J.C. Penney Co. v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board

Petitioners J.C. Penney Company and its insurer American Home Assurance Company, adjusted by AIG Claim Services (collectively J.C. Penney), contend that respondent the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) erred in limiting a credit for overpayment of temporary disability indemnity. Entitlement to temporary disability indemnity ends when the condition of the injured worker becomes permanent and stationary. J.C. Penney sought the credit against the permanent disability indemnity award of injured worker respondent James Edwards. J.C. Penney claimed that his condition became permanent and stationary some 19 months before it stopped paying temporary disability indemnity.

The WCAB limited the requested credit on the ground that J.C. Penney failed to object, under Labor Code section 4062, to the ongoing determinations of Edwards’s treating physicians that he remained temporarily totally disabled. J.C. Penney argues that the WCAB erred because the treating physicians’ determinations were based on an incorrect legal theory and do not afford substantial evidence of ongoing temporary disability. The argument is unpersuasive, but the WCAB’s rationale does not support the…