Work Injuries

Most pages about work injuries describe symptoms. These describe how California turns an injury into a number — including when the number is going to disappoint you, and why.

Four examples of what that means:

There is no impairment value in the AMA Guides for a rotator cuff tear. A successful repair can rate zero. Loss of grip strength is expressly excluded from a carpal tunnel rating. The first 25 decibels of hearing loss are free — and your better ear counts five times more than your worse one. The knee is structurally the worst-rated major body part, and there is arithmetic behind it.

Orthopedic

• Low back
• Shouldercheck the operative report for a distal clavicle resection
• Kneeand the footnote almost nobody applies
• Carpal tunnel and repetitive strain

Catastrophic

Catastrophic injury — the five rules that change everything — start here. 240 weeks instead of 104, the psychiatric exception, the conclusive presumptions, the 99%-to-100% cliff, and the fourteen-day home-care trap.

• Traumatic brain injuryonly the most severe of four categories is used
• Spinal cord injury and paralysis
• Amputation
• Burns
• Eye injuriestwo of the nine § 4656(c)(3) conditions are eye injuries

Exposure and occupational disease

• Chemical and toxic exposurethe four documents that decide these claims
• Asbestosand the deadline that can expire before the death
• Hearing loss
• Heat illnessthe regulations, and the presumption that was vetoed

Pain and nerve

Complex regional pain syndrome — the eight-of-eleven rule that decides these cases

The two pages that explain the rest

What is a rating string? — that row of numbers is checkable arithmetic. What is Almaraz/Guzman? — the doctrine that answers every "why is my rating so low" page above.

Impairment values described across these pages are from the AMA Guides, 5th Edition as applied under the California rating schedule; the Guides are a copyrighted medical text and figures are summarized rather than reproduced. Your rating depends on your own examination findings.

Fatigue and shift work → — the injury with no accident, and the § 5412 date.