By Michelle Lee Flores and Cozen O’Connor
It was quite a surprise for the Knicks basketball team that it was subject to California’s workers’ compensation laws, given that the team is from New York. A court of appeals affirmed a California’s Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) award imposing liability for a cumulative trauma injury that a Knicks player suffered.
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The reason? According to analysis by Michelle Lee Flores and Cozen O’Connor, the court held that “at least a portion of the injury occurred within the state of California and the Knicks could be liable because the organization employed the player during the last year of his employment, when he was exposed to the hazards of the cumulative injury.”
Flores and O’Connor continue, “The Knicks filed a petition for a writ of review against the WCAB and others—specifically, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Atlanta Hawks, Insurance Company of North America, adjusted by ESIS, and Durand Macklin—challenging the WCAB’s jurisdiction over a claim for accumulated injuries by Macklin, a professional basketball player in the NBA from 1981 to 1984.
“At issue was the application of California Labor Code Section 5500.5(a), which addresses liability for a cumulative injury arising out of more than one term of employment and provides that ‘liability shall be imposed upon the last year of employment exposing the employee to the hazards of the occupational disease or cumulative injury for which an employer is insured for [workers’ comp] coverage.’ ”
Read on for more details of the case and the ruling.