Impairment rating
A percentage figure expressing how much function you have permanently lost.
It converts a medical outcome into something an adjuster and a jury can compare, which is both its usefulness and its limitation. This is general information, not legal advice.
What it means
A physician assesses permanent impairment after you reach maximum medical improvement, usually against published guidelines, and expresses it as a percentage of the whole person or of a body part.
It is a medical opinion, not a legal conclusion, and it is not the same as disability. Two people with the same rating can be affected completely differently depending on what they do for a living and what they did with their time.
Treat a rating as evidence rather than as an answer. The lived consequence is what a general damages claim rests on, and a percentage does not capture it.
Where this is dealt with properly
This entry is the short answer. These pages own the subject.
Common questions
- Does a low impairment rating mean a small claim?
- Not necessarily. A modest rating that ends a manual career is a larger loss than a higher one that changes little. Ratings describe function, not consequence.
Start a case review call
On a case review call, I go through the facts with you: what happened, when, whether you were hurt, whether anyone represents you, and how to reach you. It is not legal advice, and I will not put a value on your claim.
Sources: none. Impairment rating is practice vocabulary rather than a legal term of art — no California statute, rule or case defines it, so this page cites none. Attaching an authority that nearly fits would be worse than saying that plainly.