Source: https://pasternaklaw.com/publications/where-workers-compensation-meets-the-feha/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 08:17:01+00:00

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With the recent changes in workers’ compensation law2 in California, many attorneys who handle these cases are seeking ways to expand the protection of employees injured at work, who have seen their benefits drastically cut. Vocational Rehabilitation benefits and entitlement to retraining for workers who can no longer perform their old jobs due to permanent injures in particular have been the subject of a great deal of change: These benefits were restricted again in the recent workers’ compensation law changes, and it might prove fertile ground for attorneys seeking alternate methods for protecting their clients under the ADA and/or FEHA.
This article will discuss the history of the Vocational Rehabilitation benefit under workers’ compensation, as well as the current interplay between the requirements of workers’ compensation and FEHA. The basic premise of this article is that employers must be very careful in claiming they have no work for an injured person, since under FEHA they have a legal duty to make reasonable accommodations to that injured employee. If they fail in this duty, they can be held liable for all tort damages (including lost wages and benefits, general damages, and punitive damages) as well as attorneys’ fees and costs.
FEHA is not preempted by the Workers’ Compensation Act. ( City of Moorpark v. Superior Court (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1143, 1156.) This means that even though the injury occurred on the job, the client can still proceed with a disability discrimination claim or a failure-to-accommodate case. The injured worker is not limited to the remedies provided under Workers’ Compensation, or to its $10,000.00 statutory damages for retaliation under Labor Code § 132a.
In California, if a person is injured at work, the treating doctor has basically two choices if the injury interferes with the employee’s ability to perform their job in a normal fashion: (1) they can immediately place the worker on “Temporary Disability” if the injury clearly prevents the return to any work at the time; or (2) place the worker on “modified work,” where the worker is only allowed to work within the physical restrictions placed by the doctor.
(a) “Regular work” means the employee’s usual occupation or the position in which the employee was engaged at the time of injury and that offers wages and compensation equivalent to those paid to the employee at the time of injury, and located within a reasonable commuting distance of the employee’s residence at the time of injury.
(b) “Modified work” means regular work modified so that the employee has the ability to perform all the functions of the job and that offers wages and compensation that are at least 85 percent of those paid to the employee at the time of injury, and located within a reasonable commuting distance of the employee’s residence at the time of injury.
(c) “Alternative work” means work that the employee has the ability to perform, that offers wages and compensation that are at least 85 percent of those paid to the employee at the time of injury, and that is located within reasonable commuting distance of the employee’s residence at the time of injury.
If the employer, has “regular,” “modified” or “alternative work” available that meets the doctor’s physical restrictions, then the employee is no longer entitled to receive any temporary disability payments, and the employee returns to employment. However, the employer must actually have and offeremployment that exists within the limitations imposed by the doctor to end the temporary disability payments. A common occurrence experienced by an injured worker is the employer offering modified work, but then demanding that the injured worker perform regular, full-duty work once the employee arrives to work. The unsophisticated worker may attempt full-duty work fearing retaliation or termination for objecting to tasks clearly outside the doctor’s restrictions.
Once the treating doctor finds that the injured employee will not get any better or worse (i.e., that recovery has plateaued), the injured worker is declared permanent and stationary. At this point, the issue of ability to work becomes the forefront of the discussions. Under Labor Code § 4658(d) the employer has an obligation to determine if regular, modified, or alternate work within the employee’s permanent physical limitations is available. If the employer hassuch work, that will last for at least 12 months, then the permanent disability owed to the employee will be reduced by 15%. (See Lab. Code § 4658(d)(2).) However, if the employer states that it does not have such work, then the permanent disability benefit will increase by 15%. (See Lab. Code § 4658(d)(3)(A).) This same increase occurs if it terminates the employee within a 12-month period of time. (See Lab. Code § 4658(d)(3)(B).) If the employer does not offer work as defined, then the employee is entitled to workers’ compensation Vocational Rehabilitation training.
Under current law for injuries occurring after January 1, 2004, if an employer states that it does not have any regular, modified or alternative work, the injured worker is entitled to a “supplemental job displacement benefit”3 that helps pay for retraining. Under Labor Code § 4658.5, the injured employee can receive between $4,000 and $10,000 toward retraining. These benefits are low; they do not provide any real opportunity for retraining. With this insubstantial retraining benefit, many more employees’ attorneys will be investigating issues regarding whether the employer actually has modified work at the same pay rate that the employee was making before the injury. This is where the FEHA and the ADA come into play.
The workers’ compensation scheme and FEHA often use different terms to describe the same concepts. Workers’ compensation refers to “modified work.” FEHA refers to “reasonable accommodations.” What these are and how they must be provided are addressed more fully below. Simply put, however, the rule is that if an employer can “accommodate” an employee’s disability, without it being cost-prohibitive, the employer is required to do so. This includes providing mechanical or personnel assistance, modifying hours, or even modifying job duties. The employer cannot simply say, “Well, you can’t do the job.” First, a threshold question must be addressed: Is the employee “disabled”?
