Some of your humble blogger’s devoted readers represent cities and counties, and so, naturally, have to deal with injury claims from peace officers entitled to paid leave rather than temporary disability benefits for up to one year.

It would be the rudest form of neglect if I was not prepared to provide an equal amount of disappointment and dread with respect to the workers’ compensation system in California to all readers, including those who employ peace officers and firefighters.

In the Court of Appeal’s opinion in the case of Knittel, the law became very clear to us all, that Labor Code Section 4850 allowed peace officers and firefighters to have a leave of absence of one year without any loss of salary in lieu of temporary disability benefits, but not in addition to the 104-week cap imposed by Labor Code Section 4656.

Well, about that…

It appears that Assembly Member Perea is not happy with the Knittel opinion and has introduced Assembly Bill 2378 “to abrogate the holding in … Knittel,” amending the Labor Code to make Section 4850 benefits payable in addition to those benefits outlined by Labor Code Section 4656.

In other words, if you are injured as a firefighter, you should be able to be paid to be off work for three years!

Your humble blogger has a great deal of respect for our beloved public servants, but come on! Each firefighter and police officer is already expensive enough for every city and county (and the state), without adding another cost to the bottom line. At the risk of being pulled over for a soon-to-be-broken tail light, why not get elected by promising to make every single peace officer a millionaire?

The police and firefighters in California do a tough job and they are compensated very well. They enjoy more privileges and better benefits than most of the other people in the state. Do you really want to burden cities and counties barely making ends meet with an extra $56,000 in temporary total disability liability?

Your humble blogger says no – let the public servants sleep in beds no better than the public served.

Gregory Grinberg is a defense attorney in San Mateo, Calif. This column was reprinted with his permission from his WCDefenseCA blog.