Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in California

This should be under Collections law, not Civil Rights. Anyway, an exemption has to be on specified grounds, and being under financial hardship is not such a ground. If you read the Exemptions information sheet that was sent to you with the notice of levy, you will see that for deposit accounts, Code of Civil Procedure section 704.080 only allows exemptions for social security or "public benefits" directly deposited in the account. Workers comp, unfortunately, is not defined as a "public benefits" payment. Unfortunately, the court will most likely grant the exemption since the Code specifies the type of permissible exemption.

However, you may have grounds to attack the judgment the creditor obtained against you (which allows them to levy the account in the first place), as being void, due to defective service on you in that they did not serve you at the proper address. I suggest you have an attorney do that for you since it involves filing a motion arguing that to court. If the motion is granted, then their judgment is void, and they would have to file suit all over again.

The last sentence in the first paragraph of my answer above should have read: "Unfortunately, the court will most likely not grant the exemption since the Code specifies the type of permissible exemption."