Case Title: Graves v. Utah Power & Light Co.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1986-01-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
Graves v. Utah Power & Light Co.1986 WY 17713 P.2d 187Case Number: 85-172Decided: 01/22/1986Supreme Court of Wyoming
MARY 
LOU GRAVES, APPELLANT (CLAIMANT-EMPLOYEE),

 
 
v. 

 
 
UTAH POWER & LIGHT 
COMPANY, APPELLEE (DEFENDANT-EMPLOYER).

 
 
Appeal from the District Court,LincolnCounty, John D. Troughton, 
J.

 
 
 
 
Representing 
Appellant:

F.L. Thomas, Jr., 
Kemmerer.

 
 
Representing 
Appellee:

Mark W. Harris of Harris 
& Harris, Evanston.

 
 
Before THOMAS, C.J., and 
ROONEY,* BROWN, CARDINE and URBIGKIT, 
JJ.

* Retired November 30, 
1985.

 
 

CARDINE, 
Justice.

 
 

[¶1.]     This is a worker's 
compensation case in which we review the denial of a worker's claim for 
temporary total disability benefits. The district court denied the claim because 
the worker failed to show that her nontraumatic mental injury was caused by 
work-related stresses which were greater than day-to-day stresses and tensions 
experienced by all employees in the same or similar jobs. Our review is 
essentially factual, and we can reverse only if we find that the district 
court's decision was clearly erroneous or contrary to the great weight of the 
evidence. We must also consider the matter of attorney's fees for this appeal. 
We affirm the judgment below and award attorney's fees in the amount of 
$750.

 
 

[¶2.]     The claimant, Mary Lou 
Graves, became a B-operator at Utah Power and Light's Naughton Plant in 1981. As 
a B-operator, she monitored and operated the plant's pollution control 
equipment. According to claimant, the job itself was not physically or mentally 
stressful. In fact, her prior job as a beautician was much more 
stressful.

 
 

[¶3.]     Nevertheless, during 
claimant's four years as a B-operator she was increasingly absent from work 
because of debilitating migraine headaches. She had suffered from headaches 
since childhood. She missed work 22 days in 1981, 41 days in 1982, 43 days in 
1983, and 61.5 days in 1984. Of the days missed in 1983 and 1984, only 40 were 
covered by official vacation and sick days. She was reprimanded on various 
occasions for sick leave abuse, but the reprimands had no effect upon her 
absenteeism.

 
 

[¶4.]     Because of poor 
attendance, plant management informed her in August of 1983 that she must bid 
into another job within two months or be demoted to the position of skilled 
helper.1 A warehouse job within the company 
opened up in August and claimant successfully bid into the position. The company 
agreed to allow her to return to the Naughton job as B-operator as soon as her 
attendance improved in her new position.

 
 

[¶5.]     Claimant's warehouse 
job was less desirable than her B-operator position because the warehouse job 
was in Evanston, 
a substantial commute from her Kemmerer home. The warehouse job also resulted in 
a cut in pay which eventually forced claimant to file a bankruptcy petition. She 
tried to force her reinstatement as a B-operator at the Naughton plant by filing 
a grievance with the employer, and when her grievance was denied, by filing suit 
in federal court. In April of 1984, claimant was permitted to bid back into her 
B-operator job after her attendance improved.

 
 

[¶6.]     Claimant's return to 
her old job did not end either her headaches or her resultant attendance 
problems. While she had no trouble with her immediate supervisors, she did 
develop strained relations with fellow employees who were forced to fill in for 
her on numerous occasions. In July, claimant found a dead blackbird in her desk 
drawer, apparently placed there by another employee. She at first requested her 
supervisor to overlook the matter fearing that reprimands by management would 
only escalate the harassment. But eventually she told the plant manager of the 
incident and gave him the names of the suspected culprits. The manager 
reprimanded the suspects and their relations with claimant were further 
strained.

 
 

[¶7.]     In late September of 
1984, claimant's personal physician, Dr. Clark, sent a letter to the company 
suggesting that claimant be given time off to go to a pain clinic in Salt Lake 
City for migraine headache treatments. The company agreed and gave claimant a 
month off without pay. She attended the clinic from October 15 to October 26. 
She filed a claim for temporary total disability for the month of October; but, 
after the company paid her for the first nine days of the month, she amended her 
claim to cover 15 days of disability. The employer, Utah Power and Light, 
contested the claim on grounds that the headaches, which caused claimant to miss 
work, were not job related.

