Honeywell

The Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) found that petitioner, Honeywell, formerly known as Allied Signal Aerospace Company (Honeywell), was "reasonably certain" in 1998 that its employee, respondent William Wagner, was psychiatrically injured or was claiming psychiatric injury under Labor Code section 5402. [1] The WCAB therefore determined that Honeywell had a duty to provide a claim form under section 5401, [2] which it failed to do. The WCAB concluded that by Honeywell's breach of its duty to provide the claim form, the 90-day period to deny the injury under section 5402 began and expired without rejection of Wagner's claim; as a result, his claimed psychiatric injury is presumed compensable.

Section 5401, subdivision (a), however, expressly requires that an employer have "notice or knowledge of injury under Section 5400 or 5402" before the duty to provide a claim form is triggered; the employer's 90-day period in which to reject an employee's claim does not even commence to run until the completed claim form has been filed with the employer. [3] In this case, the WCAB has held that it is enough, in order to commence the running of the 90-day period, for…