Valdez v. Employers Ins. Co. of Nev.

**What Happened:** A worker was injured in 1987 and had been receiving workers' compensation benefits through Employers Insurance Company of Nevada. He had been treating with his chosen doctor for years. Later, Nevada changed its workers' compensation law to require injured workers to use doctors within their insurance company's approved network. The insurance company told the worker he had to switch from his longtime doctor to one of their approved physicians, even though his injury happened before the new law was passed. **What the Court Decided:** The Nevada Supreme Court ruled in favor of the insurance company. The court said the new law requiring workers to use network doctors applied even to older injury cases from before the law existed. This meant the worker had to leave his established doctor and switch to one approved by the insurance company. **Why This Matters for Workers:** This ruling shows that changes to workers' compensation laws can affect workers retroactively, even for injuries that happened years earlier. Workers cannot assume they can keep their current medical arrangements if the law changes. When states modify their workers' compensation systems, injured workers may lose the right to continue with their chosen healthcare providers, regardless of how long they've been treating with them.