Court Opinion

ID: 9568585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:05:24.848922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:45:37.525267
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent. The workers’ compensation judge found as a fact that despite “numerous requests for payment of [temporary disability]” benefits, they were unreasonably withheld. The judge determined that the requests “constitute[d] notice . . . that applicant was requesting multiple penalties.” There can be no dispute that under the Court of Appeal’s rationale the *519employee would be entitled to 11 separate penalties, each consisting of 10 percent of the total award for the class of unreasonably denied benefits.
The Court of Appeal’s reasoning is impeccable both in logic and in fairness. I would adopt it herein.
Labor Code section 5814 provides: “When payment of compensation has been unreasonably delayed or refused, either prior to or subsequent to the issuance of an award, the full amount of the order, decision or award shall be increased by 10 percent. The question of delay and the reasonableness of the cause therefor shall be determined by the appeals board in accordance with the facts. Such delay or refusal shall constitute good cause under Section 5803 to rescind, alter or amend the order, decision or award for the purpose of making the increase provided for herein.” (All further section references are to the Labor Code.)
In Gallamore v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1979) 23 Cal.3d 815, 827 [153 Cal.Rptr. 590, 591 P.2d 1242], we provided that “multiple penalties must be assessed [under section 5814] for successive delays so long as separate and distinct acts of misconduct are involved, and ... the penalty is to be computed by assessing 10 percent of the entire amount ultimately awarded for the particular class of benefit which has been unreasonably delayed or withheld.” (Italics added.) As we explained more specifically, when “the circumstances disclose separate and distinct acts of delay or nonpayment, and prior notice was given of the applicant’s intent to seek separate or additional penalties for such acts, then multiple penalties [under section 5814] are appropriate in a single penalty proceeding.” (Id. at p. 824.) We reaffirmed this holding in 1993, when we reiterated the Gallamore rule that “successive delinquencies require the imposition of multiple penalties.” (Rhiner v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1213, 1226, fn. 7 [18 Cal.Rptr.2d 129, 848 P.2d 244].)
It is clear that each failure to pay the employee herein her temporary disability indemnity constituted a distinct act of misconduct.
Section 4650 requires payment of temporary disability benefits within two weeks after knowledge of the injury and disability, and every two weeks thereafter as long as the employee’s eligibility continues. Even if we did not construe the workers’ compensation laws liberally in the employee’s favor, as we must (§ 3202), including section 5814 (Kerley v. Workmen’s Comp. App. Bd. (1971) 4 Cal.3d 223, 227 [93 Cal.Rptr. 192, 481 P.2d 200]), it is obvious that the Legislature intended temporary disability payments to substitute for the employee’s wages while disabled. (Sea-Land Service, Inc. *520v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 76, 94 [58 Cal.Rptr.2d 190, 925 P.2d 1309] (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.); see § 4650, subds. (d) and (g) [referring to salary continuation plans].) The law recognizes that workers sometimes live from paycheck to paycheck and may not be able to sustain themselves for an extended period. “We may reasonably assume that the recipients of disability benefits, like others who receive weekly or monthly payments, live in anticipation of the next paycheck.” (County of Los Angeles v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 933, 940 [168 Cal.Rptr. 789].)
The majority conclude that fairness permits, and indeed requires, “[1]un-iting penalties to a single penalty when [temporary total disability] is delayed or refused because the employer or insurance carrier has determined, erroneously and unreasonably as it later turns out, that the worker is no longer eligible for that benefit. . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 516.) Otherwise “employers or carriers would be compelled, under the coercive force of the potential penalties, to continue payments to which they believe a worker is not entitled simply because multiple penalties might be assessed if the worker was able to give repeated notice of intent to seek penalties for conduct based on the same decision.” (Id. at p. 517.)
In so concluding, however, the majority pay insufficient heed to our recent recognition that “an unreasonable delay or refusal in payment that is monetarily of little consequence to an employer or carrier may be disastrous to an injured worker struggling to obtain medical treatment and to pay basic household expenses. [Citation.] Thus, there are competing policy considerations.” (Rhiner v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1226.) Today’s decision unbalances the policy scale in the employer’s or carrier’s favor. Section 5814 imposes a penalty only for an unreasonable delay or refusal to pay benefits. To hypothesize that an employer or carrier will act in good faith and that the delay or refusal will only “later tum[] out” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 516) to be unreasonable, is to fail to acknowledge the strong incentive today’s decision gives an employer or carrier to be stubbornly unreasonable. I cannot countenance providing such an incentive, and therefore dissent.
Kennard, J., concurred.