Court Opinion

ID: 9748975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:19:22.423203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:41.191833
License: Public Domain

RAYE, J.
I respectfully dissent. The majority affirms “because discrimination based on a work-related physical handicap is a risk explicitly included by the Legislature in the compensation bargain.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 984-985.) They are mistaken.
*998This is not a case about the mythical “compensation bargain” of workers’ compensation lore. Were it so, plaintiff’s claim, as a matter of equity, would be unassailable. The “compensation bargain” reflects the Legislature’s view of the basic understanding between employers and employees that underlies the workers compensation system. The court in Shoemaker v. Myers (1990) 52 Cal.3d 1 [276 Cal.Rptr. 303, 801 P.2d 1054] (Shoemaker II) explains the bargain thus: the employer assumes liability for a greater range of conduct in exchange for limitations on dollar exposure; the employee gains swift and certain payment of compensation without having to prove fault but in exchange must accept limits on amounts recoverable. (Shoemaker II, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 16.)
The remedies provided by Labor Code section 132a do not fit within this metaphorical paradigm. Under Labor Code section 132a, the employee must still prove fault—it cannot be assumed that every dismissed employee with a work-related physical handicap was fired for that reason—and as a consequence payment is neither swift nor certain. And yet the employee still must accept limits on the amounts recoverable. Viewed in isolation, it is difficult to imagine a more one-sided “bargain.” Even when considered as part of the full panoply of rights and obligations established by the Workers’ Compensation Act, a “bargain” which incorporates section 132a would be suspect.
Nor does this case implicate the exclusivity provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act. As explained in Shoemaker II, the basic “compensation bargain,” and the workers’ compensation exclusivity provisions which implement the bargain, relate to compensation for “injury,” a term limited to physical injury and disabling emotional injury. “[T]he fundamental basis of workers’ compensation is an injury sustained in and arising out of the course of employment when the injury is ‘personal physical injury or death.’ . . . [T]he exclusive remedy provisions apply only in cases of such industrial personal injury or death.” (Shoemaker 11, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 16, italics in original, citations omitted; see also Jones v. Los Angeles Community College Dist. (1988) 198 Cal.App.3d 794, 806-7 [244 Cal.Rptr. 37].) In Livitsanos v. Superior Court (1992) 2 Cal.4th 744 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 808, 828 P.2d 1195] the court extended the concept of injury to disabling emotional injury, unaccompanied by physical injury. This limitation of workers’ compensation exclusivity to claims for physical or emotional injury follows naturally from the language of Labor Code section 3601 which expressly limits the exclusivity of workers’ compensation to actions for “injury or death of an employee.”
While his complaint and appellate papers are not models of clarity, it is clear plaintiff in the present case seeks recovery for neither injury nor death. Indeed, plaintiff apparently concedes that workers’ compensation is the *999exclusive remedy for physical and emotional injuries arising from his wrongful termination. He seeks in this action to recover under Labor Code section 132a for lost wages, and other economic damages resulting from his dismissal—not for “injury or death.” The majority ignores this fundamental issue and instead expends much analytical energy on a nonissue, viz., whether the employer’s conduct (the act of terminating plaintiff based on his work related injuries) falls within the compensation bargain. I concur with the majority’s treatment of this latter issue but find the analysis irrelevant to the disposition of plaintiff’s claims; because plaintiff’s alleged injuries do not fall within the bargain, whether the employer’s conduct falls within or outside of the bargain is of no consequence.
The critical issue in this case is not whether the extraordinary remedies provided by Labor Code section 132a fall within the “compensation bargain” and the exclusivity provisions of the workers’ compensation laws—they clearly do not. Any claim that the provisions of section 132a were intended to be exclusive must rest on a finding the section itself, independent of the exclusivity provisions of the workers’ compensation laws, was intended to provide exclusive remedies for the conduct proscribed therein.
