Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1854196.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 23:02:25+00:00

Document:
COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE, Petitioner, v. WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD and PETER G. SYLVES, Respondents.
Law Office of Louis D. Seaman and Louis D. Seaman for Petitioner. No appearance for Respondent Workers' Compensation Appeals Board. Law Offices of Lawrence R. Whiting and William G. Cotter for Respondent Peter G. Sylves.
Petitioner, County of Riverside (the County), challenges findings by the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) finding that the application for adjudication of claim by respondent, Peter G. Sylves, was timely filed, and that Labor Code 1 section 5500.5, subdivision (a) (section 5500.5(a)), did not bar liability on the County's part. The order of the WCAB is affirmed for the reasons we state post.
From December 12, 1998, to October 28, 2010, Sylves was employed by the County as a deputy sheriff. He took a service retirement and then worked for the Pauma Police Department on a reservation belonging to the Pauma Band of Luiseno Indians (Pauma Band), which is a federally recognized Indian tribe. Sylves's employment with the Pauma Police Department lasted from December 28, 2010, through July 4, 2014.
On June 8, 2015, the parties appeared before a workers' compensation judge (WCJ) for adjudication of Sylves's claim. On July 6, 2015, the WCJ issued his findings of fact. Under the heading titled “Statute of Limitations,” he found: “Pursuant to Labor Code section 5500.5, applicant's continuous trauma is limited to the last year of injurious exposure, even if it is with the Pauma Tribal Police.” The WCJ found that Sylves's knee and left shoulder injuries, his GERDS, and his sleep disorder were not compensable injuries arising in and out of employment. However, he also found that Sylves's hypertension and back injury were compensable and arose from employment with the County.
Sylves and the County both moved for reconsideration of the WCJ's ruling. The County attacked the evidence allegedly showing that Sylves suffered from labor-disabling hypertension or back problems during his employment with the county, and it argued section 5500.5 meant that liability could only be imposed against the Pauma Police Department. In his motion, Sylves argued that section 5500.5 has nothing to do with the statute of limitations, that the County failed to meet its burden of proving he failed to comply with the limitations period in section 5405, and that section 5500.5 did not limit liability to the Pauma Police Department because the Pauma Band is a federally recognized tribe over which the WCAB has no jurisdiction.
The County advances two arguments:2 that the WCAB erred in finding Sylves's application for adjudication of claims to have been timely, and that it violated section 5500.5(a) in assigning liability to the County even though Sylves's last four years of exposure had been with a different employer. Neither of these succeeds.
1. Petitioner has given us no reason to find that the application for adjudication of claims was untimely.
The one place the County cites evidence in support of its assertions is when arguing that Sylves gave inconsistent statements about the intensity of his work with the Pauma Police Department. This is because, while Sylves testified that work on the reservation was less strenuous than work for the County, Dr. Lal's report indicated that Sylves did “all the physical activities of a police officer” on the reservation. As best we can tell, the County asks us to find Sylves less than truthful in his testimony about when he first found out his medical conditions might be work related. As we have already indicated, we may not reweigh evidence in this proceeding. We “also may not isolate facts which support or disapprove of the WCAB's conclusions and ignore facts which rebut or explain the supporting evidence.” (Zenith Insurance Co. v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2008) 159 Cal.App.4th 483, 490.) Here, Sylves also testified that he did “not recall giving such a history to Dr. Lal,” as well as that “[h]e attempted to tell Dr. Lal the difference between the two jobs, but he is not sure that Dr. Lal understood.” The County does not acknowledge this testimony exists, let alone explain why it does not explain the inconsistency to which the petition calls our attention.
The remaining issue the County raises relates to how section 5500.5 affects the calculation of the limitations period applicable to Sylves's application for adjudication of claims. Our short answer is that it does not.
The purpose of the limitation contained in subdivision (a) of section 5500.5 was to “alleviate the difficulties encountered by the parties in complying with the requirements of former section 5500.5 ‘whereby employees and their attorneys were frequently compelled to expend much time, effort and money in tracing the applicant's employment history over the entire course of his adult life.[4 ]’ ” (Tidewater Oil Co., 67 Cal.App.3d at p. 958.) Limiting the liability of the defendants in a workers' compensation case is not the same as prescribing the time in which that case can be filed. As neither the language nor the history of section 5500.5 evidences a concern with the limitations period for filing an application for workers' compensation benefits, we reject the County's suggestion that the WCAB violated section 5500.5(a) when it found Sylves's claims to be timely. Section 5500.5(a) does not relate to the statute of limitations for filing an application for adjudication of benefits.
