Hutchinson v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board

Opinion

ABBE, J.

We annul a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (Board).

The Board erred in concluding transportation expenses to obtain prescription medication are not compensable under Labor Code section 4600.

1

After applicant sustained industrial injury, his treating physician prescribed medication. Applicant’s claim for transportation expenses to obtain the prescribed medication was submitted to the workers’ compensation judge (WCJ) pursuant to a stipulation by the parties that applicant lives in a rural area and has to travel a substantial distance (80 miles) to a pharmacy to obtain medication prescribed by his treating doctor.

[375]

Based on the stipulated facts, the WCJ reluctantly denied applicant’s claim. The WCJ properly concluded he was required to follow the opinion of the Board in the denial of a writ opinion in

Rocha

v.

Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd.

(1982) 47 Cal.Comp.Cases 896.

The Board denied applicant’s petition for reconsideration.

In the instant case, as in

Rocha

v.

Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., supra,

47 Cal.Comp.Cases 896, the Board has construed section 4600 as precluding reimbursement for transportation expenses in obtaining prescription medication.

Section 4600 provides: “Medical, surgical, chiropractic, and hospital treatment, including nursing, medicines, medical and surgical supplies, crutches, and apparatus, including artificial members, which is reasonably required to cure or relieve from the effects of the injury shall be provided by the employer. . .

Although contemporaneous administrative construction of a statute by the Board, as the agency charged with its enforcement and interpretation, is of great weight, it is not necessarily controlling; and courts will depart from the Board’s construction where it is clearly erroneous or unauthorized.