# Public Employees' Retirement System v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board

> California Court of Appeal · December 11, 1978 · 87 Cal. App. 3d 215

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9727710

## Case

- **Full name:** PUBLIC EMPLOYEES’ RETIREMENT SYSTEM, Petitioner, v. WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD and CARYL E. McCLARY, Respondents
- **Court:** California Court of Appeal
- **Decided:** December 11, 1978
- **Citations:** 87 Cal. App. 3d 215; 151 Cal. Rptr. 35; 43 Cal. Comp. Cases 1291; 1978 Cal. App. LEXIS 2175
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Paras
- **Judges:** Carr, Paras
- **Cited by:** 4 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9727710

## Opinion text

PARAS, J., Dissenting.
While the result of the majority is a fair one, it should have been left to the Legislature to reach or reject as it saw fit. In my view the existing legislative expression does not permit the allowance of costs.
The Legislature has authorized the Board to determine the industrial (vel non) nature of a PERS member’s death “using the same procedure as in workers compensation hearings.” (Gov. Code, § 21363.) The majority has interpreted “procedure” to include the right to an award of costs. I cannot agree.
Procedure is defined as “[t]he mode of proceeding by which a legal right is enforced, as distinguished from the law which gives or defines the right. . . the machinery, as distinguished from its product.” (Black’s Law Diet. (Rev. 4th ed. 1968) pp. 1367-1368.) Costs are money, a matter of substance and not procedure.
*224 Moreover the statute refers to the same procedure as in workers’ compensation hearings, not workers’ compensation cases, thus confirming further the Legislature’s restrictive meaning. Money (costs) cannot possibly be a “procedure ... in workers’ compensation hearings.”
Therefore I dissent.
Petitioner’s application for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 9, 1979. Bird, C. J., did not participate therein.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9727710. Public record. Not legal advice.