In the Angelotti Chiropractic federal constitutional challenge to the 2013 lien activation fee case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in June holding that the preliminary injunction staying implementation of the lien activation fee should be vacated. The Court of Appeals denied a Rehearing Petition and issued its mandate to the District Court on October 19, 2015.

Under SB863, lienholders were to be afforded until December 31, 2013 to pay lien activation fees. The now vacated preliminary injunction went into effect on November 19, 2013 and the DWC deactivated the payment systems. As a result, lienholders – including lienholders not a party to this action – were unable to pay lien activation fees for 43 days prior to the December 31, 2013 deadline.

At an October 29 status conference in federal court, the parties agree that lienholders should be afforded at least 43 days to pay activation fees after the former payment systems are re-activated and the parties jointly requested that the deadline be made December 31, 2015. And the DWC requested that it be given until November 9, 2015 to reactivate the payment systems.

The Court ordered that the DWC has until November 9, 2015 to re-establish the activation fee payment systems. Any holder of a lien filed prior to January 1, 2013 shall be permitted to pay lien activation fees required by Cal. Lab Code § 4903.06 from November 9, 2015 to December 31, 2015. Any lien filed prior to January 1, 2013 for which the lien activation fee has not been paid on or before December 31, 2015 shall be dismissed by operation of law pursuant to Cal. Lab Code § 4903.06(a)(5). This provision shall have no effect on liens that were dismissed prior to this order.

In the event the payment systems are not re-established by November 9, 2015, or thereafter become non-operational, the December 31, 2015 deadline shall be extended by one calendar day for every day the payment systems are non-operational.