Boy, did the San Francisco Chronicle get this one wrong. Some of you may know that the person who writes the headline is usually not the person who wrote the article, but check this out: "State's high court ruling favors retailers in workers' comp case."
Though part of the Workers' Compensation Act did play a role in the decision, this was not a workers' comp case from the outset, nor was that really the main issue. The spokespeople for the two sides are also off point:
The court expressly repudiated the 2003 appellate decision in Thursday's ruling, an action that relieved Diane Kimberlin, lawyer for the California Grocers Association.
The appellate ruling, and arguments by the plaintiff in the current case, "endangered the use of profit-based bonus compensation systems," Kimberlin said.
Brooks disagreed, saying employers managed to preserve bonus systems after the 2003 appellate ruling by calculating net revenue without including workers' compensation costs or other illegal factors.
Plans like the one at Ralphs, he said, "have been used to pressure employees not to make workers' compensation claims and to seek treatment outside the workers' compensation system.
I didn't read the original complaint, but if the claim is that this system is discouraging the filing of workers' compensation claims, the remedy lies in a different kind of claim. Here the issue related to permissible deductions, not coercion.
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