All hearings and investigations before the appeals board or a workers’ compensation judge are governed by this division and by the rules of practice and procedures adopted by the appeals board. In the conduct thereof they shall not be bound by the common law or statutory rules of evidence and procedure, but may make inquiry in the manner, through oral testimony and records, which is best calculated to ascertain the substantial rights of the parties and carry out justly the spirit and provisions of this division. All oral testimony, objections, and rulings shall be taken down in shorthand by a competent phonographic reporter.
Cal. Lab. Code § 5708
Hearings
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case 4 Cal. App. 4th 1196 - Fox v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (1992)
Most recently applied in 226 Cal. App. 4th 1530 - Regents of University of California v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (May 2014)
Amended by Stats. 1985, Ch. 326, Sec. 25.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.