Cal. LAB § 5814.3

This is the official text of Cal. LAB § 5814.3, part of California’s Labor Code — governs wages, workplace safety, and employee rights.

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Official statutory text

(a) Notwithstanding Section 5814, when liability has been unreasonably rejected for claims of injury or illness as defined in Sections 3212 to 3213.2, inclusive, the amount of the penalty shall be five times the amount of the benefits unreasonably delayed due to the rejection of liability, but in no case shall the penalty exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). The question of rejection and the reasonableness of the cause shall be determined by the appeals board in accordance with the facts.

(b) Penalties issued pursuant to this section shall be reported to the audit unit within the Division of Workers’ Compensation.

(c) This section shall apply to all injuries, without regard to whether the injury occurs before, on, or after the operative date of this section.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.