WCDefenseCA

Happy Friday dear readers!  Looks like we made it another week – the civil war hasn’t started, the lizard people have yet to emerge from their sewer nests to enslave us, and dogs and cats continue to dislike one another.  The sky is still above us and the Earth below.  Not all bad!

Many of us living in the great state of California can look forward to a state-wide curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., although, if your social life and bottomless reserves of energy are anything like your humble blogger’s, you probably won’t notice much of a difference in your day-to-day activities.   

Meanwhile, as we start making preparation for Thanksgiving (which happens to be your humble blogger’s favorite holiday of all), we can expect to serve a smaller table and fill fewer plates.  Remember, dear readers, this is a VERY dangerous game if your typical Thanksgiving strategy involves planning to have leftovers.  Adjust accordingly or your leftovers will have leftovers…

In other words, dear readers, looks like the whole COVID thing isn’t exactly done just yet.

Anywho, I’m sure you don’t pay your subscription fees to hear your humble blogger grumble about the minor inconveniences imposed upon his non-existent social life by social distancing.  You’re here to see how the law can be twisted and tortured to provide some modicum of due process for defendants in California’s workers’ compensation system, right?  We at WCDefenseCA are not unlike golden retrievers, dear readers, in that we are very eager to please.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of Occam’s Razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the right one.  Well, I present for your consideration Occam’s Razon… which is actually just the Razon case and the unpublished opinion issued by the Court of Appeal just this week.

The facts are pretty simple – applicant alleged an injury while working for Southern California Permanente Medical Group.  While the case was working its way through the comp claims system, he filed a Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) claim against his employer.  While the FEHA claim, which alleged that discriminatory actions by the employer made it impossible or at least more difficult to continue working for said employer, was pending, Razon settled his workers’ compensation claim by way of C&R.  As is typical in C&R settlements, applicant also signed a resignation letter which “releases [defendant] from any and all claims, known or unknown, which may exist at the time of execution of this Agreement” and waives any claim to monetary damages that may arise from the employee-employer relationship.

Based on the resignation letter and release, defendant moved for summary judgement in the FEHA claim. The motion was granted and Razon appealed, and the Court of Appeal affirmed in an unpublished opinion.

Now, it is very important to remember that Razon is an unpublished opinion, which means that this decision “must not be cited or relied on by a court or a party in any other action.”  However, since a decision can only be “unpublished” if it does NOT “[e]stablish a new rule of law”, we can safely presume that this decision is just rehashing an already established rule of law.

What else can we take away from this?  A workers’ compensation settlement may provide consideration for a non-workers’ compensation settlement.  That is, to say, the workers’ compensation appeals board may approve a settlement, but, based on the Razon case, that settlement may be independent consideration for a document the WCAB would likely not have reviewed or considered – the resignation letter and general release.  So, it looks like the Court of Appeal in Razon is saying that a separate part of an agreement, to wit, the resignation and release letter, is still valid and binding even if that part of the settlement was not reviewed or approved by the WCAB.

Another interesting aspect of this case is that the replay scenario creates a showdown of conflict between insurer and insured.  The insurer for a workers’ compensation claim probably doesn’t have any exposure for any FEHA claims.  However, the employer is probably eager to have the FEHA flank covered.  When applicant holds out for a bigger payday to sign a general release, who exerts the influence?  Who foots the bills for the difference between a C&R with and without a general release and resignation?

What do you think, dear readers?  Is this something to mull over during the weekend?