Heaton v. Marin County Employees Retirement Bd.

• Decision Date: 08 November 1976
• Citation: 63 Cal.App.3d 421,133 Cal.Rptr. 809
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Joy HEATON, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MARIN COUNTY EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT BOARD, COUNTY OF MARIN, Defendant and Appellant. Civ. 37617.

Page 809

133 Cal.Rptr. 809

63 Cal.App.3d 421

Joy HEATON, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MARIN COUNTY EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT BOARD, COUNTY OF MARIN, Defendant and Appellant.

Civ. 37617.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Nov. 8, 1976.

Hearing Denied Jan. 27, 1977.

Douglas J. Maloney, County Counsel, Thomas G. Hendricks, Asst. County Counsel, San Rafael, for defendant-appellant.

W. O. Weissich, Suzanne E. Graber, San Rafael, for plaintiff-respondent.

BARY, ^* Associate Justice.

Defendant and appellant Marin County Employees Retirement Board appeals from a judgment of the Marin County Superior Court ordering the issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate.

ISSUES PRESENTED

1. The Legislature has not evidenced an intent that disability claims arising under Workmen's Compensation law and County Employees' Retirement law be treated differently.

2. The courts have not determined that decisions under Workmen's Compensation law are not precedents with 3. If a test requiring 100 percent (or thereabouts) causation is not adopted, the retirement board's right to hear disability claims will not be rendered meaningless.

respect to the County Employees' Retirement law.

4. This appeal is not frivolous.

RECORD

After more than nine years' employment in the Sheriff's Department of Marin County as a jail matron, respondent Mrs. Joy Heaton filed with appellant an application for service-connected disability retirement. Appellant granted her application reserving the issue of whether the disability was service-connected. Thereafter appellant appointed a hearing officer to determine that question. Hearings were held and the hearing officer filed his opinion finding 'that Joy Heaton's disability is a result of injury or disease arising out of and in the course of her employment.' Appellant then held a hearing at which no witnesses were heard nor testimony taken and denied respondent's application for service-connected retirement.

Thereafter respondent filed in the Marin County Superior Court a petition for writ of mandate. The trial court found that appellant retirement board was required by the evidence and the law to uphold the opinion of the hearing officer that respondent was entitled to disability retirement benefits and that appellant's rejection of the hearing officer's opinion constituted a prejudicial abuse of discretion within the meaning of Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5, subdivision (b).

FACTS

In 1964, respondent commenced employment in the Marin County Sheriff's Department as a matron in the county jail. Her duties were to take care of the needs of the female prisoners. In January 1970 the county jail facilities were moved and respondent was 'locked in' at the new jail facilities which situation was stressful to her. In 1971 or 1972 she was third in seniority and had been promised a day shift. The new head matron, Evelyn Gosser, gave respondent a split shift which resulted in her working irregular hours. Respondent testified that she was told that if she 'didn't like it, (she) knew what (she could) do about it.' As a result, she became upset. She testified that she felt the principal cause of her nervousness was that Mrs. Gosser had become supervisor while she was given the 'dirty work' such as taking the female prisoners to court. She experienced proplems of physical violence from female prisoners who resisted being placed in cells.

Respondent testified that she became very nervous and that in the morning she would vomit and that sometimes there would be blood. She would have to take tranquilizers when she began to get ready for work and perspired heavily when she thought about going to work. She went to a doctor who prescribed various tranquilizers and advised her to quit her job.

Respondent also testified that she had problems at home concerning her husband and children; however, she attributed her condition to her employment at the sheriff's department. She described herself as a 'nervous wreck.' She could not sleep, perspired profusely, vomited and suffered from diarrhea. Since July 1973 she has not worked.

Arthur Kader, respondent's employer prior to her employment at the sheriff's department, testified that during her employment with him, she did not manifest the usual symptoms of nervousness such as shaking or vomiting. Alta Thiele, a friend of respondent, observed that respondent had become very nervous during the years she had worked at the sheriff's department. Mrs. Thiele assumed that respondent's job was the cause of her emotional problems.

