California: Special Indemnity Benefit Provision for Volunteer Peace Officers Does Not Apply to Those Who Draw Salaries

While California Labor Code § 4458.2 provides maximum indemnity levels to volunteer peace officers that sustain certain work-related injuries, the provision does not apply to regularly sworn, salaried peace officers, held the Supreme Court of California. Accordingly, a salaried peace officer who sustained injuries to his face and body in the course of duty was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, but not at the maximum level set for volunteers. The court added that salaried peace officers were entitled to other benefits, such as paid leave under Labor Code § 4850, that did not favor volunteers. The legislature had carefully balanced the various benefits for each group of peace officers. To construe Labor Code § 4458.2 so as to apply to salaried officers would defeat the overall statutory framework of the state’s workers’ compensation laws.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Larkin v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., 2015 Cal. LEXIS 8129 (Oct. 26, 2015) [2015 Cal. LEXIS 8129 (Oct. 26, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 93.01 [93.01]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.