 
 

[¶8.]     The district court 
tried the contested claim on March 5, 1985. At trial, claimant called Dr. David 
Clark who testified that claimant's work situation was the primary cause of her 
increase in headaches. But Dr. Clark was unable to compare the stress facing 
claimant to the stress experienced by her co-workers because a proper foundation 
could not be established for the testimony. Claimant also called James Hackney, 
a psychiatric social worker from Kemmerer, who testified that work conditions 
contributed to claimant's headaches. Like Dr. Clark, Mr. Hackney could not say 
that the work conditions were unusually stressful.

 
 

[¶9.]     In opposition to the 
claim, the employer called several of claimant's supervisors. Mr. Spencer 
Preece, claimant's immediate supervisor at the Naughton Plant, testified that 
she was not treated any differently than other employees at the plant. Ron 
Garner, the Naughton plant manager since 1982, stated that he treated her the 
same as any other employee with a similar record. He pointed out that he had 
issued reprimands, similar to those given to claimant, to another employee with 
an attendance problem. Finally, he testified that he tried to change claimant 
from a shift position to a day position to improve her attendance and that he 
encouraged her to seek medical attention.

 
 

[¶10.]  The district court denied the claim, 
holding in a letter opinion that claimant failed to provide "substantial 
competent evidence that a situation or condition in her employment was any 
greater than day-to-day mental stresses and tensions all employees experience," 
and that "[t]he discipline [claimant] received for excessive absenteeism was not 
extraordinary or outside normal disciplinary procedures associated with her 
employment." Without a showing of unusual stress, the district court held that 
claimant could not receive disability benefits for her nontraumatic mental 
injuries.

 
 
Nontraumatic Mental 
Injuries

 
 

[¶11.]  Preliminarily we note that both parties 
agree that claimant's headaches were the result of a mental condition rather 
than physical injuries. They also agree that the headaches were not induced by a 
sudden event and can, therefore, be safely classified as nontraumatic mental 
injuries.

 
 

[¶12.]  Our analysis of the law of nontraumatic 
mental injuries must begin with a review of Consolidated Freightways v. Drake, 
Wyo., 678 P.2d 874 (1984), the case upon which the district court based its decision. In 
Consolidated Freightways we held that a worker can recover for slowly developing 
mental injuries only if the injuries result "from a situation or condition in 
employment that is of greater magnitude than the day-to-day mental stresses and 
tensions all employees usually experience." Id. at 877. We based our holding upon the 
statutory definition of injury which requires that a harmful change in the human 
organism "[arise] out of" and "in the course of" employment "while at work" "in 
or about the premises [of the employer]." Section 27-12-102(a)(xii), W.S. 1977. 
We essentially reasoned that a long-term change in a worker's mental condition 
"aris[es] out of" employment and is, therefore, a compensable injury only if it 
can be shown that there was a special employment stress causing the change or 
condition that is of greater magnitude than day-to-day stress usually 
experienced.

 
 

[¶13.]  The rationale of our holding in Consolidated Freightways v. Drake, 
supra, is in accord with the policy of worker's compensation. Worker's 
compensation is a form of industrial accident insurance. Cottonwood Steel Corporation v. Hansen, Wyo., 
655 P.2d 1226 (1982). The employer contributes to the fund what, in essence, are 
insurance premium payments, the amount being based upon his payroll for covered 
employees. A separate account is maintained for each employer, and his claim 
experience determines whether he must contribute a maximum or minimum percentage 
of his payroll to the fund, §§ 27-12-202 through 27-12-204, W.S. 1977. It might 
be considered modern and forward looking for worker's compensation to be 
expanded to provide full coverage health insurance. But that was not its 
intended purpose, and it would be unfair to the employer who pays premiums on 
the assumption that they cover only injuries caused by his industry. Thus, where 
the employee suffers from a mental condition that was known, symptomatic and 
which existed prior to employment, and the injury claimed is attributable to the 
same mental condition, it must appear that the injury "aris[es] out of 
employment" and is not simply a natural progression of the disease or 
condition.

