Williams v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board

17 Cal. App. 4th 582, 21 Cal. Rptr. 2d 438, 58 Cal. Comp. Cases 534, 93 Daily Journal DAR 9679, 93 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5715, 1993 Cal. App. LEXIS 780
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 28, 1993
DocketNo. B068646
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 17 Cal. App. 4th 582 (Williams v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, 17 Cal. App. 4th 582, 21 Cal. Rptr. 2d 438, 58 Cal. Comp. Cases 534, 93 Daily Journal DAR 9679, 93 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5715, 1993 Cal. App. LEXIS 780 (Cal. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

Opinion

WOODS (A. M.), P. J.

We review a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (Board) after reconsideration in which the Board ordered payment of $7,060 to applicant’s landlord, lien claimant Kenneth A. Hilton, from applicant’s workers’ compensation award of $12,000. Applicant has petitioned for a writ of review, contending that the order violated Labor Code sections 4901 and 4903 and that the Board failed to comply with Labor Code section 5908.5. We have concluded that the order allowing the lien claim in the amount of $7,060 violated Labor Code sections 4901 and 4903. We therefore annul the Board’s decision and remand the matter to the Board with directions.

Factual and Procedural Background

Applicant, Alice S. Williams, born January 5, 1965, was employed by the House of Ruth, Inc. (House of Ruth), insured by National American Insurance Company of California, as a counselor and relief staff supervisor at a shelter for battered women from June 1983 to August 1986. On August 22, 1986, applicant was working alone at the shelter in the evening when an intruder entered through a window and attacked her. Applicant resisted the [585]*585intruder and obtained police assistance. In seeking workers’ compensation, she alleged that she had sustained industrial injuries to her head, upper body, face, and psyche. She also alleged that the employer committed serious and willful misconduct by failing to provide security and adequate outdoor lighting. Applicant filed her workers’ compensation application on September 18, 1986.1

At the time of injury, applicant was living with her minor child at 695 Pamela Lane, Pomona, California, a residence owned by lien claimant Kenneth Hilton. The residence had been rented to applicant and her family since 1981. At one time or another, applicant’s mother, applicant’s two older sisters, and two children of one of the sisters have resided there with applicant. The first rental agreement relied on by Hilton to establish his lien claim was signed by applicant, her mother, and applicant’s two older sisters in 1981, when applicant was 16 years old. That agreement provided for rent of $650 per month. It was stated in the rental agreement that the tenants signing the agreement rented the premises “individually and severally.” In a rental agreement dated October 8, 1986, the rent was decreased to $500 per month, effective September 26, 1986, since the family could not pay the larger amount. The 1986 rental agreement was signed by applicant and her mother. On March 28,1987, the family was about two years in arrears on the rent, and applicant signed a consent that Hilton’s lien claim of $12,510.50 plus amounts due for rent owed thereafter be allowed against her workers’ compensation award. The language consenting to allowance of the lien was preprinted language on the Board form on which Hilton set forth his lien claim. The amount of the award had not yet been determined. Hilton had informed applicant on March 27, 1987, that he was increasing the rent to $850 per month, effective April 26, 1987.

At some point in 1987, applicant moved from the Pamela Lane premises. On May 25,1988, she filed a substitution of attorneys form. The usual issues in her workers’ compensation case were settled by compromise and release on May 2, 1991, for the gross amount of $12,000. Three thousand five hundred dollars in permanent disability indemnity advances had already been paid to applicant, and the parties agreed that amount would be deducted from the $12,000 settlement. Applicant’s two attorneys were paid $960 and $480 respectively. The balance of $7,060 was claimed by Hilton. The parties agreed that the employer and insurer would not be responsible for Hilton’s [586]*586lien claim. Applicant opposed Hilton’s lien claim. On August 30, 1991, the parties entered into a compromise and release settling for $500 applicant’s claim that the employer committed serious and willful misconduct.

On September 12, 1991, applicant and Hilton submitted the lien claim matter, applicant and Hilton having stipulated that, if called, applicant would testify that she moved out of the Pamela Lane premises on February 28, 1987, approximately six months after her industrial injury, and lien claimant Hilton, representing himself, having filed a declaration in which he claimed that applicant owed him $13,650. In that declaration, Hilton also claimed that in several other cases he had not evicted injured workers for nonpayment of rent pending disposition of their workers’ compensation applications. Hilton stated he had been successful in collecting large sums of back rent as liens against awards to his tenants. Attached to the declaration is a copy of an order approving a compromise and release in one of the prior cases. In that order, Hilton was allowed a lien claim of $16,600 against a gross award of $20,000. Hilton asserted that he had agreed to waive $1,000 of his lien claim in that case at the request of the WCJ because otherwise the applicant would not have recovered anything. After the date of the hearing on his lien claim, Hilton filed a supplemental declaration in which he stated that applicant had not vacated the Pamela Lane premises until July 26,1987.

On January 10, 1992, in the order approving the compromise and release as to the usual issues, the WCJ ordered that Hilton’s lien claim be allowed in the amount of $7,060. The WCJ also approved the compromise and release regarding serious and willful misconduct. The WCJ did not allow any lien claim against that award. In his opinion on decision, the WCJ declared: “A lien is allowed for the reasonable value of the living expenses of an injured employee or dependents subsequent to the injury. Labor Code §4903 (c). Living expenses also include rent; Binning vs. Howard, [(1940)] 5 [Cal.Comp.Cases] 269 . . . .” (Italics in original.)

Applicant petitioned for reconsideration, contending that, pursuant to the language in Labor Code section 4903, subdivision (c), Hilton’s lien claim had been valid only for living expenses incurred by applicant subsequent to injury and that most of Hilton’s lien claim was for a debt incurred prior to applicant’s injury. Applicant also contended that, pursuant to the language of Labor Code section 4903, subdivision (c), she could be held responsible only for that portion of rent reasonably attributable to the occupancy of herself and her child, who was her dependent, rather than for the rest of the family that resided with her and that the amount actually owed by her, computed on a daily basis, was $1,116.79.

[587]*587The WCJ recommended that reconsideration be granted, stating: “It appears that the bulk of the consent lien was for expenses incurred prior to the date of injury, although, [sic] it is apparent that the lien claimant could have evicted the applicant and her family but for the agreement to pay the rent at the conclusion of her workers’ [compensation] case[.] [T]he provision[] [is] specific and it is not known whether distinction can be made for a consent lien which appears to be valid in terms of money being owed.”

On March 23, 1992, the Board granted reconsideration and amended the order approving the compromise and release of the usual issues to limit lien claimant Hilton to $1,116, adopting and incorporating the rationale set forth in the WCJ’s report and recommendation on reconsideration.2

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17 Cal. App. 4th 582, 21 Cal. Rptr. 2d 438, 58 Cal. Comp. Cases 534, 93 Daily Journal DAR 9679, 93 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5715, 1993 Cal. App. LEXIS 780, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-workers-compensation-appeals-board-calctapp-1993.