Using the Multiple Disabilities Table

Sunday, July 21, 2002 | 0

The is the final installment of the apportionment series based on the article by Mark Kahn.

USING THE MULTIPLE DISABILITIES TABLE

When there is one injury causing disability to multiple body parts, duplication must be taken into account before applying the MDT. The MDT is used because one injury cannot produce a disability greater than 100 percent and because the MDT combines disabilities to avoid pyramiding. The MDT is found at the back of the Schedule For Rating Permanent Disabilities, April 1997, starting at page 7-15. It is a formula used by the disability evaluator set out in tabular form. It is a table of values generated by a formula where H stands for the higher disability rating after adjustment for age and occupation and L stands for the lower adjusted disability rating. The formula is as follows:

[(100 - H)/100] 5 L + H + (.1 5 L) = Combined Disability Percentage.

The result obtained by the calculation is not necessarily to be adopted as the final rating for the combined disabilities, but should only serve as a guide. The final rating will result after considering the entire picture of disability and the employee?s diminished ability to compete in the open labor market (Schedule For Rating Permanent Disabilities, April 1997, page 7- 12).

CONCLUSION

Apportionment, overlap, and duplication are difficult concepts. This series has covered in great technical detail all of the various concepts to apportionment:

Apportionment Generally

Apportionment Under LC 4633 - Part 1

Apportionment Under LC 4633 - Part 2

Apportionment Under LC Section 4750 ? Part 2

Apportionment Under LC Section 4750 ? Part 3

Apportionment Under LC Section 4750.5

Calculating Apportionment

Hegglin, Mihesuah & Morgan: Duplicate Disability

Duplication vs. Pyramiding and the MDT

Combining Succesive Industrial Injuries

Mark Kahn is a Regional Manager for the Department of Workers? Compensation, Division of Industrial Relations, State of CA.