The short answer
It is the row of numbers that determines your money, and it is checkable arithmetic rather than a verdict.
Six fields: body part, impairment, a statutory modifier, your occupation, and your age. Every one of them can be wrong, and two of them are argued regularly.
You have a report with something that looks like this in it:
15.03.01.00 – 8 – [1.4]11 – 340G – 13 – 15
That is a rating string, and it is the entire arithmetic of your permanent disability compressed into one line.
Every element is checkable, and errors in it are common.
What each part is
| Element | What it means |
|---|---|
15.03.01.00 |
The impairment number — which chapter, body part, and method the physician used |
8 |
Whole person impairment, from the AMA Guides |
[1.4]11 |
The adjustment factor and adjusted number — for older injuries, the diminished future earning capacity multiplier |
340G |
Occupational group and variant — your job's demands on that body part |
13 |
Occupationally adjusted rating |
15 |
Final permanent disability, after the age adjustment |
And it must be arithmetically self-consistent. In the example above, 8 × 1.4 = 11.2, which rounds to 11. If the impairment and the multiplier do not produce the adjusted figure, something is wrong — and that is checkable with a calculator.
The five errors worth looking for
Extremity percent used as whole person percent. 100% upper extremity is 60% whole person. 100% lower extremity is 40%. A shoulder report saying "20% upper extremity" is 12% whole person, not 20. This is the single most common source of confusion, and consumer sites quoting extremity figures as whole person numbers overstate by a wide margin.
The wrong occupational group. Your group is based on what you actually did, not your job title. A worker whose title says "technician" but whose job was heavy lifting is not in a light group.
A missing body part. If it is in your treatment records and not in the string, it contributes nothing.
A missing procedure. A distal clavicle resection carries a fixed value and is routinely buried in the operative report. A knee's cartilage interval requires standing x-rays that are often never taken.
And apportionment that does not explain itself. Under Escobedo, a percentage assigned without reasoning is not substantial evidence. How to attack it.
Then it becomes money
The percentage converts to weeks, and the weeks convert to dollars — and the schedule is cumulative, meaning higher ratings earn more weeks per point rather than a flat rate. That is why a 70% rating is worth far more than twice a 35% rating.
How the arithmetic actually works. · The full guide to reading your rating.
And at 100%, the entire system changes — a life pension of up to $301.50 a week becomes up to $1,764.11 a week for life. Why one point matters that much.
Talk to a lawyer
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Sources
Labor Code § 4660.1(b) (the flat 1.4 modifier, injuries on or after 1/1/2013) · former § 4660 (the FEC ranks, injuries 2005–2012) · § 4658(d)(1), (e) (percentage to weeks — the statute provides the figures "shall be cumulative") · § 4453(b) (the permanent disability weekly rate) · 8 CCR § 9805 (adoption of the Permanent Disability Rating Schedule).
General information about California law, not legal advice about your case.
Impairment values described are from the AMA Guides, 5th Edition as applied under the California rating schedule; the Guides are a copyrighted medical text and figures here are summarized rather than reproduced. Your rating depends on your own examination findings.
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