From Eureka With Love

Eureka!  No, dearest readers, your humble blogger has yet to strike gold, nor has he found anything all too exciting, except of course, a panel decision from that northern Board – Eureka.  The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board recently reviewed a decision of the workers’ compensation Judge in Eureka in the case of Donna Larson v. State of California, Department of Corrections.

It appears that the main issue on review is the method of analysis with respect to (1) applicant’s claim of an injury to the psyche; and (2) applicant’s claim to discrimination in violation of Labor Code section 132a.

Applicant worked as an accounting supervisor and, after a worker was transferred laterally to be under her supervision, she began to have what can only be described as personality conflicts with him.  She accused him of sexual harassment, a charge which appears to be unsubstantiated.  He accused her of unfair labor practices for penalizing him for the time he spent as a union representative.

In any case, her complaints were investigated by her supervisors but were eventually dismissed.  She didn’t take this very well and apparently this contributed to her alleged psyche injury.  Some of my readers may recall a similar situation, in the case of County of Sacramento v. WCAB (Michael Brooks, writ denied) in which a supervisor claimed a psyche injury because his complaint about a subordinate did not result in a sufficient reprimand.

Intertwined with applicant’s psyche claim was applicant’s 132a claim.  Defendant argued that the facts underlying the 132a claim contributed to the psyche claim, a finding echoed by the WCJ.  However, defendant also argued that the termination of applicant’s employment had a business necessity defense, which was supported by witness testimony as to the employer’s workload and applicant’s one-year absence.

So, if applicant’s termination of employment was a “lawful, nondiscriminatory, good faith personnel action” as set out in Labor Code section 3208.3(h), and that termination was one of the causes of the psychiatric injury (Labor Code section 3208.3(b)), doesn’t that get the employer off the hook for the psyche claim?

Well, the WCAB relied on the en banc decision in the case of Rolda v. Pitney Bowes (2001) 66 Cal.Comp.Cases 241 (2001), reasoning that for a finding of a psyche injury, a competent physician must take a history of all events contributing to the alleged injury and then make a determination as to whether work events were at least 50% the cause of each individual event.  Then, the physician must determine the percentage of causation attributed to lawful, nondiscriminatory, good faith personnel actions.

The WCJ must determine the psyche injury involves actual events of employment, whether those events were the predominant cause of the psyche injury, and whether any of those events were lawful personnel actions.   Finally, the WCJ must determine if those lawful personnel actions were a substantial cause of the psyche injury.

With respect to the 132a claim, the WCAB held that the Lauher case raised the standard of finding a 132a violation by requiring a worker to show not only conducted by the employer detrimental to the employee, but also that the conduct was specifically targeted towards the employee because of the industrial nature of the injury.  In this case, the defendant presented a business necessities defense.

The matter was returned to the WCJ to prepare findings that conform the outlined analysis for both a psyche injury and a 132a claim.

From the looks of it, however, defendant is in a good position with adequate defenses.  After all, if applicant had hurt her leg skiing and had been gone for a year while the papers built up on her vacant desk, wouldn’t the employer have acted the same way?

Time will tell…

Compensability Presumption Defeated by Lying Applicant

Apparently, the Home Depot can be a stressful place to work.  William Wong worked at Home Depot as an assistant store manager, but was fired shortly after sending his supervisor a letter by facsimile indicating that he intended to file a workers’ compensation psyche claim.  (William Wong v. The Home Depot)

Then, it was all quiet on the comp front for more than seven years, after which applicant resurfaced to file an application for his psyche injury.

Naturally, the defense invoked the statute of limitations and lawful good-faith personnel action under Labor Code section 3708 defenses.  The workers’ compensation Judge ruled that applicant had documented that the employer had notice of the claimed injury, but he had not been provided with a claim form, and the injury had not been denied within 90 days, so it was presumed compensable under Labor Code section 5402.

If anyone other than applicant’s evaluating physician asked what applicant had been up to in those seven years between the “injury” and the filing of the application, applicant could have told them about his arrest for possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest.  But that information wasn’t given to the evaluating physician.  He also told the evaluating physician that there was no history of psychosis in the family, even though his uncle had committed suicide.

Needless to say, the workers’ compensation Judge was not impressed.

Although the WCJ held that the presumption of compensability under Labor Code 5402 applied, that presumption was rebutted because applicant proved to be an unreliable historian, meaning that the medical reports based on his statements were not substantial evidence.

Also, the WCJ reasoned, the history of criminal activity and drug use could have been causative factors in his psychotic break.   In other words, as your humble blogger likes to say, No Soup For You!

Bear in mind, my dear readers, the defense in this case got very lucky.  Applicant had a bad history, and lied to the evaluating physician.  If applicant had not lied about his arrest history and the psychosis history of his family, he would have probably recovered and only suffered a bit of apportionment.  In any case, let this be a lesson to us all – hand out claim forms early and often!

Court of Appeal Rules on Sudden and Extraordinary Case

Your humble blogger was at his post yesterday, diligently fighting off claims and liens, when he suddenly received an alert of extraordinary nature.  The Court of Appeal, in an opinion posted only yesterday afternoon, has rendered its decision in the case of State Compensation Insurance Fund v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, granting the relief sought by the defense.

In short, falling from a tree or ladder, while sudden for everyone and extraordinary for some professions, is not an extraordinary event for fruit pickers (avocados are fruit, right?)

Applicant Rigoberto Garcia had been working for his employer picking avocados from 35-foot-high avocado trees, using 24-foot ladders for roughly two months, when he suddenly fell from a ladder, sustaining various injuries, including an injury to the head. All aspects of his claim were admitted… except for the psyche claim.  The defendant raised the Labor Code section 3208.3(d) defense to psyche injuries claimed by employees with a less-than 6-month tenure.  This defense has been explored a time or two on this blog as well.

