Opinion ID: 705181
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Compensable Injury

Text: 67 The California workers' compensation provisions require that a compensable injury must aris[e] out of and in the course of employment. Cal.Labor Code Sec. 3600. In Maher v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd., 33 Cal.3d 729, 190 Cal.Rptr. 904, 661 P.2d 1058 (1983) (en banc), the California high court established that an employee's injury meets the second prong of the test, in the course of employment, when the injury occurs because the employee does those reasonable things which his contract with his employment expressly or impliedly permits him to do. Id., 190 Cal.Rptr. at 906, 661 P.2d at 1060. The parties do not dispute the applicability of this prong of the test, even though Jimeno first experienced the back pain at home over the weekend. 68 An injury meets the first prong of the definition, arising out of the employment, if it occur[s] by reason of a condition or incident of [the] employment such that the employment and the injury ... [are] linked in some causal fashion. Id. (citations omitted). Although the statute explicitly applies only if the injury is proximately caused by the employment, Cal.Labor Code Sec. 3600(c), the Maher court noted that this requires only that the employment be one of the contributing causes without which the injury would not have occurred. Maher, 190 Cal.Rptr. at 906 n. 3, 661 P.2d at 1060 n. 3 (interpreting the statute liberally to permit employee to recover for injuries from employer-mandated treatment of a preexisting illness). The statutory medical eligibility requirement for designation as a qualified injured worker supports this definition of proximate cause by requiring that [t]he employee's expected permanent disability as a result of the injury, whether or not combined with the effects of a prior injury or disability, if any, [must] permanently preclude[ ] ... the employee from engaging in his or her usual occupation. Cal.Labor Code Sec. 4635 (emphasis added). Thus, one California court explicitly held that an employee is entitled to such benefits for a preexisting injury or disability, whether industrially caused or not, when a later injury on the job aggravates that condition. Fortner v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 280 Cal.Rptr. at 412 (finding that workers' compensation provisions barred other remedies for an employee's painful feet condition which had been aggravated by the employer's requirement that she wear closed-toe shoes at work). 69