A. What is a “Disability” for the Purposes of FEHA?
Generally, we think of “disability” as something that is “disabling,” that is, the person has a limited ability to function, and certainly can’t work. For instance, someone who is “on disability,” is, by definition, not working.
You have utilized your full 90 days of transitional duty effective Friday, January 5th. Your last transitional day of work will be Monday, January 22, 2001. Should you be released to full duty, you may return to work the next day. If you have any questions regarding your workers’ compensation benefits, please contact me.
This was as close to a per se case of failure to accommodate as you’re likely to see. It is a clear case of the employer confusing the workers’ compensation system and the FEHA requirements. Because the injury was on the job, the matter was being handled by the workers’ compensation department. The employer’s workers compensation department did everything it was supposed to do – as far as it knew. What it didn’t know was just how badly it was botching the matter in terms of FEHA disability requirements to reasonably accommodate the disabled employee. The workers’ compensation department didn’t realize there was a duty to 1) accommodate beyond 90 days in the first place, 2) discuss means of providing accommodations, and 3) provide any accommodations if possible.
In failure-to-accommodate cases, the employee may claim all tort damages (special, general, and punitive), and may further make a claim for reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and costs, pursuant to California Government Code § 12965b.
These damages can be substantial. The employee is now out of work, and has an injury that may make it difficult to get another job. The lost wages, health-care benefits, retirement benefits, and anything else formerly obtained through the job are continuing to accrue. As the time off work continues, so do the emotional distress damages. As the case is litigated, the attorneys’ fees and costs likewise increase.
If your client is off work, and a return to work is not possible without accommodation, get the client to write some letters, notes, or emails, letting the employer know that the client wants to come back to work. Although no “magic buzzwords” need be used, the letter needs to put the employer on notice that there is a disability, and that the employee is willing to work. If the employer fails to respond (or responds as in the example above), you will have solidified your argument that the fault is with the employer, not your client.
If a workers’ compensation case is pending, be sure to track that case. Your goals and those of the workers’ compensation lawyer are probably at odds in handling a FEHA case. The workers’ compensation lawyer wants the employee to be as injured as possible, so as to increase the workers’ compensation permanent disability award. The FEHA or ADA lawyer is trying to define your client in a middle ground, where the injured worker is sufficiently injured to be “permanently disabled,” but still able-bodied enough to return to the workplace, albeit in a modified capacity.
Inform your client at the outset of the potential conflicts, and confirm that the facts and testimony will actually support your case. You don’t want to find out in reading a workers’ compensation deposition that your client is of the opinion that they can never work again under any circumstances, or that there is no way they could ever do their former job even in a modified capacity.
Even if you are not handling the workers’ compensation case, you should be involved with preparing your client for the workers’ compensation deposition, and, if possible, attending it. It also means communicating with the client’s physicians, who may believe they’re doing the client a favor by stressing the seriousness of the injuries for the workers’ compensation case, but not realizing that they are hurting the FEHA case at the same time.
Both workers’ compensation and FEHA provide remedies for those who have been injured on the job, and are unable to return to their former work. However, they likely provide alternative remedies, rather than complimentary remedies. An attorney handling such a case should be aware of both claims and have a frank discussion with the client as to which claims make the most sense under the facts of the specific case. The choice is simply whether the injured worker believes and has a desire to return to the same employer where the injury occurred, already has a claim for failure to accommodate, or whether they seek to obtain whatever benefit they can from workers’ compensation and undergo retraining in another field.
1 Insofar as this article is directed to California practitioners, it will address primarily FEHA, as opposed to ADA. Although both protect California employees, FEHA provides greater protections, both in terms of employer responsibilities and in terms of damages, than ADA does.
2 This article only addresses the state of the law for injuries occurring after July of this year. Prior injuries are treated differently, but the main issues of the interplay between workers’ compensation and the ADA remain the same.
3 Prior to 2004, injured employees were entitled to Vocational Rehabilitation Training benefits, which paid up to $16,000 for retraining to anyone who could not perform their job or modified work.
4 This is one of the significant ways FEHA differs from the ADA. Under the ADA, mitigating measures can defeat a definition of disability. For example, in one U.S. Supreme Court case, airline pilots who were excluded from jobs because they did not meet certain vision standards; glasses made the problems moot. They sued under the ADA, claiming disability discrimination. Because their use of glasses effectively negated their vision problems, the Court found they did not meet the definition of “disability.” (See Sutton v. United Airlines (1999) 527 U.S. 471.) This could not be the result under FEHA.
5 ADA not does not include working as a major life activity.
6 Employers can also be held liable for discriminating against employees whom they mistakenly believe to be disabled. However, these “perceived disability” cases are beyond the scope of this article.

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