An Unpublished Court of Appeal case deals with the Evidence Code in Workers’ Compensation proceedings

This is an unpublished case of the Court of Appeal

This is a very significant case for workers’ compensation principles.

The applicant had an industrial injury. The applicant also had a subsequent aggravation of the original industrial injury. The applicant noticed the deposition of the claims examiner and sought production of claims notes from the defendant. The defendant moved to quash the subpoena.

The claims examiner appeared at the deposition and produced a privileged log for the requested documents. The applicant made a further claim for the documents on the privilege log.

A trial was held on the issue of the documents in the privilege log. The Workers’ Compensation Judge (WCJ) after hearings eventually determined some documents were not privileged. Defendant filed for reconsideration and the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) returned the matter to the WCJ with instructions to appoint a Special Master to review the documents.

The defendant filed a writ. The appellate court never reached the final decision of whether the documents were privileged but indicated that the WCAB could not appoint a Special Master. They also indicated that Evidence Code section 915 applies to workers’ compensation.

Case: The Regents of the University of California v WCAB (Lappi)


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