Ruling on AIDS as Job-Related Injury Voided by Appeals Board

The state Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board has overturned a $197.12 weekly disability payment that an administrative law judge had awarded to a Los Angeles worker who acquired AIDS while on a construction project in Zaire. The case was the first in California in which acquired immune deficiency syndrome was ruled a job-related injury.

Last February, Judge Maurice J. Carey in Norwalk said the illness suffered by Paul Trejo was an “occupational disease” that was acquired through contact with prostitutes, a practice that was condoned by his employer.

The judge cited several legal precedents for his decision, including the “commercial traveler” rule, in which California courts have held that injuries sustained in activities that mix business with pleasure are compensable if the arrangement is expressly or implicitly approved by one’s employer.

Trejo was an employee of Morrison-Knudsen, a Boise, Ida.-based construction firm, between 1977 and 1980. His attorney, Alfred E. Marotta, had claimed that Trejo’s supervisors were aware that prostitutes were brought into camp and that company-owned helicopter fuel was used as partial payment.

But last week, three members of the Appeals Board in San Francisco overturned Carey’s ruling, saying that Trejo’s illness “resulted from his participation in off-duty social or recreational activity that did not constitute part of his work-related duties and was not expressly or impliedly required or a reasonable expectancy of the employment.”

Trejo, now 46, was diagnosed as having AIDS-related complex in Los Angeles in December, 1985. He is currently being treated at County-USC Medical Center, according to Marotta, who said he will appeal the ruling to the state Court of Appeal.