There are reasons to believe the Legislature intended the remedies provided by section 132a to be exclusive. The majority correctly observes that Labor Code section 132a is a specific statute which addresses a narrow range of discriminatory conduct—discrimination based on work-related injuries. Arguably, it should prevail over the FEHA which proscribes all employment discrimination based on physical handicap, whether work-related or not. One might reasonably ask, as did the court in Portillo, “If [section 132a] does not apply here, why have the statute at all?” (Portillo v. G. T. Price Products, Inc. (1982) 131 Cal.App.3d 285, 289-290 [182 Cal.Rptr. 291].) There are also compelling policy reasons to confine all employee-employer disputes to a single forum and a single body of statutory law. It is also true that “. . . where a new right, one not existing at common law, is created by statute and a statutory remedy for the infringement thereof is provided, such remedy is exclusive of all others. [Citations.]” (Orloff v. Los Angeles Turf Club (1947) 30 Cal.2d 110, 112 [180 P.2d 321, 171 A.L.R. 913].)
Other factors, however, compel a contrary result. As noted by the majority, Labor Code section 132a does not expressly embrace the conduct here at issue; on its face the section only provides a remedy for wrongful discharge of an employee who seeks relief under the workers’ compensation system. The Supreme Court’s determination that section 132a created remedies for discrimination based on work-related injury is premised on a declaration of policy contained in 1972 amendments to section 132a. (Judson Steel Corp. v. *1000Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 658, 667 [150 Cal.Rptr. 250, 586 P.2d 564].) In 1972 the FEHA had not been enacted, and neither the Labor Code nor any other statute prohibited the conduct for which plaintiff now seeks redress. By 1972 the Supreme Court had recognized an action for tortious discharge in violation of public policy (Petermann v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters (1959) 174 Cal.App.2d 184 [344 P.2d 25], a concept expanded in Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (1980) 27 Cal.3d 167 [164 Cal.Rptr. 839, 610 P.2d 1330, 9 A.L.R.4th 314]), although no case had applied the principle to a firing for work-related injury. Thus, in 1972 section 132a by default provided the exclusive remedies for wrongful termination premised on work related injury. The question is whether such remedies remain exclusive in light of the later enactment of protections for the physically handicapped now embodied in the FEHA and in the face of further evolution of the tort of wrongful discharge.
The majority would respond in the affirmative, effectively holding that a statute narrowly drawn to address a specific form of discrimination in a particular setting, the discharge of workers for work related injuries, must remain the exclusive remedy even as the legislature passes statutes of broader scope providing arguably greater protections. Workers who formerly enjoyed far greater protection than the general populace are thus denied the benefits available to the public generally. It is no answer to suggest that the legislature could have easily amended Labor Code section 132a to provide the remedies provided by the FEHA; there is no indication in the language of the FEHA that its protections were not to be available to workers whose physical handicaps were job-related, and no language in section 132a suggests that its remedies were to be exclusive. The outcomes are anomalous. A worker who is fired for a physical handicap resulting from injuries suffered while on a skiing vacation may seek relief under the FEHA, while a worker fired because of injuries suffered in the service of the worker’s employer is restricted to the remedies provided by section 132a.
Under the majority’s reasoning, the remedies provided by Labor Code section 132a will remain exclusive unless later enacted statutes expressly provide otherwise. This places a burden on the Legislature in enacting new remedies to survey existing laws and ferret out statutory remedies which, though not expressly made exclusive, could be judicially construed as such. This curious role reversal, with the Legislature attempting to divine “judicial intent,” is inappropriate.
Plaintiff’s effort to craft a cause of action for tortious discharge in violation of public policy is problematic because of his failure to identify a source of that policy beyond the FEHA and Labor Code section 132a, both *1001of which provide remedies for the policy violation. (Cf. Strauss v. A. L. Randall Co. (1983) 144 Cal.App.3d 514, 520 [194 Cal.Rptr. 520].) Nonetheless, he states a viable claim under the FEHA for backpay and other economic damages resulting from defendant’s discriminatory acts. Section 132a does not foreclose resort to FEHA remedies. While plaintiff’s only resort for physical or disabling emotional injuries resulting from his wrongful termination was under the workers’ compensation system, he has a choice with respect to economic damages: he may pursue the limited remedies offered by section 132a or the more expansive, but more cumbersome, remedies available under the FEHA.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied May 4, 1994. Mosk, J., Kennard, J., and Arabian, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.