Cathy Montgomery, V. Department Of Labor And Industries Of The State Of WA

CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedFebruary 14, 2023
Docket56838-1
StatusUnpublished

This text of Cathy Montgomery, V. Department Of Labor And Industries Of The State Of WA (Cathy Montgomery, V. Department Of Labor And Industries Of The State Of WA) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cathy Montgomery, V. Department Of Labor And Industries Of The State Of WA, (Wash. Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

Filed Washington State Court of Appeals Division Two

February 14, 2023 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

DIVISION II CATHY MONTGOMERY, No. 56838-1-II

Appellant,

v.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, UNPUBLISHED OPINION

Respondent.

GLASGOW, C.J. — Cathy M. Montgomery, who sustained injuries as a restaurant server,

made two workers’ compensation claims with the Department of Labor & Industries. The

Department closed the first claim with an award for permanent partial disability but without

ongoing time loss compensation, and it rejected the second claim. Montgomery appealed both

orders to the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals. An industrial appeals judge required an

additional few days of time loss compensation in the first claim but otherwise affirmed.

Montgomery then submitted a petition for Board review two days late. The Board

determined that Montgomery’s petition was untimely and adopted the industrial appeals judge’s

proposed decision and order. Next, Montgomery filed with the Board a CR 60(b) motion for relief

from the Board’s order. The Board denied her motion.

Montgomery appealed to superior court. She introduced facts that were not before the

Board. The trial court excluded the new facts. It then affirmed. No. 56838-1-II

Montgomery appeals, arguing that the trial court should have allowed her to introduce the

additional evidence, that her petition was timely filed under RCW 51.52.104, and that the trial

court erred by affirming the Board’s order denying her CR 60(b) motion. We affirm.

FACTS

Montgomery sustained injuries while working as a restaurant server. As a result, she made

two workers’ compensation claims with the Department. The Department initially accepted the

first claim but ultimately suspended her time loss compensation and “closed her claim with an

award for permanent partial disability.” Admin. Rec. (AR) at 42. The Department rejected the

second claim.

Montgomery appealed the Department’s orders to the Board. On January 17, 2020, an

industrial appeals judge issued a proposed decision and order. In addressing the first claim, the

industrial appeals judge directed the Department to issue a new order paying Montgomery time

loss compensation for a few additional days but otherwise affirmed. The judge also affirmed the

Department’s rejection of the second claim.

I. PETITION FOR REVIEW

Montgomery decided to contest the proposed decision and order by filing a petition for

review with the Board. The Board granted two 20-day extensions of the time for filing a petition.

On March 2, 2020, the Board sent a letter granting the second extension, giving a due date of

March 24, 2020.

While preparing the petition for review, Montgomery’s attorney reviewed the letter

extending the due date to March 24, 2020. But he mistakenly recalled the new due date as being

two days later.

2 No. 56838-1-II

On March 18, 2020, the attorney gave a draft of the petition for review to his legal assistant.

The attorney told the assistant he thought the petition was due on March 26, 2020. His legal

assistant did not check the due date in the client file.

Montgomery electronically filed the petition for review on the morning of March 26, 2020,

two days after the deadline. That day, the Board sent a letter acknowledging receipt and stating

that it would “issue an order either granting or denying the petition within 20 days.” AR at 10.

In the afternoon of that same day, Montgomery’s attorney realized he had missed the due

date by two days. The following day, he filed a request for relief from the filing date with the

Board. He based the request on a declaration from his legal assistant. His legal assistant said the

attorney had advised her “that he thought the [p]etition was due to be filed with the Board on

March 26, 2020.” AR at 5. Explaining that she had a respiratory disease that periodically results

in recurrent pneumonia, she implied that fear of COVID-19 was causing her stress, and she said

that in her “normal state of mind unaffected by the stress of COVID-19, [she] would have checked

the due date.” AR at 6. She further explained that the office’s receptionist had only been able to

work one day that week due to concerns about her young daughter contracting the virus, resulting

in the legal assistant answering all the office’s phone calls.

On April 13, 2020, 18 days after the petition was filed, the Board sent a letter stating that

it had received Montgomery’s request for relief from the filing date, and it had determined that her

petition was untimely. The Board adopted the industrial appeals judge’s proposed decision and

order, ruling that no petition for review that complied with the deadline in RCW 51.52.104 had

been filed.

3 No. 56838-1-II

II. CR 60(B) MOTION TO THE BOARD AND ORIGINAL APPEAL TO SUPERIOR COURT

Montgomery filed with the Board a timely CR 60(b) motion for relief from the Board’s

order adopting the industrial appeals judge’s proposed decision and order. She put forth two

grounds for relief.

First, Montgomery sought relief under CR 60(b)(1) for mistake or inadvertence by her

attorney. In a declaration in support of the motion, her attorney said that although he reviewed the

letter from the Board setting a March 24 deadline, he “somehow had it in [his] mind that the filing

[date] was on Thursday, March 26, 2020.” AR at 310.

Second, Montgomery sought relief under CR 60(b)(11) for “[a]ny other reason justifying

relief from the operation of the judgment.” Her attorney said that “the State of Washington, the

United States of America, and the World [had] been under siege by the pandemic known as the

COVID-19 virus.” AR at 310. He made note of Governor Jay Inslee’s March 23, 2020 statewide

order prohibiting non-essential businesses “from conducting all activities and operations except

minimum basic operations.” AR at 327. He explained, “I cannot say what [effect] the COVID-19

virus pandemic has had upon me, but I do have risk factors if I acquire the virus.” AR at 311. He

also referenced his legal assistant’s declaration, noting the receptionist’s absence during the week

the petition for review was due.

Before the Board ruled on the CR 60(b) motion, Montgomery appealed the Board’s order

to superior court. Subsequently, the Board sent a letter explaining that the superior court had

jurisdiction, and the Board would not take any further action in the matter. The superior court then

entered a judgment requiring the Board to consider Montgomery’s CR 60(b) motion and decide

4 No. 56838-1-II

whether her petition for review should be considered timely filed under CR 60(b)(1) or CR

60(b)(11).

The Board denied Montgomery’s CR 60(b) motion. The Board reasoned that “an error of

office procedure such as calendaring an incorrect due date . . . cannot be the basis for extending a

statutorily created deadline” and that Montgomery had not established “any nexus between the

ongoing extraordinary circumstance attendant to the COVID-19 pandemic and the late [filing].”

AR at 302-303.

III.

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