Mayor v. Workers' Comp. App. Bd. & Ross Valley Sanitation Dist.

Summary

The California Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal's judgment granting Joseph Mayor's petition for writ of mandate, which had directed the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board to rescind its order granting Ross Valley Sanitation District's timely petition for reconsideration 144 days after filing, well beyond former Labor Code section 5909's 60-day deem-denied deadline. The court held the deadline is mandatory but not jurisdictional in the fundamental sense, and that the Appeals Board may not equitably toll its own decisional deadline because equitable tolling excuses litigants' filing deadlines, not an adjudicative body's timeline for acting. The court further confirmed that a writ of mandate is the proper vehicle for enforcing section 5909 and disapproved of Shipley to the extent it suggests parties always possess a due process right to Board review after the deadline passes.