High Court: 60-Day Recon Deadline Not Jurisdictional; Equitable Tolling Inappropriate

The California Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board's practice of self-tolling the 60-day statutory deadline to rule on petitions for reconsideration. The court, in Joseph Mayor v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (Ross Valley Sanitation District), held that Labor Code Section 5909, which deems a petition for reconsideration to be denied by operation of law if not acted upon within 60 days, is not fundamentally jurisdictional, acknowledging that there might be some cases where due process permits the WCAB to act outside of the statutory deadl...