What the panel ordered
The WCJ's decision of April 23, 2021 is rescinded and the matter is returned to the trial level for further proceedings and decision by the WCJ.
Both parties filed timely Petitions for Reconsideration of the WCJ's April 23, 2021 decision; the matter was delayed in transmission to the Appeals Board due to clerical error.
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.
Both parties timely filed Petitions for Reconsideration, but the matter was not transmitted to the Appeals Board due to clerical error; under Shipley, the time to act was tolled and reconsideration was properly granted.
From the decision · page 1We believe that "it is a fundamental principle of due process that a party may not be deprived of a substantial right without notice...." (Shipley v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1992) 7 Cal.App.4th 1104, 1108 [57 Cal.Comp.Cases 493].) In Shipley, the Appeals Board denied applicant's petition for reconsideration because the Appeals Board had not acted on the petition within the statutory time limits of Labor Code section 5909. The Appeals Board did not act on applicant's petition because it had misplaced the file, through no fault of the parties. The Court of Appeal reversed the Appeals Board's decision holding that the time to act on applicant's petition was tolled during the period that the file was misplaced. (Shipley, supra, 7 Cal.App.4th at p. 1108.) Like the Court in Shipley, "we are not convinced that the burden of the system's inadequacies should fall on [a party]." (Shipley, supra, 7 Cal.App.4th at p. 1108.) Both parties timely filed their Petitions for Reconsideration on May 13 and 14, 2021, less than 25 days after the decision issued on April 23, 2021. Therefore, considering that the failure to act was due to a clerical error by the