Correctional employee suffers severe injury due to inmate violence in preplanned attack
In workers’ compensation law, if the employer’s serious and willful misconduct causes injury to a worker, the compensation that the worker is entitled to receive increases by one-half, the California Court of Appeal said in a recent case.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employed the plaintiff as a correctional officer at the Lancaster State Prison. In August 2002, a preplanned attack by inmates severely injured the plaintiff. He filed a workers’ compensation claim alleging that the CDCR’s serious and willful misconduct caused the injury.
Under section 4553 of the California’s Labor Code, a court would increase the amount of base compensation – or the “compensation otherwise recoverable” – by 50 percent if an employer’s serious and willful misconduct caused the employee’s injury.
The plaintiff and the CDCR agreed that the injury caused him 85-percent permanent disability but disagreed on whether the CDCR committed serious and willful misconduct. A workers’ compensation judge answered no to that question.
The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board reversed this decision. It found that the plaintiff should get an additional 50 percent of base compensation under section 4553 because the CDCR committed serious and willful misconduct.
The CDCR, which received a report of a credible threat of inmate violence that was planned for the day of the attack, failed to act upon the threat and took the facility out of lockdown regardless of this threat, the appeals board said.
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The plaintiff and the CDCR disagreed about what would be base compensation under section 4553. The plaintiff argued that, before he was on permanent disability, his base compensation was his full salary. At that time, he was on industrial disability leave and enhanced industrial disability leave.
The CDCR countered that base compensation was only two-thirds of the plaintiff’s salary, to which he would have been entitled if he was on temporary disability.
The workers’ compensation judge agreed with the CDCR. The appeals board reversed this decision. It determined that base compensation was what the plaintiff received while on industrial disability leave and enhanced industrial disability leave.
Compensation not increased
In the case of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation v. WCAB and Michael Ayala, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, Second Division annulled the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.
Compensation under section 4553 did not include industrial disability leave and enhanced industrial disability leave, the appellate court ruled. Thus, the compensation in this case involving serious and willful misconduct by the employer could not be increased by 50 percent, the appellate court said.
Section 3207 of the Labor Code, which defined compensation, limited compensation to benefits or payments provided by Division 4 of the Labor Code. Temporary disability payments were considered compensation because Division 4 provided them, the appellate court held. On the other hand, industrial disability leave benefits were not compensation since Division 4 did not provide such benefits, the appellate court said.
California’s Government Code, not the Labor Code, provided for the following:
- industrial disability leave, which was available as an alternative to temporary disability for some of California’s officers and employees, including members of the Public Employees’ Retirement System
- enhanced industrial disability leave, which extended the full-pay period from 22 days to a year
The plaintiff argued that the court should liberally interpret workers’ compensation laws to protect injured workers and that applying the limitation in the definition of compensation would not benefit him. The appellate court disagreed. Applying the limitation would favor an injured worker in other contexts, the appellate court noted.
