Court Opinion

ID: 9629615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:46:10.526385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:21.628928
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent. In affirming the award of increased compensation under Labor Code section 132a, the majority errs in two distinct respects: (1) Contrary to the majority, section 132a does not authorize such an award for acts of discrimination not specifically mentioned in that section, and (2) in any event, the employer’s exercise of contractual rights specifically conferred under a union contract freely negotiated in favor of union members cannot reasonably and simultaneously be considered an act of discrimination which would justify a penal award of increased compensation to a union member.
Section 132a announces a general state policy “that there should not be discrimination against workers who are injured in the course and scope of their employment.” The section immediately follows the foregoing language with a description of the types of acts for which an award of increased compensation may be made, namely, discrimination “against any employee because the latter has filed or made known his intention to file an application with the appeals board, or because the employee has received a rating, award or settlement, or, because the employee testified or made known his intentions to testify in any matter relating to the appeals board . . . .” In summary, section 132a prohibits discrimination against an employee who, in various specified ways, has sought redress before the appeals board. The section clearly was intended to assure that an employee would not be penalized by his employer merely because he exercised his legal right to invoke appeals board procedure.
*670In the present case, it is undisputed that employee Maese was terminated by Judson Steel Corporation because of his lengthy absence from work, and not because of any attempt by him to claim workers’ compensation benefits. Therefore, assuming that Judson’s conduct in terminating Maese was somehow wrongful, nevertheless, that conduct would not form the basis for the special penalties provided in section 132a. As stated in a recent case (now disapproved by the majority), “. . . the discrimination, prohibited and penalized by section 132a, involves . . . threatening or taking punitive action of any kind against industrially injured employees because they avail themselves of their rights under the Workers’ Compensation Act ... . Randolph’s termination under review [for absence from work due to industrial injury] does not come within the reaches policywise of Labor Code section 132a.” (Italics added; Randolph v. City of Los Angeles (1977) 67 Cal.App.3d 201, 204 [136 Cal.Rptr. 543].)
In any event, it seems obvious to me that Judson’s conduct in this case reasonably should not be characterized as “discrimination,” even were we to accept the majority’s faulty premise that section 132a and its penal award provisions apply to every kind of employer discrimination, and not only those acts specified in that section. As noted by the majority, the union contract with Judson provided that, unless otherwise mutually agreed between the union and Judson, an employee’s continuous service and seniority status “shall be terminated” when the employee has failed to perform services for the employer for 12 consecutive months as a result of layoff, illness or injury. Employee Maese, of course, was fully bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement negotiated on his behalf by a union which presumably represented his interests. (See Chavez v. Sargent (1959) 52 Cal.2d 162, 197 [339 P.2d 801].)
It is undisputed that Judson terminated Maese by exercising its contractual right to do so under the foregoing provision. How then does the majority reach its conclusion that Maese’s termination was “discriminatory”? Evidently that conclusion is based solely upon the fact that “petitioner [employer] was not compelled to terminate applicant’s seniority rights, and instead eschewed its own standard procedure for safeguarding absent employees’ accumulated seniority.” (Ante, p. 665, italics added.)
The foregoing legal consequence does not follow from the fact. First, the majority’s assertion that Judson was not contractually compelled to fire Maese is wholly beside the point. Judson had a contractual right to terminate any employee who was absent for more than one year. The *671exercise of a right validly conferred by a contract freely negotiated between parties cannot reasonably be construed subsequently as a discriminatory act. Second, given Judson’s contractual right of termination, it is wholly immaterial that on some prior unspecified occasions for good reasons Judson and the union may have mutually agreed to extend the 12-month period. The union contract expressly contemplates just such extensions by mutual agreement. Judson’s failure to reach such an agreement in Maese’s case was a contractually privileged right and, accordingly, could not form the basis for a claim of discrimination under section 132a. (In fact, the record discloses that Judson’s inaction was attributable to Maese, who never requested either his employer or his union to reach a mutual agreement extending the 12-month period.)
In my view, the majority unfairly and arbitrarily imposes a substantial penalty upon Judson for doing no more than exercising its perfectly valid contractual rights. I find such a result wholly unprecedented, and would annul the board’s decision.
Clark, J., and Manuel, J., concurred.