An injured worker went unpaid for years while his file sat unread

California's top court just told the state's workers' comp board it can't stop its own clock - and injured workers' awards hang on it.

On August 24, 2026, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board cannot stretch the 60-day deadline it has to act on a petition for reconsideration, even when the paperwork reaches it late.

The dispute began with a sanitation district worker awarded total and permanent disability after a December 2013 injury. His employer filed a petition for reconsideration on March 23, 2023, well within the window. Under the version of Labor Code section 5909 then in force, the board had 60 days to act, or the petition would be "deemed to have been denied."

The board sat on it for 144 days. It said it never got notice of the petition until June 15, 2023 - after the deadline had passed - because of an administrative irregularity that was neither party's fault. When it finally granted reconsideration, it argued it could "toll," or pause, its own deadline until the file actually landed on its desk.

The court rejected that. The justice wrote that the deadline is mandatory and that the board "may not equitably toll its own deadline to act." Tolling exists to help litigants who miss a filing deadline, the court said - not to excuse an agency's own delay. The board is neither a party nor a litigant, and section 5909 is not a statute of limitations.

There was one...

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