Appeals Court Bolsters Rule on Repetitive-Motion Injury

California’s groundbreaking regulation to reduce repetitive-motion injuries in the workplace has been broadened slightly by California’s 3rd District Court of Appeal.

The appeals court, in a ruling made public late Friday, also upheld a lower-court ruling that even the smallest employers must abide by the standard, which has been in force for two years. The safety standard requires California’s nearly 1 million employers to take remedial measures after two or more workers performing the same task are injured in a single year.

The ergonomics rules as originally written by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board would have excluded all organizations with fewer than 10 employees--about 80% of the state’s employers--to ease the economic burden on small firms.

The appeals court agreed with the trial court that exempting small enterprises would immunize so many employers that the rule would be inconsistent “with the board’s statutory mandate to minimize [repetitive-motion injuries] in the workplace.”

The ruling also reinstated a clause that would protect employers’ good-faith efforts to establish remedial programs and reasserted that the injury must be “predominately caused” by work and “objectively identified” by a physician.

The AFL-CIO said the ruling is “a victory . . . in the fight to end crippling workplace injuries.”

A spokesman for the California Trucking Assn., which is part of a business coalition that has opposed the regulation, said the group’s lawyers had not yet reviewed the ruling.