In a triad of decisions by three separate Court of Appeal panels, namely, Earley v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., et al., 94 Cal. App. 5th 1 (2023)(“Earley”), Zurich American Ins. Co. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., et al., 97 Cal. App. 5th 1213 (2023)(“Zurich”), and most recently in Mayor v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., et al., 104 Cal. App. 5th 1297 (2024)(“Mayor”) , the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board’s “grant for study” orders pursuant to the former version of Labor Code section 5909 (Section 5909) have been found to be unlawful.

And now on November 4, 2024 a new Petition for Writ of Mandate was filed in the California Supreme Court by another representative group of eleven California injured workers all of whom allege they have been unlawfully and unfairly denied their constitutionally guaranteed right to speedy and unencumbered resolution of their claims for workers’ compensation benefits as a result of the WCAB’s prior issuance of so-called “grant for study” orders.

They continue to allege that “By way of these orders, the Board has attempted to grant to itself, sua sponte indefinite extensions of time to render final decisions concerning Petitions for Reconsideration. To make matters worse, Petitioners are precluded from seeking adjudication of any further disputes which may arise until the WCAB finally issues its final decisions in their cases.” And that they are “suffering severe prejudice and irreparable harm due to the Board’s refusal to comply with the above-cited constitutional mandate for expeditious and unincumbered (sic) dispute resolution.”

“Petitioners’ predicament does not represent an isolated, ‘outlier’ phenomenon. Quite to the contrary, pursuant to a California Public Records Act information request in connection with Earley, it was determined that as [of] October 2021 more than five hundred (500) cases remained undecided at that time as a result of ‘grant for study’ orders issued within the preceding three-year period alone. The number of Petitioners in this case give rise to a reasonable inference that a similar number of undecided cases remain ‘on hold’ due to the Board’s issuance of ‘grant for study’ orders.”

They ask the Supreme Court to ” issue a writ of mandate directing the WCAB to issue final decisions in all cases wherein a ‘grant for study’ was issued under the former version of Section 5909.” And should it decide to do so, the “outcome of these proceedings will directly affect the interests of all litigants in the workers’ compensation system, injured workers, employers, insurance carriers and lien claimants alike, since they are all precluded from adjudicating further issues before the WCAB per Rosendin (Rosendin Electric, Inc. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., 73 Cal. Comp. Case. 1123 (2008)(writ denied)).until the WCAB issues final decisions regarding the pending, undecided Petitions for Reconsideration.”

These injured workers go on to allege that “this Court possesses original jurisdiction to grant the relief requested by way of this Petition pursuant to Wenke v. Hitchcock, 6 Cal. 3d 746 (1972)(“Hitchcock”); Clean Air Constituency v. State Air Resources Bd., 11 Cal. 3d 801 (1974)(“Clean Air Constituency”); Greener v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., 6 Cal. 4th 1028 (1993)(“Greener”); Betancourt v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., 16 Cal. App. 3d 408 (1993)(“Betancourt”); Legislature of State of California v. Padilla (2020) 9 Cal.5th 867 (2020) (“Padilla”); and California Redevelopment Assn. v. Matosantos, 53 Cal. 4th 231 (2011)(“Matosantos”), as well as many other similar cases.”

And that “proper grounds exist for this Honorable Court to exercise original jurisdiction in the above-captioned matter pursuant to California Rules of Court Rule 8.500(b)(1) to settle an important question of law, namely, whether the WCAB should be allowed to continue to delay issuing final decisions regarding Petitions for Reconsideration after having employed the now-determined to be unlawful “grant for study” procedure under former Section 5909 for many months or years at a time thereby prejudicing all litigants involved in workers’ compensation proceedings.

The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board State of the State of California is named as the Respondent in the case. It will now have an opportunity to respond to the Petition. The major issue here is a determination by the Supreme Court that they will hear the case at all, since the Petition asks for an extraordinary writ, and there is no obligation that the Supreme Court hear and decide it. If it does however, there will likely be substantial requests by other interested parties and organizations in the industry to file briefs as amicus. It would not be unusual for a decision to take far more than a year to be delivered.