 
 

[¶14.]  Consolidated Freightways v. Drake, 
supra, is also consistent with enactments of the legislature in similar 
situations. Thus, when affording coverage for employment-related coronary 
conditions, the legislature enacted § 27-12-603(b), W.S. 1977, which 
provides:

 
 
"Benefits for 
employment-related coronary conditions except those directly and solely caused 
by an injury or disease are not payable unless the employee establishes by 
competent medical authority that there is a direct causal connection between the 
condition under which the work was performed and the cardiac condition, and then 
only if the causative exertion occurs during the actual period of employment 
stress clearly unusual to, or abnormal for, employees in that particular 
employment, and further that the acute symptoms of the cardiac condition are 
clearly manifested not later than four (4) hours after the alleged causative 
exertion." (Emphasis added.)

 
 

[¶15.]  The rule necessitating unusual stress 
adopted in Consolidated Freightways v. 
Drake, supra, satisfies for us the requirement that, for an award of 
compensation, there must be "a nexus between the injury and some condition, 
activity, environment or requirement of employment." (Emphasis added.) Matter of Injury to Willey, Wyo., 571 P.2d 248, 250 (1977). If the injury occurs 
outside of the course of employment, it is not compensable, whether the worker 
be predisposed to injury or perfectly healthy. With respect to physical injury, 
the evidence establishing the nexus in claims such as heart attack or back 
injury often is testimony of some lifting, pushing, pulling, trauma or exertion 
while at work that results in pain or some demonstrable change in the human 
organism. In asbestosis claims, it can be shown that the injury, though 
developing over a considerable period of time, occurred only while at work and 
arose out of the employment, there usually being no other exposure to 
asbestos.

 
 

[¶16.]  A claim for disability for a mental 
condition, which results from migraine headaches that existed before employment, 
continued after employment, and occurred at divers times and places, must be 
treated differently from those manifested by physical injury. As Professor 
Larson states in his worker's compensation treatise:

 
 
"The real distinction 
here should be, not between sudden and gradual stimuli, but between gradual 
stimuli that are sufficiently more damaging than those of everyday employment 
life to satisfy the normal `arising-out-of' test, and those that are not." 1B 
Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law § 42-23(b), p. 7-639 
(1985).

 
 

[¶17.]  It has been suggested that the rule we 
announced in Consolidated Freightways v. 
Drake, supra, 678 P.2d 874, creates a confusing double standard for mental 
injuries. 20 Land & Water L.Rev. 287 (1985). We adopted our position 
deliberately; and, after due consideration of the alternatives, we do not think 
it is at all confusing. An especially sensitive worker, the so-called eggshell, 
can receive compensation for a physical injury if ordinary work 
conditions cause the injury.2 On the other hand, when nontraumatic mental injuries are 
involved, the eggshell is eligible for compensation only if he can show that 
extraordinary work conditions caused the injury.3 

 
 

[¶18.]  We think the common-sense reasons for the 
rule we adopt outweigh other considerations. If we allowed workers to recover 
for long-term mental injuries when those injuries were triggered by everyday 
work stress, then almost all mental injuries would be compensable from the 
worker's compensation fund. There are very few workers with nontraumatic mental 
problems who cannot show that job stress contributed to their problems. The 
employers would become insurers for almost all mental illnesses suffered by 
their employees. Townsend v.     Maine Bureau of Public Safety, Me., 404 A.2d 1014, 
1018-1019 (1979).

 
 

[¶19.]  In addition, the district courts would 
have great difficulty distinguishing between legitimate claims of mental injury 
and malingering. As the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has 
stated,

 
 
"[t]he danger of illusory 
and fictional claims is as real and present in workers' compensation as it is in 
the law of torts. Where a mental injury occurs rapidly and can be readily traced 
to a specific event, * * * there is a sufficient badge of reliability to assuage 
the Court's apprehension. Where, however, a mental injury develops gradually and 
is linked to no particular incident, the risk of groundless claims looms large 
indeed." Id. 
at 1018.

 
 
We stand by our holding 
in Consolidated Freightways v. Drake, supra.

 
 
"This standard 
appropriately balances the interest of the employee and the interests of the 
employers as well as incorporates the policy and intent of Wyoming worker's 
compensation laws." 678 P.2d  at 877.4

 
 

[¶20.]  Our decision to reaffirm the Consolidated 
Freightways holding does not prevent us from addressing interpretive problems 
created by that holding. In Consolidated Freightways we 
stated

 
 
"that a non-traumatically 
caused mental injury is compensable under our worker's compensation law if it 
results from a situation or condition in employment that is of greater magnitude 
than the day-to-day mental stresses and tensions all employees usually experience." 
(Emphasis added.) 678 P.2d  at 877.

