What the panel ordered
Petition for Reconsideration dismissed; Petition for Removal granted; WCJ's July 26, 2024 and September 23, 2024 Orders rescinded.
Defendant filed a Petition for Reconsideration of a WCJ order to serve documents; the WCJ later rescinded the order while the case was pending before the Appeals Board. The Board treated the petition as one for removal and addressed jurisdictional and procedural issues.
What was disputed, and how it came out
Each issue the panel decided, with the reasoning it gave. An outcome is what this panel did on this record — not a rule, and not a prediction.
The WCJ's order was not a final order, so reconsideration was not proper; the WCJ lacked authority to rescind the order after jurisdiction transferred to the Appeals Board; the Board rescinded both orders to clarify the record.
From the decision · page 345 ["[t]he term [`final'] does not include intermediate procedural orders"].) Such interlocutory decisions include, but are not limited to, pre-trial orders regarding evidence, discovery, trial setting, venue, or similar issues. Here, the WCJ's decision solely resolves an intermediate evidentiary / discovery issue. The decision does not determine any substantive right or liability and does not determine a threshold issue. Accordingly, it is not a "final" decision and the petition will be dismissed to the extent it seeks reconsideration. As we made clear in our En Banc decision in Ledezma v. Kareem Cart Commissary and Mfg, (2024) 89 Cal. Comp. Cases 462, 475-476 (En Banc), and further emphasized in our Significant Panel Decision in Reed v. County of San Bernardino (2024) 89 Cal.Comp.Cases ___;