Opinion ID: 2586149
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fuentes v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board

Text: This court resolved the apportionment problem in Fuentes, concluding based on statutory interpretation that the formula A approach was correct. Fuentes, the injured worker, was 58 percent permanently disabled, with 33.75 percent of this due to industrial causes and the rest attributable to a nonindustrial disability. In deciding how to determine compensation, we interpreted former section 4750, which provided: An employee who is suffering from a previous permanent disability or physical impairment and sustains permanent injury thereafter shall not receive from the employer compensation for the later injury in excess of the compensation allowed for such injury when considered by itself and not in conjunction with or in relation to the previous disability. [¶] The employer shall not be liable for compensation to such an employee for the combined disability, but only for that portion due to the later injury as though no prior disability or impairment had existed.  (Former § 4750, added by Stats.1945, ch. 1161, § 1, p. 2209, italics added.) This language, we reasoned, required the current industrial portion of the disability to be considered in isolation, wholly independent of any nonindustrial or previous industrial disability. ( Fuentes, supra, 16 Cal.3d at pp. 5-6, 128 Cal.Rptr. 673, 547 P.2d 449.) Thus, a worker with a 60 percent industrial disability, 30 percent current and 30 percent preexisting, and a worker with a 60 percent current disability, 30 percent industrial and 30 percent nonindustrial, should each be treated the same as a worker with a 30 percent industrial disability. We described the policy behind this section and rule as encourag[ing] employers to hire the handicapped (id. at p. 5, 128 Cal.Rptr. 673, 547 P.2d 449), [7] because an employer who did so would not have to fear greater compensation costs if a worker with a preexisting disability were to be injured. Accordingly, we adopted formula A, which alone among the proposed formulas apportioned to every current industrial disability of a given level the same compensation, irrespective of previous or nonindustrial disabilities. (Fuentes, at p. 6, 128 Cal.Rptr. 673, 547 P.2d 449.) Fuentes argued that this rule was inconsistent with the revised section 4658's adoption of progressive sliding-scale payments. We disagreed, explaining that section 4658 should be read as a general provision establishing the amount of compensation benefits for a permanent disability, and section 4750 ... as a specific rule limiting the benefits available in those cases where the employee has a preexisting permanent disability and thereafter sustains a further permanent injury. ( Fuentes, supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 7, 128 Cal.Rptr. 673, 547 P.2d 449.) We also rejected the argument that section 3202, which requires that the workers' compensation statutes be read liberally in favor of extending benefits to injured workers (see Claxton v. Waters, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 373, 18 Cal.Rptr.3d 246, 96 P.3d 496), required a different result; where the Legislature's intent in enacting a particular statute is clear, section 3202's general rule of liberal construction will not compel a contrary result. (Fuentes, at p. 8, 128 Cal. Rptr. 673, 547 P.2d 449.) Fuentes involved apportionment between industrial and nonindustrial disabilities, but nothing in the majority opinion suggested former section 4750 might be read differently when apportioning between a current industrial disability and a previous one. Thereafter, the courts and the Board routinely applied formula A in apportioning between industrial disabilities as well. (E.g., Department of Education v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th 1348,1353,18 Cal.Rptr.2d 900; Ramirez v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (2001) 66 Cal.Comp.Cases 1128, 1129-1131, 2001 WL 1561676.)