Amputation and Limb Loss

Labor Code § 4656(c)(3)(C): amputations get 240 compensable weeks of temporary disability, not 104.

That is 136 additional weeks. At the 2026 maximum temporary disability rate of $1,764.11 per week, it is $239,918.96.

And it is missed constantly, because the 104-week stop is not a decision an adjuster makes about your case — it is a counter the claims system runs automatically. If nobody flags the file, the benefit ends on schedule and you are told that is the law.

If you have an amputation and your temporary disability stopped at two years, that is the first thing to check.

What counts as an amputation

The statute says "amputations." It does not define the word, does not say "major," and does not say "of a limb."

The defense argues for a narrow reading — that partial digital amputations, fingertip losses, and surgically revised crush injuries fall outside the extended benefit. There is published defense commentary making that case, and the argument is not frivolous.

Our position is that the statute means what it says, and that Labor Code § 3202 requires the workers' compensation statutes to be "liberally construed by the courts with the purpose of extending their benefits for the protection of persons injured in the course of their employment." A closed list of nine conditions in which the Legislature wrote one word without qualifiers should be read as that one word.

It is contested, it is worth six figures, and it is worth litigating. A worker who has lost a fingertip and been cut off at 104 weeks should not accept that outcome as settled.

How amputations are rated

Amputation is one of the cleaner areas of the AMA Guides, because there is nothing to measure and nothing to dispute about examination findings. The Guides provide fixed impairment values keyed to the level of amputation.

Everything then runs through the conversions, and this is where the numbers stop making intuitive sense:

So the loss of an entire arm is 60% whole person impairment — not 100%. The loss of an entire leg is 40% whole person impairment. Those are the ratios the Guides use, and they are the single most common source of confusion in an amputation case.

Two structural points worth knowing:

The thumb is worth twice as much as the index finger and four times the little finger. A thumb amputation is a materially different case from any other digit.

Lower extremity amputation carries an additional disadvantage in the California schedule. Lower extremity impairments convert at 40% rather than 60%, and lower extremity injuries generally carry lower earning-capacity ranks than upper extremity ones. A leg amputation and an arm amputation are not treated as comparable events.

What frequently gets left out of the rating

Amputation is rarely just amputation, and the associated impairments combine.

Phantom limb pain and residual limb pain. Real, common, and frequently absent from the report entirely.

Neuroma at the amputation site. A discrete, diagnosable, treatable condition — and separately ratable as a peripheral nerve problem.

Complex regional pain syndrome. Well-recognized after traumatic amputation and crush injury, with its own diagnostic criteria and its own rating pathway.

Skin breakdown and prosthetic intolerance. Rated under the skin chapter, combined using the Combined Values Chart. A worker who cannot tolerate a prosthesis for more than four hours a day has an impairment the amputation value alone does not capture.

The contralateral limb. Overuse of the remaining arm or leg after amputation is predictable, documented, and a compensable consequence. Bilateral shoulder problems after a leg amputation from crutch and wheelchair use are the same thing.

And the psychiatric consequence. Loss of a limb is one of the Legislature's own examples of catastrophic injury in § 4660.1(c)(2)(B), which means the ordinary bar on adding psychiatric impairment to the rating does not apply. How that works.

Prosthetics are a lifetime medical benefit

Prosthetic devices are medical treatment, which means the obligation does not end when the case settles — if the case is settled correctly.

This is the most consequential settlement decision in an amputation case.

A Compromise and Release closes out future medical treatment for a lump sum. A prosthetic limb has a finite service life, requires periodic replacement, requires socket refitting as the residual limb changes, and requires maintenance. A young worker with a lower limb amputation will need many prostheses over a lifetime, and advanced devices are expensive.

Settling future medical in an amputation case without a professionally prepared lifetime cost projection is how a worker ends up paying for their own leg at fifty.

Stipulations with Request for Award keep lifetime medical open. That is frequently the right structure in an amputation case even when the immediate cash is smaller — and it is often exactly the opposite of what the carrier proposes.

Where a Medicare-eligible worker settles future medical, a Medicare Set-Aside is required, and the projection has to reflect realistic prosthetic replacement cycles rather than a single device. How settlements work, and when a C&R is the wrong choice.

The third-party case

Amputations at work are usually machine injuries, and machine injuries are usually product cases.

The recurring defendants: press brakes, punch presses, and shears without functioning point-of-operation guarding; meat and food processing equipment; conveyors without emergency stops within reach; wood shop equipment — table saws, jointers, planers; augers and agricultural PTO shafts; industrial mixers and dough machines; balers and compactors; forklifts and pallet jacks.

Where a guard was removed, bypassed, or was never adequate for the foreseeable use of the machine, there is a products liability case against the manufacturer that is entirely separate from the workers' compensation claim — and it pays for pain and suffering and disfigurement, which comp does not.

Lockout/tagout failures are the other recurring fact pattern, and where a maintenance contractor or a third-party servicer was involved, that is a third-party defendant too. How third-party claims work.

The § 4662(a)(2) question

Loss of both hands "or the use thereof" is conclusively presumed to be total permanent disability. Bilateral upper extremity amputation is 100% as a matter of law, with no rating exercise.

And "or the use thereof" reaches beyond amputation — bilateral crush, severe bilateral brachial plexus injury, and functionally complete bilateral loss of hand use qualify on the statutory language. Why 100% matters so much more than 99%.

Frequently asked questions