Gelman v. Board of Retirement

In Gelman v. Board of Retirement (1978) 85 Cal.App.3d 92, the Court was dealing with a statute providing for a service connected disability where the incapacity was 'a' result of service connected injury. The Court carefully points out that the result might be different if the statute required that the injury be 'the' result of the service connected injury. The language of Sec. 190.12 of Article XVIII of the Charter does not make the distinction which might cause a different result to be reached here. The operative language is that service connected disability is to be found where the employee is '. . . incapacitated by reason of injuries received or sickness caused by the discharge of the duties of such person . . . ." "The standard of causation is thus set by interpretation of the phrase '. . . by reason of . . .' which means the same as 'a result of.' The Charter could have been written to read 'incapacitated as the result of,' or 'incapacitated predominantly as the result of,' or 'incapacitated solely by reason of,' but was not."