Reiman

Milford H. Reiman (hereinafter applicant) is the recipient of benefits in a proceeding conducted pursuant to the workers’ compensation law. Respondent Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company, his permissibly self-insured employer (the Company), has regularly paid him workers’ compensation benefits as required by an award made in the proceeding in 1965. It has also paid him so-called “Other Benefits” pursuant to a private program which it maintains for the support and welfare of its industrially disabled employees.

After the Company had paid him both types of benefits for several years, applicant petitioned respondent Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board for an additional award for self-procured medical treatment. A board referee granted him a substantial award, but allowed the Company a lien against it in the amount of the “Other Benefits” previously paid him. The board upheld the lien in an “Opinion And Decision After Reconsideration,” and we granted applicant’s petition for review. Having analyzed the “Other Benefits” and the program under which they were paid him, we have concluded that the workers’ compensation law does not entitle the Company to the lien claimed, nor…