Frank Deville worked as a furnace and blast operator for Exide Technologies in Vernon, California, from December 2, 1986 until he was laid off on August 14, 2014. On April 24, 2015, about eight months after the layoff, he filed an application claiming cumulative injury to his nervous, respiratory, skin and internal systems from heat and chemical exposure. Exide’s carrier, Zurich American Insurance Group, administered by Tristar Risk Management, denied the claim on July 13, 2015.

Deville handled most of the case without a lawyer. An attorney represented him from April 2015 to October 2017, and after that he proceeded with a guardian. The guardian barred him from testifying at trial, which ran over several days in 2022. The parties disputed twelve issues. One of them was whether the claim was barred by the post-termination defense of Labor Code § 3600(a)(10). Except for psychiatric injuries, that provision bars compensation for a claim filed after a notice of termination or layoff unless the employee proves one of the statutory exceptions.

In a Findings and Award issued November 22, 2022, the workers’ compensation judge at the Riverside district office found that Deville sustained an industrial cumulative injury limited to sleep, rated at 13 percent permanent disability, with a need for limited future medical care. Relying on the neurology panel QME, the WCJ found no injury to the nervous, respiratory, circulatory, skin or other internal systems. The WCJ also disallowed EDD’s lien and found no unreasonable denial of benefits.

On the post-termination issue, the WCJ ruled that the claim was not barred by § 3600(a)(10). In the opinion on decision, the WCJ found that the defendant had waived the affirmative defense because it never filed an Answer to the application. The judge relied on Labor Code § 5505, which allows evidence on matters not pleaded by answer only on terms the Appeals Board or judge imposes. The WCJ also cited the parallel WCAB rule, Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10465, which gives the judge discretion over unpleaded matters and affirmative defenses. The WCJ declined to allow the defense in the interest of “substantial justice under the law,” noting that Deville had represented himself, with a guardian, for most of the case.

In the WCAB panel decision of Deville v. Exide Technologies, No. ADJ9932404 (October 2026), the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board granted the applicant’s petition for reconsideration and, as its decision after reconsideration, affirmed the WCJ’s November 22, 2022 Findings and Award in full. This is a panel decision of the Appeals Board, not a court opinion, and it is not designated a significant panel decision. Panel decisions do not bind other panels or WCJs, though they may be cited as persuasive authority. The decision was signed by Commissioner Craig L. Snellings, with Commissioner Katherine Williams Dodd concurring and Chair Katherine A. Zalewski, and was filed October 22, 2026.

The reconsideration petition came from the applicant, who was challenging the limited scope of his injury and other adverse findings. The Board found his petitions hard to follow and thinly supported by the record. After independently reviewing the evidence, it concluded that the medical reports supported the WCJ. The toxicology and neurology evaluators found that Deville’s lead exposure was below that of the general population, and the psychiatric evaluator questioned psychological testing completed with help from Deville’s wife. Because Deville did not testify, the Board relied on the paper record. The Board declined to consider the applicant’s unsolicited supplemental filings under Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 10964.

The Board did not separately analyze the post-termination ruling, and nothing in the decision indicates that the defendant challenged it on reconsideration. The WCJ’s waiver finding therefore stands as part of the affirmed award. The decision also doesn’t say whether the defendant first raised the defense at the pretrial stage, or what evidence, if any, it offered on notice of layoff.

For defense practitioners, the waiver ruling is the practical lesson. Section 5505 contemplates an answer within 10 days after service of the application, setting out the facts the defendant intends to rely on. Rule 10465 requires the answer to be on the Board’s prescribed form and states that a general denial does not qualify as an answer. A claim denial letter is not a substitute. Here, the layoff came roughly eight months before the application was filed, a timeline that might otherwise have supported the defense. Even so, the defendant’s failure to plead it left its fate to the judge’s discretion, and the judge weighed the applicant’s largely self-represented status against allowing it. Because the rule is discretionary, a WCJ could rule differently on other facts. Still, the safest course is to file a timely Answer that expressly pleads § 3600(a)(10) and every other affirmative defense the defendant intends to pursue.