It’s the law: all employers in California have to provide work comp coverage for all their employees. Even Wolfram & Hart.

Normal law firms probably don’t have much of a premium. Evil law firms, however, might see a big increase. For this reason, I think they’re probably self-insured. That, and they can keep all medical treatment and administration entirely in-house (especially given that their “house” has locations on several worlds and lots of unofficial ties in this one), along with as much defense litigation as possible. I’d imagine they don’t incur many penalties either, since it’s likely they can turn back time to avoid late payments. And if an employee wants to argue that anything they’ve gotten is less than they deserve, I’d imagine the second phase of their employment isn’t long in starting.

Sample injured worker: Lindsey. Definitely injured on the job, so the injury is fully compensable. According to the California permanent disability rating guidelines, loss of the dominant hand between wrist and elbow, inclusive, where a prosthesis is possible, has a standard PD rating of 60%, meaning 60% of the jobs available wouldn’t hire you with that disability. When you adjust for age (assuming he’s just shy of 30) and occupation, both of which lower the rating, it ends up at 53%. This is, of course, not counting in psychiatric effects, which would probably raise the rating. So, if he settled his claim, which W&H would probably “encourage” him to do, he’d be entitled to at least $49,342.50 in compensation. And they’d have been in something of a bind later if he did settle, since he’d have ended up with minimal PD and they couldn’t legally recoup their money.

Way too much time on my (evil) hands.

It still seems odd that Buffy and Angel appear to be leading up to two completely separate but both major apocalypses. We’re just a few episodes from the end of each season, and it looks like there’s no connection between the First Evil in Sunnydale and the full-up Biblical apocalypse in LA.

Or perhaps the First is doing its work to keep the slayers out of the way of the “real” apocalypse.

Then there’s the question of just who was in on this plot to bring “Jasmine” into the world. It’s implied by Skip that there was a conspiracy to set up the conditions for her arrival… but what if she is one of the Powers That Be? What if, rather than standing for good as we’ve always thought, they stand only for themselves, and pretending to be the good guys was the best way to manipulate Angel and company into doing what they needed?

Consider: the first indication of their existence came in the same 3rd-season episode of Buffy that introduced the First. They weren’t named, but it was made clear that someone had deliberately brought Angel back from the hell-dimension Buffy sent him to, and once Angel left for LA the “who” became clear. On the other hand, the Powers and First were working against each other in that episode – or at least they appeared to be.

And then there’s the question of Fred, whose trip to Pylea was mentioned by Skip as part of the plan, but who appears to have had no significant role in bringing Jasmine here. What if she was covertly added to the mix by another faction as the key to defeating her? Do the Powers even have factions?

Questions that need answers…