Court Opinion

ID: 9731971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:03:11.547962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:22.237641
License: Public Domain

ABBE, J.
I respectfully dissent.
In my view, the situation in this case and Parsons v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1981) 126 Cal.App.3d 629 [179 Cal.Rptr. 88], are indistinguishable. Just as the applicant in Parsons did not volunteer to work in the road camp by accepting the conditions of probation in lieu of serving a regular sentence, applicant here did not volunteer to participate in the work release program by accepting the county’s offer since the alternative would have been to continue to serve his sentence in jail.
Using the language of the court in Parsons, supra, 126 Cal.App.3d at page 639, applicant “challenges reality” by contending that his work became consensual once he was asked whether he would be interested in the work release program in lieu of being confined in jail. The prospect of continued incarceration is the compulsion by which work in the work release program is forced. One does not rationally choose incarceration over liberty, even if that liberty has limits and controls.
Applicant went to work in the work release program because he did not want to stay in jail, not because he desired to perform voluntary community work.
I would affirm the findings of the workers’ compensation judge and the WCAB that applicant was not an employee of the county.
The petition of respondent County of Ventura for review by the Supreme Court was denied December 30, 1986.