Washington: Proof of Service Need Not Be Filed Within 30 Days of Board's Decision

While it is clear that Wash. Rev. Code § 51.52.110 requires that the notice of appeal from a decision of the Washington Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals be filed with the clerk of the court and served on all required parties within 30 days, there is nothing in the rule that requires the filing of the proof of service within that same 30-day period, held a Washington appellate court. Where an employee's attorney initially filed a defective proof of service and later corrected it, well after the 30-day period for filing the appeal itself, there was no grounds for dismissal. The appellate court added that the employer had not cited to any authority countering the court’s plain language interpretation.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Aguirre v. Kroger, Inc., 2020 Wash. App. LEXIS 1419 (May 19, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 124.08.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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