Applicant offered his own testimony at trial on the issue of the defense, claiming that he had never seen any other workers fall from a ladder with this employer, and was not warned at any time that this risk was common.  Defendant offered no evidence.

The workers’ compensation Judge found the injury was sudden and extraordinary, and the defendant filed for reconsideration.  The question that went before the WCAB was whether falling from a 24-foot ladder was a common risk to 35-foot avocado tree pickers, much like burning one’s hand while working as a drycleaner.

A split panel denied reconsideration, with the majority taking issue with defendant’s failure to present any evidence at trial as to the common occurrence of such falls.  In all fairness, the defense failed to carry its burden of proving the existence of gravity – the lawyers no doubt cursed themselves for failing to invest in apple orchards.

But, as all things that go up must come down (and there is nothing extraordinary about that), so, too, with applicant’s luck in the courts.  Defendant petitioned the Court of Appeal for a writ of review, arguing, again, that applicant failed to carry his burden in proving that the mechanism of injury was extraordinary.

The Court of Appeal, having watched the biography of Isaac Newton just the night before, granted defendant’s petition and reversed the WCAB.  The reasoning was, primarily, that common sense dictates that the injury-causing-event experienced by applicant was the exact type of injury one would expect would happen in applicant’s line of work.  Had applicant been attacked by a bear, the “extraordinary” element would have been much easier to prove.

So, the defense is now back to bearing the burden of proving common sense – what kind of injury can we expect from the following job duties…

From Psyche to Migraine to Non-Compensable

The Court of Appeal recently handed down its ruling on whether or not an applicant’s claimed migraines are compensable.  Applicant initially proceeding on a claim of injury to the psyche, but understood very quickly that defendant had a fairly solid defense in the good-faith personnel action.  (Labor Code § 3208.3(h).)  In a monumental show of consistency and legitimacy of claim over “gaming the system,” applicant amended his application on the first day of trial to include migraines as a claimed injury.

3208.3(h) does not always work, as my wise and learned readers no doubt recall.  There are a lot of ways applicants attempt to slip around this broad and solid shield – including making regular efforts to use semantics with respect to what caused the injury.  It was complying with the good faith personnel action, not the communication of the action to the employee, after all.

In this case, applicant tried, with considerable success, to argue that his migraines were the result of a psychiatric injury.  Although the psychiatric injury itself, caused by “friction with his supervisor,” may be barred by the defense, the resulting migraines are not.

The workers’ compensation Judge awarded applicant compensation for the migraines, and the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board denied defendant’s petition for reconsideration.  Most cases end here for a variety of reasons, and your perceptive blogger submits that it is most appropriate to applaud the County of San Bernardino, the employer in this case, for pressing on and petitioning the Court of Appeal for a writ of review.

One can not help but imagine that there was a spike in applicant’s migraines after the Court of Appeal decision came down, and I would therefore advise the Court of Appeal to retain a tort defense attorney, just in case.  No, migraines are not compensable when they are the result of a non-compensable psyche injury.

The Court of Appeal held “seldom are the effects of stress limited to injury to the psyche without resulting physical problems.”  The Court continued, “[i]t would be relatively easy for a claimant to avoid [the bar of 3208.3(h)] by asserting internal problems and symptoms, such as upset stomach, headache and sleeplessness, but not injury to the psyche per se.”

If I had a headache before reading this opinion, it has certainly cleared up – the Court of Appeal has given the defense community another brick to put in its wall.

Post Termination Psyche Claims Barred? Not in My Workers’ Comp…

Your loyal blogger seems regularly at odds with panel decisions on the meaning of Labor Code section 5412, specifically as to the term “in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known.”

In your blogger’s simple and straightforward world, the statute means what it says.  So, for example, if you pick up a box at work, feel a sharp pain in your back, and then your back hurts from that point on, the exercise of reasonable diligence quickly helps you connect the dots – one does not need a rocket scientist, a brain surgeon, or even a chiropractor to conclude that the disability flowing from that instance is industrial.  But enough of Grinberg’s world, back to the world of California Workers’ Compensation.

In the case of Bertha Chan v. Carl Karcher Enterprises, the panel came down in favor of the applicant.

Applicant was allegedly enduring a campaign of physical and verbal sexual harassment by her immediate supervisor, when her employment was terminated in December 2007.  Applicant then filed an application one month later, alleging psychiatric injury as a result of the alleged harassment.
The treating physician and the Panel Qualified Medical Evaluator both found industrially caused injury. But what about Labor Code section 3208.3(e)?

A cumulative trauma can’t be sudden;
There was no notice to the employer of the injury;
There was no medical record of the impairment prior to the claim;
The trier of fact specifically found there was no sexual harassment; and
The exercise of reasonable diligence would have lead applicant to conclude that whatever impairment she had sustained was industrial.

After all, either applicant had sustained an impairment or she hadn’t – if she had, it happened at work before being fired; if she had not had any impairment by the time her employment was terminated, then something other than work caused it.
Assuming she had sustained some psyche injury prior to the termination of employment, then how could physical and verbal sexual harassment on an ongoing basis not be linked to the impairment?

Your garden variety defense attorney is thus forced to watch logic prove a blunt tool in situations such as these. It is worth noting that the defense attorney in this case, in the filed answer, acknowledged that there was no evidence presented at trial of the concurrence of applicant’s disability and knowledge of the industrial causation of the injury.  But actual knowledge isn’t the standard; the standard is known or should have known.  The defense has petitioned for reconsideration.  I hope you will join me in waiting to see if, perhaps, some new life could be breathed into this defense.