“I am glad and so very pleased...she made happen what no other attorney could do. So far she has proven her weight in gold.”
Jamal Sharples
Palmdale
✦ Board-Certified Specialist in Workers’ Compensation Law — State Bar of California ✦
A denial is not the end. It’s the beginning of our fight for your benefits.
By Eman Yazdchi, Esq. · Certified Specialist in Workers' Compensation Law
Workers' comp claim denials in Mojave follow a pattern driven by the industries that dominate this community. Aerospace contractors at the Mojave Air and Space Port deny claims by arguing that chemical exposure was within "acceptable limits" or that hearing loss is age-related rather than work-related. Rio Tinto Borax and Golden Queen Mining deny respiratory and musculoskeletal claims by blaming pre-existing conditions or non-work activities. BNSF Railway uses its corporate claims department to aggressively contest injuries at the Mojave rail yard. In every case, the insurer bets that a worker in a remote desert community with limited access to legal representation will accept the denial and walk away.
That bet pays off too often. But a denial letter is not a final answer — it is the opening position in a legal fight that the insurer frequently loses. Under LC section 5402, if the insurer failed to issue a timely denial within 90 days of your DWC-1 filing, your injury is presumed compensable — the burden flips entirely to the insurance company. Even when the denial is timely, the specific reasons cited almost always have legal and medical counter-strategies that a board-certified specialist knows how to deploy.
Attorney Eman Yazdchi has overturned claim denials for aerospace workers, miners, railroad employees, and truckers across Mojave's industrial landscape. We litigate denied claims at the Bakersfield WCAB, where the judges understand the severity and complexity of Kern County industrial injuries. A denial is not the end — it is where the real legal work begins.
Insurance companies serving Mojave's aerospace, mining, and railroad employers use industry-specific denial tactics. Understanding these tactics is the first step to overcoming them:
Space Port employers and their insurers frequently deny claims by arguing that the connection between the work activity and the injury is too uncertain. A technician at Scaled Composites develops respiratory problems — the insurer argues it could be the desert air, smoking history, or any number of non-work causes. A Virgin Galactic worker suffers hearing loss — the insurer blames recreational noise exposure. We counter with occupational medicine specialists who can establish workplace causation through industrial hygiene records, exposure monitoring data, and medical literature specific to aerospace chemicals and noise levels.
The Rio Tinto Borax mine and Golden Queen Mining operations employ workers who perform decades of heavy physical labor. When a miner files a claim for a back injury, shoulder tear, or knee replacement, the insurer's doctor inevitably finds "degenerative changes" on imaging and attributes the condition to age rather than work. In California, this defense fails when we prove that work activities aggravated, accelerated, or "lit up" the pre-existing condition — which is fully compensable. A 55-year-old haul truck operator who has spent 20 years absorbing vibration on mine roads did not develop spinal disc disease from aging alone. We obtain qualified medical evaluator reports that document the industrial causation.
Claims involving chemical exposure at aerospace facilities or mineral dust exposure at mines are routinely denied for "insufficient medical evidence" linking the exposure to the diagnosis. These denials exploit the fact that occupational disease develops slowly and is harder to connect to a specific workplace than a broken bone from a fall. We work with board-certified occupational medicine physicians and toxicologists who specialize in aerospace chemical exposure and mining dust diseases to build the medical foundation that defeats these denials.
Under LC section 5402, if the insurer fails to issue a formal acceptance or denial within 90 days of receiving your completed DWC-1 form, your injury is presumed compensable. The burden of proof shifts entirely to the insurance company — they must now prove your injury is not work-related, rather than you proving it is. This presumption is particularly powerful for Mojave workers because the complex industrial environments often make causation disputes the insurer's primary weapon. Eliminate that weapon, and the claim changes entirely.
After a denial, we file a Declaration of Readiness to Proceed requesting a hearing at the Bakersfield WCAB. The process moves through a Mandatory Settlement Conference — where many denied claims resolve once the insurer sees the strength of our medical evidence — and, if necessary, to trial before a workers' comp judge. Board-certified specialists win at trial because we understand the evidentiary standards and procedural rules that determine outcomes at the Bakersfield WCAB.
Injured at work in Mojave? Call (661) 273-1780
Tap to call →All denied Mojave workers' comp claims are challenged at the Bakersfield WCAB district office in Kern County. We file Declarations of Readiness, attend Mandatory Settlement Conferences, and try cases before Bakersfield WCAB judges who understand the industrial injury patterns of Kern County.
We file a Declaration of Readiness immediately after engagement. A Mandatory Settlement Conference at the Bakersfield WCAB is typically scheduled within 60 to 90 days. Trial, if needed, follows within 30 to 60 days after MSC. Many denied Mojave industrial claims are resolved within 4 to 8 months of our initial filing.
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