Devoted to Corporate Attorneys, Corporate Lawyers, and Corporate Counsel

The following is not meant to be legal advice.

In Sonoma State Univ. v. WCAB, 142 Cal. App. 4th 500 (Cal. App. 1st Dist. 2006),  according to the WCAB, even though only 35% of the claimant’s permanent disability was work related, because 100% of her adjustment disorder was industrially caused, her injury was compensable.

Under workers’ compensation law, a psychiatric injury is not compensable unless the employee can demonstrate that events of employment “were predominant as to all causes combined of the psychiatric injury.” Because a psychiatric injury could not be “parsed into separately diagnosable components” to satisfy the threshold requirement, the appellate court annulled the WCAB’s decision.

The appellate court concluded that the WCAB’s reading of the statute frustrated the  legislative purpose when it amended the statute to require that the psychiatric injury be predominantly caused by employment.  The court concluded that a psychiatric injury is compensable only if it is proven that events of employment were predominant as to all causes combined of the psychiatric disability taken as a whole.