Yesterday two California workers’ compensation bills survived the August legislative suspense file graveyard.
SB 1299 (Cortese) and SB 1205 (Laird) cleared the California Assembly Appropriations committee.
SB 1299 (Cortese) creates a disputable heat illness presumption applicable to the agricultural industry:
The Legislative Counsel’s Digest summarizes the bill as follows: “This bill would create a disputable presumption that a heat-related injury that develops within a specified timeframe after working outdoors for an employer in the agriculture industry that fails to comply with heat illness prevention standards, as defined, arose out of and came in the course of employment. The bill would require the appeals board to find in favor of the employee if the employer fails to rebut the presumption. The bill would specify that compensation awarded for heat-related injury to farmworkers is to include, among other things, medical treatment and disability. The bill would establish the Farmworker Climate Change Heat Injury and Death Fund that would consist of a one-time transfer of $5,000,000 derived from nongeneral funds of the Workers’ Compensation Administration Revolving Fund for the purpose of administrative costs associated with this presumption.”
The bill is sponsored by the United Farmworkers and opposed by various employer groups. Legislative analysis of this bill by various committees can be seen here:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1299
SB 1205 (Laird) would add the following section to the California Labor Code:
“The workers’ compensation system is based on a compromise that allows an employee injured at work to receive employer-funded medical care, temporary disability (TD) to replace lost wages, and permanent disability to provide compensation for lasting impairment. In exchange, the injured worker cannot sue their employer for their injury. Prior to amendments adopted by the Assembly Insurance Committee upon passage of this bill, this bill provided that an injured employee, who is still able to work, is entitled to receive TD to supplement wages lost as a result of seeking prescribed treatment. However, courts have repeatedly held that an employee is not entitled to TD to attend medical appointments. Thus, the Assembly Insurance Committee amended this bill to instead provide that an employer’s denial of an employee’s request to receive treatment during work hours constitutes discrimination against the employee. However, an employee must make a reasonable effort to schedule treatment outside of regular work hours and provide advance notice to the employer if treatment occurs during work hours. As noted in the Assembly Insurance Committee’s analysis of this bill, “the committee recommends that the author consider adding additional language to provide employers some ability, in limited circumstances, to reject an employee’s leave request.” Additionally, this bill requires an employee covered by FMLA or CFRA to take treatment-related leave concurrently with leave under those programs. However, this requirement may inadvertently require a covered employee to expend more benefits to take treatment-related leave than another employee who is not covered by FMLA or CFRA but still entitled to the same level of workers’ compensation protections.”
Both of these bills are likely headed to the Governor’s desk, but will likely undergo further amendments before getting there.
Stay tuned.
Julius Young
510.835.8870