For a 30-year-old heavy furniture assembler with a soft tissue cervical spine injury causing a loss of range of motion and an impairment standard of 8%, what is the resulting rating?

• A. 9%
• B. 11%
• C. 15%
• D. 19%

Answer: (B)

In California, the permanent disability rating isn’t just the impairment percentage you assign for the injury. It takes the impairment rating and adjusts it with an age and occupation multiplier from the permanent disability schedule. So, for a soft-tissue cervical spine injury with loss of range of motion, the impairment standard is 8%. But when you factor in the worker’s age and the demands of a heavy manual job, the PD schedule increases that impairment to a higher rating. For a 30-year-old heavy furniture assembler, the multiplier yields a resulting permanent disability rating of about 11%. The other numbers would require different age/occupation multipliers that the schedule does not assign to this profile.