Carpal Tunnel Settlement in California Workers’ Comp: What It’s Worth

Carpal tunnel is the signature cumulative trauma claim — no accident, no fall, just months or years of keystrokes, scanning, or vibrating tools until the median nerve objects. It is also a body part where the occupational variant pays attention at both ends of the demand scale: the gripping trades rate highest, and the keyboard jobs out-rate the custodial middle. This page computes the whole grid with the rating engine.

How carpal tunnel is measured

The schedule rates it as 16.01.02.02 — entrapment/compression neuropathy of the arm. The AMA Guides set the anchors after a release: normal sensation, strength, and nerve studies leave no objective basis for a rating; normal sensation and strength with abnormal nerve studies may justify up to 5% of the upper extremity — about 3% WPI; persistent numbness or weakness with conduction delay rates by the sensory and motor deficits, which runs into the high single digits and, with severe sensory loss, the teens. The Guides add nothing for grip loss in a compression neuropathy.

The money table

Final PD and total indemnity at age 37–41 (the neutral bracket), 2026 injury, maximum PD rate, one hand, before apportionment:

Read the shape: the carpenter’s column (variant J, the schedule’s ceiling) roughly doubles the custodian’s at 8% WPI, because gripping tools is exactly what a compressed median nerve takes away. And clerical (variant G) beats the custodial middle in every row — keyboard hands are clerical earning capacity, the same logic as the wrist page.

Bilateral claims — the CVC, not addition

Carpal tunnel often arrives in pairs. Each hand rates separately, then the two combine on the Combined Values Chart: the clerical worker at 8% WPI each hand holds two 13% ratings, and 13 C 13 = 24% PD — 95.5 weeks, $27,695 at the 2026 maximum. Not 26%: the chart discounts the second impairment against the remainder of the first. Still nearly $15,500 more than one hand alone, which is why pleading and proving the second hand matters.

The cumulative-trauma wrinkles

CT claims run on their own clock — the full claim-type rules (§5412 dates, the §5500.5 exposure window, the post-termination defense) are in the cumulative-trauma guide. The short version: the date of injury is not the last day typed — Labor Code §5412 sets it where disability and knowledge of work-causation converge, which decides the rate year, the era rules, and the limitations math (run the clocks on the deadline calculator). Expect a §4663 apportionment fight: diabetes, thyroid disease, inflammatory arthritis, and prior non-industrial hand history are the standard levers to shave the industrial share — how apportionment works shows the arithmetic. And claims filed after a notice of termination or layoff meet the post-termination defense (§3600(a)(10)), which has its own exceptions for CT dates.

Age moves it too

Same 8% WPI clerical case at three ages, engine-computed: injured at 25 it rates 11% ($9,932.50); at 39, 13% ($12,252.50); at 49, 15% ($14,645) — the age adjustment working as designed.

What this table can’t tell you

Wages below the maximum scale the dollars down, residual grip and sensory findings add lines to the string, settlements price future medical — CT cases often carry surgical and re-release exposure — and none of this is apportioned until a doctor writes the percentage. Companion pages: back · knee · shoulder · neck · hip · wrist · ankle · elbow · foot · hand · hearing · eye · amputation · fusion · knee replacement · rotator cuff · hip replacement · hernia · head injury · herniated disc · meniscus · ulnar nerve · lungs · heart. Estimates for informational use; not legal or medical advice.