Guimaraes: Partial Overlap Preserved Salary Continuation for a Second Injury

A drop from full salary to a lower disability payment can be hard to absorb while you are still recovering from surgery. If you have two work injuries, the important question is when each injury actually caused disability. The dates of the accidents and the names of the injured body parts do not supply that answer by themselves.

In Guimaraes v. County of Los Angeles, Nos. ADJ17819410, ADJ17819411 (WCAB July 7, 2025), a firefighter remained entitled to salary-continuation benefits for a cumulative injury after the benefit year for a separate specific injury had ended. The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board upheld the award because the medical evidence showed only partial overlap between the two injuries’ disability periods.

Two accepted injuries produced different disability histories

Guilherme Guimaraes had an accepted specific injury to his left shoulder and left elbow on September 1, 2022. He also had an accepted cumulative injury to his right wrist and left upper extremity from December 19, 2014 through June 12, 2023.

The benefit history in Guimaraes showed section 4850 salary continuation from October 10, 2022 through October 9, 2023, followed by ordinary temporary-disability payments at the lower state rate. He sought continued full-salary benefits under the cumulative-injury claim.

Current Labor Code section 4850 provides qualifying employees, including covered full-time county firefighters, leave without loss of salary during an industrial disability for up to one year, subject to the statute’s conditions and earlier disability-retirement cutoff. His eligibility as a firefighter was stipulated. The dispute was how the benefit periods for his two injuries fit together.

The County argued that the disability was concurrent and that the medical evaluator had not sufficiently separated its causes. It also relied on the involvement of the left elbow in both claims. Guimaraes relied on evidence that his initial absence arose from the shoulder injury and that his hand later became independently disabling.

The medical evidence identified when each injury became disabling

The parties developed the record after an earlier award was rescinded. They deposed medical evaluator Dr. Luciano twice and obtained further reporting about the disability periods, body parts and reasons for the restrictions. The medical chronology in Guimaraes then distinguished three stages.

The shoulder caused the initial absence. The evidence attributed the period beginning in October 2022 to the preoperative and postoperative condition of the left shoulder following the specific injury. Although the elbow received treatment during that period, Dr. Luciano explained that it was not then causing the temporary total disability.

The cumulative-injury hand condition added a later disability. On August 10, 2023, Dr. Luciano imposed restrictions related to the right hand. The judge treated that as the start of temporary partial disability from the cumulative injury. The August 24 hand consultation recorded normal duty even though he remained off work for shoulder surgery. A September 21 report directed him not to return to work. Hand surgery followed on September 29, producing an independent reason for temporary total disability.

The later elbow surgery involved both claims. The elbow-evidence discussion in Guimaraes separated epicondylitis attributed to cumulative trauma from a collateral-ligament tear attributed to the specific event. The January 12, 2024 elbow operation addressed pathology associated with both claims. Disability after that surgery therefore had contributions from both injuries.

That chronology explains why a shared body-part label was too broad. The same elbow appeared in both claims, but the medical explanation identified what actually caused disability during each interval. The hand’s later restrictions and surgery had to be accounted for separately from the earlier shoulder-related absence.

The periods ran together only while both injuries contributed

The quoted trial opinion applied the overlapping-disability reasoning of Foster v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. When separate injuries cause disability during the same period, their benefit limits run together for that overlap. The worker receives wage replacement for the period rather than two full payments for the same lost wages.

The comparison with Foster in Guimaraes focused on when the second injury began causing disability. Here, the hand restrictions started on August 10, 2023, well after the specific injury had caused the initial absence. The overlap therefore began later; it did not reach backward and use the cumulative injury’s benefit entitlement throughout the earlier shoulder-related period.

From August 10 through October 9, 2023, the overlapping disability counted against the section 4850 limit in both cases. After benefits on the specific injury were exhausted, the cumulative injury still supported disability following hand surgery and later elbow surgery. Its remaining salary-continuation entitlement was still available.

The separate-claim analysis in Guimaraes also applied City of Lompoc v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, City of Montclair v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board and Cardoza v. County of Alameda. The governing distinction was separate entitlement for separate injuries, with concurrent periods counted together. Counting two claims alone would miss that overlap; counting all disability as one period would miss the later-starting entitlement.

For current benefit planning, keep the salary-continuation limit separate from the aggregate temporary-disability rules. Section 4656(c)(2) generally limits temporary-disability payments for a single injury occurring on or after January 1, 2008 to 104 compensable weeks within five years of injury, with statutory exceptions. The earlier two-year provision quoted in the opinion’s discussion of Foster should not be used as the window for every later injury.

The award stopped at the return to work

The judge calculated 61 days of overlap and a maximum of 304 days of remaining section 4850 entitlement for the cumulative claim. Those figures described the potential remaining period. The actual benefit determination in Guimaraes ran from October 10, 2023 until his return to work after elbow surgery in May or June 2024.

The record left the exact return date unclear. The parties were to adjust the actual period, with the judge retaining jurisdiction over any dispute. The award therefore required proof of that endpoint rather than payment of the entire theoretical balance regardless of a return to work.

The formal order in Guimaraes denied the County’s petition for reconsideration of the March 18, 2025 joint findings and award. The result preserved additional salary-continuation benefits for the supported, non-overlapping period of the second claim.

Build a medical and payment timeline for each claim

Start with the work-status reports and ask what each restriction prevented you from doing, which injury caused it and when it began or changed. Compare those reports with the complete evaluations, deposition explanations, surgeries and actual return-to-work records. A report naming the elbow may need an explanation distinguishing two different elbow conditions and their effects at different times.

Then match those medical periods to the benefit ledger. Identify the claim charged for each period, the days counted as concurrent, the date full-salary benefits changed to ordinary temporary disability and the records supporting the claimed remaining entitlement. Check the period each payment covers, not just the deposit date.

Our Fontenette analysis provides a useful comparison: There, the medical evidence showed that both injuries caused the same disability period from its beginning. Here, the developed record supported a later start for disability from the cumulative injury. The medical reasons and timing made the difference.

If your salary-continuation benefits have ended while another work injury still disables you, bring both claim files, the medical explanations and the payment record. A focused review can identify whether the periods fully overlap, only partly overlap or remain genuinely disputed, and what evidence is needed to resolve the difference.