Atty. General to Get Case on Workers’ Comp Judges

The results of a yearlong internal investigation that found evidence of misconduct by five Southern California workers’ compensation judges will be turned over to the California attorney general’s office for a possible criminal inquiry, it was disclosed Wednesday.

The action by officials of the California Division of Workers’ Compensation came after pressure from state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Big Bear), vice chairman of the Senate Industrial Relations Committee.

Casey Young, administrative director of the Workers’ Compensation Division, announced Friday that his agency’s investigation found that three judges may have violated ethics codes by accepting trips to Hawaii. Two other judges, Young said, appear to have broken state civil law by accepting illegal speaking fees.

But Young said at the time that he had no plans to turn over the probe to the attorney general and that he would restrict his disciplinary action to “counseling letters” clarifying the agency’s standards.

In addition, Young said he hired the Josephson Institute of Ethics to draft rules governing the conduct of the division’s judges.

That stance, however, drew an angry reaction from Leonard and others who deal with workers’ compensation issues. Young “said that he believed some people may have broken the law but that he wasn’t going to do anything about it. I protested that,” Leonard said. “I said, ‘That’s not your job. You’re not a prosecutor.’ ”