Gregg Rader sustained an industrial injury to his psyche in the form of emotional stress while employed by Ticketmaster Corporation, with dates of injury spanning from November 12, 1991 through November 12, 1992. On January 19, 2011, a Workers’ Compensation Judge approved the parties’ Stipulations with Request for Award, granting Rader an award of 100 percent permanent total disability at a weekly rate of $336.00.
As part of that award, the WCJ approved an attorney’s fee of $39,444.71 — calculated as 15 percent of the present value of Rader’s anticipated lifetime benefits of $262,964.75 (after a 3% present value reduction). To fund this fee, the parties agreed to commute it laterally from Rader’s weekly benefits, reducing each payment by $50.40 and yielding a net weekly payment of $285.60.
Years later, Rader contended that the total amount withheld from his weekly benefits had fully satisfied the $39,444.71 attorney’s fee. His math was straightforward: dividing $39,444.71 by $50.40 per week produced roughly 782.63 weeks, which — counted from the initial payment date of June 6, 2008 — pointed to approximately June 5, 2023 as the date the commutation should have ended. He argued that his weekly rate should have returned to the full $336.00 at that point and sought penalties and interest for the continued withholding. Defendant State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) countered that the award was silent on any end date for the commutation and that the WCAB lacked jurisdiction to alter the award.
The WCJ sided with SCIF. The WCJ reasoned that imprecision is inherent in life-expectancy estimates and that the gross amount of weekly reductions exceeding the fee amount was simply the expected outcome when an applicant outlives the projected life expectancy. The WCJ further found that under Labor Code section 5804, the attempt to undo the rate reduction was filed many years outside the permissible five-year window for amending an award, and therefore the court lacked jurisdiction.
Last January, the WCAB granted Rader’s Petition for Reconsideration in the Significant Panel Decision of Gregg Rader v Ticketmaster -ADJ7138762 (January 2026) and substitute new Findings of Fact that the WCAB retains ongoing jurisdiction over the award of attorney’s fees pursuant to section 5803, and that because defendant has taken credit from applicant’s weekly payment of permanent indemnity in an amount equivalent to the dollar amount of commuted attorney’s fees, applicant is thereafter entitled to the full amount of his award without further reduction for attorney’s fees.
The State Fund was now the aggrieved party in the case for the first time, thus it was allowed to filed its own Petition for Reconsideration. The WCAB just denied SCIF’s petition for reconsideration in the second panel decision of Rader v. Ticketmaster Corporation -ADJ7138762 (April 2026), affirming its own January 8, 2026 Opinion and Decision After Reconsideration (ODAR) which has been deemed a Significant Panel Decision. That earlier decision had revIersed the WCJ, holding that the WCAB retains jurisdiction over the dispute and that the weekly commutation ends once the gross amount of the awarded attorney’s fee ($39,444.71) has been fully satisfied — after which Rader is entitled to his full $336.00 weekly rate.
On Jurisdiction: The WCAB acknowledged that Labor Code section 5804 bars rescission, alteration, or amendment of an award more than five years from the date of injury. However, the Board drew a critical distinction: this dispute concerned the enforcement of the existing award’s terms — specifically, the allocation of attorney’s fees — rather than an alteration of the underlying disability award itself. Under Labor Code section 5803, the WCAB retains ongoing jurisdiction to enforce its orders and awards, including matters collateral to the award such as commutations and attorney’s fees. Relying on Hodge v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1981) 123 Cal.App.3d 501, 508-509 [46 Cal.Comp.Cases 1034], the Board emphasized that commutation merely alters the form of an award and does not affect the merits of the basic decision determining the worker’s right to benefits.
On the Merits: The WCAB examined the actual language of the Stipulations and Award and found that the only basis for withholding was to satisfy the specified attorney’s fee lien of $39,444.71. Neither the Stipulations nor the Award authorized withholding for any other purpose or contemplated an indefinite reduction. The Board reasoned that once a lien is fully paid, no statutory basis exists to continue allowing it as a charge against compensation under Labor Code section 4903(a). Additionally, under Labor Code section 5100, all commutations must avoid inequity and undue hardship to the applicant — and continuing to reduce benefits for attorney’s fees that have already been fully satisfied would be manifestly inequitable.
On SCIF’s Commutation Table Argument: SCIF pointed to Examples D and E in the commutation instructions under Administrative Director Rule 10169.1 (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10169.1), which provide that after commutation of all remaining life pension indemnity, no further benefits are due. The WCAB found these examples inapposite because they involve commuting the entirety of an applicant’s future benefits, whereas here the parties commuted only a fixed dollar amount of attorney’s fees from an ongoing lifetime benefit stream.
A Remaining Open Question: While affirming that the commutation must end once the fee amount is satisfied, the WCAB expressly declined to opine on whether the present-value equivalent of the fees had already been fully withheld — noting that such a determination may require expert testimony and proper application of the 3% present-value calculations under AD Rules 10169 and 10169.1. The Board encouraged the parties to resolve the issue amicably but reminded them that any further proceedings must be supported by substantial evidence in the record, citing Hamilton v. Lockheed Corporation (2001) 66 Cal.Comp.Cases 473, 478 (Appeals Bd. en banc).