| Generally, a worker's injury that occurs in the course of his employment is compensable even though it is a mental or nervous injury as opposed to a physical one. With causation and "arising out of the employment" issues dispensed with, the majority of states find that a mental condition, which causes a physical injury, is compensable. For example, a worker is frightened by a sudden event or accident and immediately thereafter suffers a heart attack. Compensability is no less viable when the mental stimulus is sustained over a period of time. For example, an employee who over the course of months is so pressured by the demands of his employer and his position that, even though relatively young, he suffers a heart attack.
Like situations where a mental stimulus leads to a physical injury, a mental condition that results from a physical accident or event is also compensable. For example, a worker suffers an injury to her arm from a falling piece of equipment and, even though the physical injury has healed, the worker remains unable to use her arm due to a neurotic condition in which she believes her arm is paralyzed. Notably, a worker's predisposition to a neurotic condition does not obviate the compensability of the injury.
Many states find that a mental injury is compensable even if it is the result of a mental stimulus alone. An example of such a situation is where a worker is involved in an explosion at an oil refinery. Though not physically injured, the worker had seen several co-workers die in the accident and had been a part of the recovery team that had located and cared for the deceased victim's bodies. Thereafter, the worker could no longer work due to uncontrollable stress; he could not sleep, had nightmares, was afraid to leave his house, would become paralyzed at the thought of going on the refinery's premises, and was so severely depressed that he could barely perform the everyday functions of life. Compensability would not be denied even if the worker suffered from a pre-existing mental weakness, which made him more susceptible to the mental injury resulting from his experiences surrounding the explosion. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |