they have exercised due diligence in completing discovery. This is a critical safeguard to ensure that parties cannot simply delay proceedings at will, and it helps to maintain the integrity of the judicial process.

It is a huge failing of the system that the Board has not adopted similar rules for workers’ compensation hearings. The Board should require that any party seeking a continuance must show they have exercised due diligence in preparing their case. This would help to ensure that hearings are not delayed unnecessarily and that injured workers receive the benefits they are entitled to in a timely manner. Likewise their should be a fixed time limit for discovery, so that employers do not have an open-ended opportunity to delay hearings and game the system.

Compare this with Florida’s workers’ compensation law, which provides that:

(d) The final hearing shall be held within 210 days after receipt of the petition for benefits in the county where the injury occurred, if the injury occurred in this state, unless otherwise agreed to between the parties and authorized by the judge of compensation claims in the county where the injury occurred. However, the claimant may waive the timeframes within this section for good cause shown. See FL Stat § 440.25.

In conclusion, the lack of clear guidelines for hearing postponements in Georgia’s workers’ compensation system has led to a culture of delay that undermines the original intent of the law. Claimant’s attorneys have obeserved that delays have been trending upward for years. The Board should take steps to address this issue by establishing clear standards for postponements and requiring parties to demonstrate due diligence in preparing their cases.

However, until such time as the Board adopts new rules, injured workers will likely continue to face unnecessary delays in their claims, and the promise of a swift remedy will remain unfulfilled.