Long Beach WCAB District Office

Note the address. A number of directories and law firm pages still list an Oceangate address for this office. It is 1500 Hughes Way. Check anything you are relying on, including a notice from an opposing party.

One of the easier offices to attend

Parking: free, entered through the front guard station. No meters, no structure, no daily rate.

Food: there is a café in the adjacent Building Pod B. Only two Southern California WCAB offices have food on site, and this is one of them — which matters more than it sounds when a conference runs past noon.

Transit: Long Beach Transit serves the area.

What is remote and what is not

Remote by video: status conferences, mandatory settlement conferences, priority conferences, rating MSCs, and lien conferences.

In person: trials, lien trials, expedited hearings, and walk-throughs.

Walk-through hours: the standard 8:00–11:00 a.m. and 1:00–4:00 p.m. window.

Who is heard here — and one threshold question

Long Beach serves Long Beach, Wilmington, San Pedro, Carson, Compton, Lakewood, Signal Hill, and the surrounding area, by ZIP code.

If your work touches the port, answer this before you file anything.

The Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act is a federal system, and for many workers on and around the Port of Long Beach it applies instead of California workers' compensation. Coverage turns on a situs test (where you were working) and a status test (what you were doing).

Federal benefits are frequently more generous than California's — and filing in the wrong system wastes time the deadlines do not give back.

Port and longshore worker claims.

The rest of the docket: warehouse and logistics, drayage and trucking, healthcare, manufacturing and aerospace, construction, and asbestos claims from an older industrial base.

More on Long Beach claims.

Frequently asked questions