Permanent Disability

Somewhere in your file is a line that looks like this:

15.03.01.00 – 8 – [1.4]11 – 340G – 13 – 15

That is a rating string. It is the most important line of text in a California workers' compensation case, because it is where a medical finding becomes a percentage and a percentage becomes money.

Nobody explains it to injured workers. So here it is.

Reading the string

15.03.01.00  –  8  –  [1.4]11  –  340G  –  13  –  15
     │           │        │         │       │      │
     │           │        │         │       │      └─ Final permanent disability: 15%
     │           │        │         │       └──────── After occupational adjustment: 13
     │           │        │         └──────────────── Occupational group 340, variant G
     │           │        └────────────────────────── ×1.4 adjustment → 11
     │           └─────────────────────────────────── 8% whole person impairment
     └─────────────────────────────────────────────── Lumbar spine, DRE method

Read aloud: lumbar spine, DRE Category II, 8% whole person impairment, adjusted by 1.4 to 11, occupational group 340 variant G raises it to 13, and the age adjustment raises it to 15% permanent disability.

Six fields, and every one of them is arguable.

Field 1 — the impairment number

Four pairs of digits, read left to right. The first pair is the chapter of the AMA Guides, 5th Edition that covers your body part.

So 15.03.01.00 is Chapter 15 (Spine), region 03 (Lumbar), method 01 (DRE), subcategory 00. And 16.02.01.00 is a shoulder rated by range of motion.

Field 2 — whole person impairment

The physician's number, determined under the AMA Guides 5th Edition.

Impairment is not disability. An 8% whole person impairment is never an 8% permanent disability. The Guides describe a theoretical average worker — the schedule itself says one "with average occupational demands on all parts of the body and at the average age of 39." Everything that follows in the string is a correction from that imaginary worker toward the real one.

One detail worth knowing: pain is rated under Chapter 18 at a maximum of 3% whole person impairment, and only as an add-on to an existing objective impairment. Pain alone cannot carry a rating.

Field 3 — the 1.4 adjustment

For every injury on or after January 1, 2013, the whole person impairment is multiplied by a flat 1.4 under Labor Code § 4660.1(b), then rounded.

8 × 1.4 = 11.2 → 11

Check your own arithmetic here. If your string shows a WPI of 12 and an adjusted figure of 12, something is wrong — 12 × 1.4 is 16.8, which rounds to 17.

For injuries between 2005 and 2012 the bracket holds a Future Earning Capacity rank (1 through 8), not a factor, and each rank carries its own multiplier. Rank 5, for instance, is 1.271429. If your bracket contains a single digit from 1 to 8, you are on the older system.

Field 4 — your occupation, and the argument nobody tells you about

340G is two separate things: an occupational group number and a variant letter.

There are 45 groups, numbered 110 to 590, ordered roughly by physical demand.

The letter runs C through J — there is no A or B. F is neutral. C through E mean the job places lower-than-average demand on the injured body part and the rating goes down. G through J mean higher demand and the rating goes up.

The variant is specific to the injured body part. The same worker gets a different variant for a shoulder than for a knee. A shoulder injury is a high-demand variant for a housekeeper and a low-demand one for a radiologist.

Here is the argument almost no injured worker knows exists.

Your occupational group is assigned by what you actually did all day — not by your job title.

A hospital "Environmental Service Representative" is a housekeeper. A "Logistics Associate" may be a warehouse worker. A "Technician" may be doing heavy mechanical work. Titles are written by HR departments; groups are supposed to reflect duties.

Getting the group corrected is one of the highest-leverage, lowest-cost arguments available in a California comp case, and it moves the number more than most people expect. If the group on your string does not match the work you actually performed, say so.

Field 5 — the occupation-adjusted rating

The result of a lookup in the rating schedule. There is no formula and no published multiplier; it is a printed table.

Field 6 — the age adjustment, and the final number

Your age at the date of injury — not at the time of the rating, not at settlement.

Older workers get higher ratings. Younger workers get lower ones. The reasoning is retraining capacity: a 60-year-old with a damaged back has fewer realistic routes back to comparable earnings than a 25-year-old with the identical injury. The neutral bracket is 37 to 41, matching the schedule's age-39 baseline.

In the schedule's own published example, a 30-year-old maintenance mechanic's occupation-adjusted rating of 13 drops to 11. Same injury, same job — younger, so lower.

That is a genuinely counterintuitive feature of the system and almost no consumer page states it plainly.

From percentage to money

Labor Code § 4658 converts the percentage into weeks, and the statute says expressly that the figures "shall be cumulative" — they accumulate as the rating climbs.

The permanent disability rate is $160 minimum, $290 maximum per week — frozen since January 1, 2014. Unlike temporary disability, permanent disability does not index to wage growth. A worker injured in 2026 is paid at rates set twelve years ago.

And at 70% or above, there is a life pension on top of that — a payment for the rest of your life, beginning when the permanent disability weeks run out, escalating annually with wage growth. Covered in full on the settlements page. A settlement that ignores it can leave six figures behind.

Three real examples

A janitor with a lumbar spine injury, 2019 — DWC's own published example

15.03.01.00 – 8 – [1.4]11 – 340G – 13 – 15

8% impairment becomes 11 after the 1.4, becomes 13 after the occupational adjustment, becomes 15% permanent disability after the age adjustment. That is 50.50 weeks, or $14,645.

The age adjustment alone added two points — worth $2,392.50.

A carpenter with a lumbar spine injury, 2021

15.03.01.00 – 10 – [1.4]14 – 380H – 18 – 18

Same body part, same method. 10% impairment becomes 14, then the heavier occupational group and variant take it to 18, and the age bracket is neutral. 18% permanent disability — 65.50 weeks, $18,995.

Two more points of impairment and a heavier job produced $4,350 more, and the occupational group did most of that work.

A maintenance mechanic with a cervical spine injury, 2005–2012

15.01.02.02 – 8 – [5]10 – 470H – 13 – 11

Note the bracket: FEC rank 5, not the 1.4. The same 8% impairment becomes only 10 under the old system, rises to 13 on occupation — and then falls to 11 because the worker was 30 years old.

What can change the number

Apportionment. Under Labor Code §§ 4663 and 4664, disability attributed to non-industrial causes reduces the award proportionally. After City of Jackson and Lindh, even an asymptomatic pre-existing condition — or a genetic predisposition — can support apportionment. Under Escobedo, the physician has to explain how and why, not merely state a percentage; an apportionment opinion without that reasoning is not substantial evidence.

Multiple body parts do not add. They are combined through the Combined Values Chart, which produces a lower total than simple addition. Vigil v. County of Kern (2024, en banc) held the chart is rebuttable — and Kite is the line of argument for adding rather than combining where the impairments interact.

Separate injuries usually get separate awards under Benson, rather than one combined award.

The schedule itself can be rebutted. Almaraz/Guzman permits a physician to depart from the strict Guides methodology where it does not capture the real impairment, provided the reasoning is explained. Ogilvie and Dahl address rebutting the earning-capacity adjustment. Neither applies automatically — both require the medical report to be built deliberately.

Apportionment must be medical, not vocational — Nunes v. State of California (2023, en banc).

Who produces the rating

The Disability Evaluation Unit rates the medical report. Once the DEU has a complete package, it must calculate and serve the rating within 20 days (LC § 4061(e)).

If you are unrepresented, you have 30 days to request factual correction of the medical report on QME Form 37, and 30 days to seek reconsideration of the summary rating.

Frequently asked questions