"I'm a veteran."

What will be argued

A service-connected disability will be raised as apportionment — the argument that some of your current permanent disability is attributable to it rather than to the work injury.

The ordinary rules apply, and they help:

Apportionment is to disability, not to a rating from another system. A VA disability percentage is not a California workers' compensation apportionment percentage, and it does not translate. The two systems rate different things by different methods for different purposes.

Be careful here: Lindh permits apportionment to a pre-existing condition that produced no disability at all. Working your full job without restriction is useful evidence, but it is not the answer Lindh forecloses — the question is whether substantial medical evidence ties the condition to this disability.

And under Escobedo, the opinion must explain how and why — a percentage borrowed from a VA rating without independent reasoning is not substantial evidence. How to attack it.

And what it may add

A pre-existing disability plus an industrial injury that together produce a substantially greater disability may support a SIBTF claim — the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund.

It is paid by a state fund, not by your employer. It is additional money, and it is chronically under-claimed.

The pre-existing disability does not have to be industrial — a service-connected condition can be it.

And SB 171 rewrote SIBTF effective July 2026, retroactively, with a June 1, 2026 grandfather snapshot. Every SIBTF page written before that describes a system that no longer exists. What changed.

Practical points

Disclose the service-connected condition honestly — at the medical-legal evaluation and at your deposition. A prior disability does not defeat a claim, and it may be worth money. Denying one that appears in a record does defeat a claim. More.

VA medical care and workers' compensation medical care are separate, and treatment for the industrial injury is the employer's obligation under § 4600.

And if you work for a public agency, a retirement system disability process may run alongside as well. How those interact.

We are workers' compensation attorneys, not VA-accredited representatives. Questions about VA claims, ratings, or appeals should go to a VA-accredited representative or a Veterans Service Organization.