Happy Monday, dear readers!

You know, we are more than a month away from Halloween, but that doesn’t stop store displays from going all out on spooky decorations, candy, and costumes.  In that same spirit, I offer a rather grim panel opinion, having to do, of course, with the spookiest of aspect to our beloved swamp of California workers’ compensation – the Death Without Dependents unit.

The basic gist of this unit is that when there is an industrial death, and the worker dies without any dependents, the state comes in to collect the death benefit.  In most cases, the defendant is searching high and low for at least one partial dependent to avoid having to pay the max benefit, although it appears that the logic is inverted for COVID19 related death cases, as SB1159 and Governor Newsom’s executive order appear to bar DWD recovery in those cases.

Anywho, the panel decision under the humble blogger’s microscope today is that of Tara O’Sullivan v. City of Sacramento.  In this particular instance, DWD and an alleged partial dependant were at odds about whether the later qualified as a partial dependent at all.

The deceased was a City of Sacramento Police Officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2019.  As the WCJ recounted, “[j]ust prior to her death, decedent and [applicant-dependent] agreed to move in together with [the latter’s] fiancé.  This would allow [applicant-dependent] to save money for her planned wedding.”  The decedent agreed to pay half (not one-third) of utilities.

The WCJ acknowledged that a mere “room mate” scenario would not give rise to a dependency relationship.  However, in this case, decedent was paying half of the utilities while only representing one-third of the occupants of the home.  The WCJ reasoned that “[decedent] agreed, in effect, to subsidize applicant’s rent and utilities.”

The WCAB denied the DWD’s petition for reconsideration. 

So, some takeaways from this decision, dear readers?  Dependency does not require any large sums of money – the standard for a partial dependent can be some level of support, even so little as subsidizing rent and utilities.  But, contrast that with the WCAB’s opinion in the case of Guadalupe Ayon (Deceased), wherein the WCAB held that a deceased worker must have contributed more to the house hold than his or her own expenses.  There, the defendant argued that the surviving family members were benefiting from the economies of scale which they could no longer rely upon. 

Straight on to Wednesday, dear readers!