Does the WCAB's Application of Equitable Principles Preclude a Predictable Outcome? Almost 100 years ago, our Legislature was directed to "create and enforce a liability on the part of all employers to compensate their employees for any injury incurred by the said employees in the course of their employment irrespective of the fault of either party." This language was modified by an amendment adopted on November 5, 1918, which is in the current state Constitution, as renumbered, without substantive change. The Legislature complied with this directive by the enactment of the Labor Code. This statutory scheme "rest[s] on the underlying notion that the common-law remedy [for industrial injuries to workers], with the requirements of proof incident to that remedy, involves intolerable delay and great economic waste, gives inadequate relief for loss and suffering, operates unequally as between different individuals in like circumstances, and that, whether viewed from the standpoint of the employer or that of the employee, it is inequitable and unsuited to the conditions of modern industry." > Read more.

The WCAB has recently issued two noteworthy panel decisions related to the WCAB's subject matter jurisdiction in which the professional football player claimed  cumulative trauma  but played only a single football game in California. The decisions in Booker and Jameson will be added soon to the LexisNexis database. Read more about these cases. 

Reminder: Be sure to check the subsequent history of a case before citing to it.

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