Workers’ Compensation · Primary-source case analysis

Rizk: A Reemployment-List Placement Did Not Establish Section 132a Discrimination

By Aneeta Mishra and Timothy Chan

Published September 7, 2026 · Updated October 21, 2026

Decision: Rizk v. Los Angeles Unified Sch. Dist., Nos. ADJ12719177, ADJ12725623 and ADJ12729866 (WCAB Sept. 4, 2026).

After an LAUSD employee exhausted accrued sick and vacation benefits, the district placed her on a 39-month reemployment list while she was receiving temporary-disability indemnity. She alleged that the action discriminated against her because of her industrial injuries. The September 4, 2026 three-member panel denied reconsideration. The panel applied section 132a’s discriminatory-disadvantage requirement to the reemployment-list evidence.

Section 132a requires discriminatory disadvantage

An employee must show that the employer treated the employee detrimentally because of the industrial injury. An adverse employment event alone does not establish the prohibited causal link.

A neutral leave rule supplied a legitimate reason

The credited evidence showed that exhaustion of the finite leave bank automatically triggered placement on the reemployment list under the governing Education Code and collective-bargaining provisions, regardless of whether the underlying condition was industrial.

Comparator evidence must compare like circumstances

The other employee offered as a comparison had not exhausted her leave bank. She had therefore not reached the same policy trigger. Her different treatment did not show preferential treatment of an employee in the same circumstances. This was a finding on these leave records, not a rule that every leave-related employment action is lawful. Rizk, slip opinion, pages 7–8.

Contemporaneous records controlled the factual dispute

Payroll and leave records corroborated the district’s account, while the employee produced no email, service proof, or other record supporting the claimed extension request. The WCAB deferred to the supported credibility findings.

Key takeaways

• Identify the precise disadvantage allegedly caused by the industrial injury.
• Compare injured and noninjured employees at the same leave and policy stage.
• Preserve payroll, leave-bank, policy, and communication records.
• Separate receipt of workers’ compensation benefits from entitlement to employer-provided leave.