Dr. Tracy A. Newkirk examined respondent on February 5, 1974, at appellant's request. Dr. Newkirk's primary finding was that respondent was extremely anxious. From her history he could not find any anxiety reactions prior to her employment at the sheriff's department. He could not rule out the possibility that respondent suffered an acute anxiety reaction caused at least partially by her employment, which reaction continued despite her resignation.

From this testimony the hearing officer found that respondent's disability was service-connected.

1. The Legislature has not evidenced an intent that disability claims arising under Workmen's Compensation and County Employees' Retirement law be treated differently.

It is appellant's basic contention that in situations involving retirement disability, there is a requirement that the employment be the sole or at least the substantial contributing cause of the disability before retirement disability may be awarded. Appellant seeks to demonstrate this be contrasting County Employees' Retirement law and Workmen's Compensation law to substantiate its claim that the Legislature and the courts intend that, despite the similarity in language, the two bodies of law are to be treated differently.

The facts in this case are not in dispute. Appellant concedes that the trial court had the authority to exercise its independent judgment on the evidence in the case. (Strumsky v. San Diego County Employees Retirement Assn. (1974) 11 Cal.3d 28, 44--45, 112 Cal.Rptr. 805, 520 P.2d 29.) In so doing, the trial court found that appellant board abused its discretion in rejecting the hearing officer's finding that Mrs. Heaton was entitled to service-connected disability. Specifically, the trial court found: '. . . the effects of her job would be very substantially less than 50% Of the causal situation for her disability, but we can't gainsay that it was one of the causative factors for disability, and I really think that is what is controlling.'

Appellant points out that the trial judge concluded that the disability arose out of a Variety of causes, but that a Part of the cause arose from employment. In the view of the judge it was this small part that entitled respondent to a full retirement for disability. Appellant challenges this interpretation. It appears that this question is one of first impression in this court.

Section 31720 of the Government Code provides in pertinent part as follows: 'Any member permanently incapacitated for the performance of duty shall be retired for disability regardless of age if, and only if: ( ) (a) His incapacity is a result of injury or disease arising out of and in the course of his employment, or ( ) (b) He has completed five years of service, and ( ) (c) He has not waived retirement in respect to the particular incapacity or aggravation thereof as provided by Section 31009.'

Appellant notes that a portion of the quoted language, to wit, 'arising out of and in the course of (his) employment' is identical to that employed in section 3600 of the Labor Code (Workmen's Compensation law). Appellant argues, nonetheless, that the Legislature intended that the two bodies of law be treated differently. Appellant suggests that the rationale for this distinction is the fact that workmen's compensation awards are subject to apportionment according to the degree of injury while retirement for disability is an all or nothing proposition.

In support of its contention, appellant first maintains that Government Code section 31720 by its very language indicates that the circumstances of retirement disability should be limited to only the most extreme cases. Appellant cites to the language 'if, and only if' to demonstrate legislative intent in this regard. A closer look at this provision merely evidences the legislative intent that retirement disability be awarded 'if, and only if' the injury is Service-connected. It does not in any way refer to some requisite seriousness of injury as a condition for disability retirement. The statute simply limits retirement disability to cases where the injury arose out of and in the course of employment.

Appellant next directs the court's attention to several differences between Workmen's Compensation law and County Employees' Retirement law which appellant argues indicate a clear legislative intent to differentiate the two systems. In this regard appellant points to the fact that the Legislature enacted Government Code section 31720.5 in 1951 to provide a presumption of service-connection for heart difficulties in the case of persons in active law enforcement and fire service. Appellant argues that the Legislature's failure to provide for such a presumption for 'anxiety,' as is the case here, must be presumed to be a deliberate exclusion and a legislative expression that in such a case, the employment must be The cause. Appellant further maintains that the legislative creation of a number of presumptions similar to Government Code section 31720.5 in Labor Code sections 3212 through 3212.7 (heart trouble, hernia, pneumonia, tuberculosis) indicates a clear legislative intent to differentiate between the two systems. Such logic is fallacious and the argument is without merit. The inferences are unsupported and the assumptions are questionable.

Appellant cites Pathe v. City of Bakersfield (1967) 255 Cal.App.2d 409, 414, 63 Cal.Rptr. 220, 223,...