Part-Time or Job-Share Work: Document the Duties You Actually Perform

A part-time or job-share schedule does not describe everything a worker does while on duty. Before a medical evaluation for a suspected cumulative injury, prepare a history that distinguishes the number of days worked from the physical demands of each working day. Neither a reduced schedule nor a demanding shift decides causation by itself.

The January 6, 2026 WCAB panel decision in Jung v. Mt. Diablo Unified School District illustrates why that detail can matter. A teacher worked in a job-share arrangement but performed the classroom duties when she was the teacher on duty. Her testimony about bending, lifting chairs and working at children’s height formed part of the record supporting the medical evaluation. Official opinion and adopted report, pp. 9–14.

Describe a working day before averaging the week

Begin with a representative shift. Identify the task, its frequency, approximate duration, and what made it physically demanding. Then record how often that shift occurred. A weekly average can hide the difference between the same demanding tasks on fewer days and genuinely lighter duties every day.

For example, a job-share teacher may work fewer days but still move classroom furniture, repeatedly reach low surfaces, or sit and rise from the floor during each assigned day. Another worker may share a position while a colleague performs all lifting. Those are different histories even if payroll lists the same fraction of full-time employment. The example is a way to organize facts, not a medical conclusion about either worker.

Use a task log that shows its sources and limits

Write an estimate as an estimate. If you recall lifting chairs daily but cannot reliably count them, say so. A coworker can confirm what they observed without being asked to endorse a medical diagnosis. Keep the original schedule or description even if it appears less detailed than the account you now remember.

Separate an old injury from what changed later

A history of prior injury is important information for an evaluator, not a reason to leave later symptoms out of the account. In Jung, the worker had a much earlier specific back injury and continued working for years. The dispute required examination of whether later work caused a distinct cumulative injury or whether later problems reflected the original injury. Official opinion, pp. 2, 9–14.

Prepare two descriptions: Your baseline after the earlier injury and what later changed. Identify symptoms, affected areas, limitations, treatment and work duties, with the approximate dates and records supporting each. Include both improvement and deterioration. Do not decide on your own that a flare-up is a new injury or that a diagnosis proves a particular exposure period.

The useful question for the doctor is how the documented duties and clinical history fit together. It is not whether the worker can supply a legal label. If different doctors gave different explanations, preserve the reports and explain what you were told at the time rather than replacing the older account with the newest terminology.

A factual work history does not set the legal date or filing deadline

California’s cumulative-injury definition and date rules serve different functions from a task log. Labor Code section 3208.1 addresses cumulative injury; section 5412 addresses the concurrence of disability and actual or constructive knowledge of industrial causation. The panel discussed those provisions in Jung, official opinion, pp. 4–6. A person’s symptoms, last shift, medical advice and claim filing can fall on different dates.

Do not wait until the log is complete to check a live deadline or seek needed medical care. Nor should a part-time worker assume that the claim is automatically weaker or that reduced hours determine a percentage of responsibility. Those questions require the actual evidence and applicable legal rules.

Bring the history to a focused evaluation

A short task-by-period summary, backed by the available originals, can be more useful than a long narrative that blends decades of work together. Identify unresolved questions for counsel and the medical evaluator: Which duties were actually performed, when they changed, and which symptoms or diagnoses need explanation. Follow the applicable procedures for providing records to an evaluator rather than assuming informal contact is permitted.

Read our case analysis of Jung for the limitations defense and medical-evidence reasoning. Our existing two-date cumulative-injury guide addresses the separate legal-date and carrier-window questions. The workers’ compensation practice page provides consultation options.