Our teams don't just play in the Bay Area. Our teams make a concerted, highly visible effort to reflect Bay Area values.

One of those values is ensuring that when our players are injured on the playing field they receive immediate access to some of the best medical care and benefits in the world. We also support their ability to file for workers' compensation benefits in California. California workers deserve California benefits, whether they are athletes or employees in any other profession.

What is inherently unfair is to allow non-California employees from 49 other states to file for those benefits in our state, which is what's happening across major league sports. And it's hurting California.

Recently, media outlets have reported how an influx of out-of-state professional athletes from out-of-state teams are filing workers' compensation claims in California for so-called "cumulative trauma" -- or nonspecific injuries -- and routinely collecting six-figure cash settlements, often on top of similar payments for the same injuries in their home states. So far, $747 million has been paid out to 4,500 players, with another 5,000 cases pending.

This loophole, unique to our state, has allowed thousands of professional athletes to file here, despite having little to no connection to our state and minimal work history with a California employer. Major League Baseball alone is reporting an average of two new California filings a day by out-of-state players.


In all sports, these claims total more than $1 billion in potential liability and are increasingly burdening the courts and costing California employers.

What's worse, players who play for a California team for only a brief period of time -- as little as one or two games -- then play long, productive careers for teams outside of California can turn around and ask that California team to pay 100 percent of their benefits. Our teams can ultimately be on the hook for 100 percent of the liability of teams from Florida or New York.

We are supporting AB 1309 by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, to close this loophole, which is creating a nonlevel playing field for California's sports franchises and is unfairly costing California's businesses millions of dollars every year, including those with no connection to major league sports. That's because when new claims are brought against insurance companies that are now insolvent, the California Insurance Guarantee Association (CIGA) pays the settlement through a fee on all California employers.

Since 2002, claims by professional athletes paid by CIGA have cost all California businesses $41.7 million. Given the growing number of claims by players against now-defunct insurers, that number could soon exceed $100 million.

Perea's bill is not an attempt to keep professional athletes from filing for workers' compensation benefits. It will set clear jurisdictional standards similar to nearly every other state, so that players who played as little as one game or even one inning for our teams can't return to California after significant playing histories in other states and demand that California teams pick up the tab for an entire career of cumulative injuries. All 18 major league sports teams playing in California support AB 1309.

California's Workers' Compensation system was designed to protect California workers and provide certainty to California employers. That's exactly what AB 1309 would achieve.

Laurence Baer is president and CEO of the San Francisco Giants, and Jed York is CEO, San Francisco 49ers. they wrote this for this newspaper.