San Francisco Unified School District v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board

Labor Code section 3208.3 1 provides that a psychiatric injury is compensable only if certain conditions are satisfied. Section 3208.3, subdivision (h) (section 3208.3(h)) provides, in part, that no compensation shall be paid for a psychiatric injury “if the injury was substantially caused by a lawful, nondiscriminatory, good faith personnel action.” Section 3208.3, subdivision (b)(3) 2 defines “ ‘substantial cause’ ” to mean “at least 35 to 40 percent of the causation from all sources combined.”

In this case, the workers’ compensation administrative law judge (ALJ) concluded that respondent Linda Cardozo suffered a psychiatric injury caused predominately by industrial factors. The ALJ also concluded that Cardozo’s claim for compensation was not barred by section 3208.3(h) after finding that lawful, nondiscriminatory, good faith personnel actions constituted less than 35 percent of all industrial and nonindustrial causes of her psychiatric injury. San Francisco Unified School District (District) filed a petition for writ of review arguing that the ALJ should only have considered the total of the industrial causes and disregarded the nonindustrial causes when calculating…