Manser: An Older Injury’s Continuing Effects Did Not Qualify for a Second Return-to-Work Supplement

Recovering from two work injuries can leave you managing overlapping treatment, lost income and separate claims. If the voucher for an older injury arrives after you have already received a return-to-work supplement for a newer injury, that sequence can affect whether another payment is available.

In Manser v. Return-to-Work Supplement Program, No. ADJ10813026 (WCAB May 27, 2025), the worker’s older injury still required care when he sought a second supplement. A Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board panel affirmed the denial because the governing rule required an injury occurring after receipt of the previous supplement. Continuing effects from the earlier specific injury did not satisfy that condition.

The two claims reached the supplement program in reverse order

Noureddine Manser sustained an industrial injury on March 19, 2017 while working as a taxi driver. The accepted injury involved his head, neck, back, upper extremities, knees and lower extremities. He later sustained a separate injury on September 17, 2020.

He received a Supplemental Job Displacement Benefit voucher and a return-to-work supplement for the 2020 injury first. The voucher for the 2017 injury was issued on January 30, 2023. By then, he had already received the supplement associated with the later injury. His application for another supplement based on the older injury was denied.

The medical history recounted in Manser explains why he considered the 2017 injury ongoing. A neurology QME’s September 2020 evaluation found he had not reached maximum medical improvement. The doctor’s January 2022 report left the earlier opinions unchanged and questioned whether recommended evaluation and treatment had occurred. His treating physician continued to consider him temporarily totally disabled through an August 2022 appointment.

The Manser opinion’s further chronology describes continued treatment, temporary-disability delay notices and an ordered ophthalmology QME evaluation that never occurred. Those facts showed an older claim that remained medically unresolved. The issue was how that history fit the eligibility rule for a second supplement.

The rule compares the injury date with receipt of the prior supplement

The training voucher and the cash supplement are separate benefits. Labor Code section 139.48 creates the supplement program and authorizes the Director of Industrial Relations to set eligibility and payment amounts by regulation.

Rule 17302 requires receipt of an SJDB voucher for an injury on or after January 1, 2013. For someone who has already received a supplement, Rule 17302(b)’s exception for another payment requires a voucher for an injury occurring after receipt of every previous supplement.

That comparison involves different events: When the injury occurred, when the prior supplement was received, and which injury the new voucher covers. A voucher issued later can still relate to an earlier injury. The order in which the vouchers arrive does not by itself establish the rule’s subsequent-injury condition.

Manser argued that the 2017 injury continued to affect him daily and should therefore count as occurring after the prior payment. The Manser panel rejected that interpretation. It found no basis for treating continuing effects that way and observed that permanent disabilities could generally be described as continuing to affect a worker’s health. His established 2017 specific injury remained the injury being evaluated for this application.

Review of the denial remained available

The Director argued that section 139.48 limited review to the trial-level workers’ compensation judge. The Board’s review analysis in Manser rejected that reading. Trial judges act under authority delegated by the Board, and the statutes provide for reconsideration of their final orders and subsequent judicial review.

That procedural ruling mattered even though Manser ultimately lost the payment dispute. The panel considered his challenge to the judge’s decision rather than treating the judge’s denial as the last available level of review.

A challenge to the regulation belongs in a different court

Reviewing how the eligibility rule applies and seeking to invalidate the rule are different legal tasks. In Manser’s regulation analysis, the Board explained that the Director’s rulemaking for the supplement program was governed by the Administrative Procedure Act. Government Code section 11350 provides a superior-court action for a declaration about a regulation’s validity. The Board directed Manser’s challenge to that forum.

The panel distinguished Dennis v. State of California, 85 Cal.Comp.Cases 389, 403 (WCAB en banc 2020), which had invalidated an administrative rule governing SJDB voucher disputes. The distinction turned on the governing rulemaking and review provisions: The Division of Workers’ Compensation’s regulation in Dennis fell within a statutory exception, while the supplement regulation in Manser was subject to superior-court review.

For a worker contesting a denial, identifying the actual objection helps determine the proper route. A disagreement about the injury or payment chronology calls for analysis of the eligibility decision. An argument that the regulation itself is unlawful raises the separate review process described in Manser.

The later decision supplies the result

The January 26, 2024 order in Manser had granted reconsideration and deferred the final decision for further study. That order kept the dispute open. The May 27, 2025 decision in Manser then affirmed the November 2023 finding denying the second supplement. Both steps matter when reading the case’s history.

Build the chronology before choosing an appeal

If a second supplement is denied, collect the vouchers and their proofs of service, the decisions and payment records for earlier supplements, the injury findings or settlement documents identifying each claim, and the new denial with its service information. Put the injury dates, voucher dates and actual payment-receipt dates in separate columns. This makes it easier to see which event the decision relies on and whether the documents support it.

If the injury date itself is disputed, flag that question for review using the medical and claim history. In Manser, the established specific-injury date and continuing symptoms were the facts before the panel. A disputed date needs its own legal and factual analysis.

Seek help promptly with an appeal. Rule 17309 provides for an appeal at a WCAB district office and states a 20-day period from service of the Director’s decision. Have the notice, service method, filing requirements and applicable timing rules reviewed together. An inquiry to the firm does not file that appeal.

Our return-to-work supplement guide explains the separate application and document requirements. Our Dennis analysis addresses whether an employer made a genuine offer of work for voucher purposes. Manser addresses the different problem of a worker who already received a supplement before seeking one for an older injury.