2. The WCAB did not violate section 5500, subdivision (a), when it imposed liability on the County.
We construe the petition to make the separate but related argument that the WCAB violated section 5500, subdivision (a), by imposing liability on the County even though it is undisputed that Sylves had worked for the Pauma Police Department for approximately the last four years of his employment. We disagree.
As indicated above, section 5500.5(a) limits liability to those employers who employed Sylves in the year “immediately preceding either the date of injury, as determined pursuant to Section 5412, or the last date on which the employee was employed in an occupation exposing him or her to the hazards of the occupational disease or cumulative injury, whichever occurs first.” It is undisputed that Sylves was employed by the Pauma Police Department, and not by the County, from December 28, 2010, to July 4, 2014, and that he did not have another employer after that time. We will assume for the sake of argument that Sylves's employment with the Pauma Police Department was at least rigorous enough to expose him to “the hazards of the occupational disease or cumulative injury.” (§ 5500.5(a).) If, as indicated above, Sylves's date of injury did not occur until 2013, when doctors first told him that his ailments were industrially related, section 5500.5(a) might seem to limit liability to the Pauma Police Department, as petitioner contends.
Second, the County fails to account for the following language from section 5500.5(a): “In the event that none of the employers during [last year] of occupational disease or cumulative injury are insured for workers' compensation coverage or an approved alternative thereof, liability shall be imposed upon the last year of employment exposing the employee to the hazards of the occupational disease or cumulative injury for which an employer is insured for workers' compensation coverage or an approved alternative thereof.” The County does not contest that the Pauma Police Department belongs to a federally recognized Indian tribe, and the answer and the record both indicate this is in fact so. The WCAB lacks jurisdiction over federally recognized Indian tribes. (Middletown Rancheria v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1998) 60 Cal.App.4th 1340, 1343 [“The Appeals Board does not possess subject matter jurisdiction over Tribe as a matter of law.”].) It seems to us the fact that the Pauma Police Department is not subject to the WCAB's jurisdiction means the department was not “insured for workers' compensation coverage or an approved alternative thereof.” (§ 5500.5(a).) Consequently, liability is imposed on the next employer in line that had workers' compensation insurance. (See Portland Trailblazers v. TIG Insurance Company (2007) 72 Cal.Comp.Cases 154.) In this case, that employer is the County.
Sylves asks us to remand to the WCAB for an order obligating County to pay the attorney fees he spent answering the petition on the ground that the County had “no reasonable basis for” filing it. (§ 5801.) While we disagree with the County's contentions, we cannot say the petition was baseless, as we have found no other reported decision from a Court of Appeal that discusses the application of section 5500.5(a) in the context of either the limitations period for filing an application for adjudication of claims or the WCAB's lack of jurisdiction over a federally recognized Indian tribe.
The order is affirmed. Sylves's request for a remand for determination of attorney fees under section 5801 is denied.
Costs on appeal are awarded to respondent.
1. Unless otherwise specified all further statutory references are to the Labor Code.
2. The petition “asserts the following as grounds for review: [¶] 1. That the opinion and order granting reconsideration and decision after reconsideration of the Appeals Board was not supported by substantial evidence[; and ¶] 2. The opinion of the Worker's Compensation Appeals Board misapplied the law as defined in the Labor Code as it applied to Labor Code § 5500.5, 5412 and statute of limitations, section 5405, reaching its decision and was therefore unreasonable.” The answer asks us to summarily deny the petition because petitioner failed to attach all relevant medical evidence despite arguing that insufficient evidence supports the WCAB's opinion. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.495(a)(2) [“If the petition claims that the board's ruling is not supported by substantial evidence, it must fairly state and attach copies of all the relevant material evidence”].) We decline to do so because, as we construe it, the brief supporting the petition does not actually attack the sufficiency of the medical evidence, but instead asks us to answer the following two questions: (1) “Did the [WCAB] err in its application of Labor Code § 5405 in finding that the application for adjudication of claim had been filed timely by applicant not having worked for the County of Riverside in nearly four years?”; and (2) “Was it error for the [WCAB] to ignore Labor Code section 5500.5 and place all responsibility for the injury on the County of Riverside despite the last four years of injurious exposure being with the Pauma Police Department?” Neither of these requires us to review the sufficiency of the medical evidence. We therefore do not do so, and the County's request is moot.
We concur: MILLER J. SLOUGH J.

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 § 5500
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