Court Opinion

ID: 9727710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:48:32.379417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:41.881774
License: Public Domain

PARAS, J., Dissenting.
While the result of the majority is a fair one, it should have been left to the Legislature to reach or reject as it saw fit. In my view the existing legislative expression does not permit the allowance of costs.
The Legislature has authorized the Board to determine the industrial (vel non) nature of a PERS member’s death “using the same procedure as in workers compensation hearings.” (Gov. Code, § 21363.) The majority has interpreted “procedure” to include the right to an award of costs. I cannot agree.
Procedure is defined as “[t]he mode of proceeding by which a legal right is enforced, as distinguished from the law which gives or defines the right. . . the machinery, as distinguished from its product.” (Black’s Law Diet. (Rev. 4th ed. 1968) pp. 1367-1368.) Costs are money, a matter of substance and not procedure.
*224Moreover the statute refers to the same procedure as in workers’ compensation hearings, not workers’ compensation cases, thus confirming further the Legislature’s restrictive meaning. Money (costs) cannot possibly be a “procedure ... in workers’ compensation hearings.”
Therefore I dissent.
Petitioner’s application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 9, 1979. Bird, C. J., did not participate therein.