 
 
Although an objective 
standard of comparison is clearly created, we have never explicitly delineated 
the group of "all employees" whose tensions are to be compared with the tensions 
suffered by the worker seeking benefits. Id. at 
877-878; see also Baker v. Wendy's of 
Montana, Inc., Wyo., 687 P.2d 885 
(1984).

 
 

[¶21.]  The objective "all employees" standard 
could be based upon three different groups. First, "all employees" could consist 
of a worker's "fellow employees" employed in the same or similar jobs by the 
same employer. Second, it could consist of workers in the same or similar jobs, 
including those who work for other employers. Finally, it could consist of the 
"working world at large." 

 
 

[¶22.]  We think the most rational approach to 
deciding whether a worker is subject to unusual stress is to compare his stress 
with the day-to-day stress generally encountered by workers in the same or 
similar jobs regardless of their employers. Unlike the "fellow employees" test, 
this test could be used in cases where the worker has no fellow employee holding 
the same job in his company. Moreover, under the same or similar job standard, 
an employer who puts excessive stress on several employees could not avoid the 
payment of benefits by simply making that excessive stress equal for all 
employees. The stress on his workers would be compared to the stress suffered by 
those holding similar jobs in other companies.5

 
 

[¶23.]  We recognize that other factors must also 
be considered in finally determining whether the stress is unusual for the 
particular job involved. An employer may pay twice the average rate to an 
employee who will accept greater responsibility and thus greater stress. That 
greater stress may be usual in that situation. Some of the factors that may be 
considered are rate of pay, benefits, working conditions, opportunity, position, 
and future rewards. The result of these factors may be that the jobs sought to 
be compared are not the same or similar.

 
 

[¶24.]  The objective test based on workers with 
the same or similar jobs is also superior to a test based on the working world 
at large. It is impossible to determine, except in the broadest fashion, the 
stress to which the working world at large is exposed. In every worker's 
compensation case heard under this test, the parties could call witnesses whose 
job-related stress is either significantly greater or significantly smaller than 
the stress suffered by the worker seeking compensation. The standard would be 
too amorphous to be practical.

 
 

[¶25.]  We approach the case at hand with the 
following principles in mind. A worker seeking compensation for nontraumatic 
mental injury must show that the injury was caused by workplace stress of 
greater magnitude than the day-to-day mental stresses experienced by other 
workers employed in the same or similar jobs. The "other workers" can be those 
employed by the same employer or by different employers.

 
 
The Decision 
Below

 
 

[¶26.]  In the case at bar, the district court 
applied the law as we have outlined it above. The court explicitly stated in its 
conclusions of law:

 
 
"3. The Court, as a 
matter of law, is unable to find specifically that:

 
 
"A. Employee provided 
substantial competent evidence that a situation or condition in her employment 
was any greater than day-to-day mental stresses and tensions all employees 
experience.

 
 
"B. Employee did not 
assume or perform duties as a B-operator that other B-operator [did not] 
regularly [perform].

 
 
"C. The discipline 
Employee received for excessive absenteeism was not extraordinary or outside 
normal disciplinary procedures associated with her 
employment."

 
 
Because the correct law 
was applied below, the only issues we must face in this appeal are factual. 
Applying the appropriate standard of factual review, we must decide whether 
claimant carried her burden of proving unusual workplace stress by a 
preponderance of the evidence.

 
 
"When reviewing cases on 
appeal, we accept the evidence of the prevailing party as true, leaving out 
entirely the consideration of evidence presented by the unsuccessful party in 
conflict therewith, giving every favorable inference which may fairly and 
reasonably be drawn from the prevailing party's evidence. The findings of fact 
made by the trial court are presumed to be correct, and we will not disturb such 
findings unless inconsistent with the evidence, clearly erroneous or contrary to 
the great weight of the evidence." (Citations omitted.) Matter of Injury to Abas, Wyo., 701 P.2d 1153, 1156 
(1985).

 
 

[¶27.]  We agree with the district court that 
claimant failed to carry her burden of proving unusual workplace stress. While 
claimant's witnesses testified to the causal connection between workplace stress 
and her migraine headaches, they never testified that claimant was subjected to 
stress of greater magnitude than day-to-day mental stresses experienced by other 
workers in the same or similar jobs. Claimant did not call a single witness to 
compare the disciplinary procedures she experienced to those prevailing in her 
company or industry. In fact, the only witnesses who made these comparisons were 
called by the employer. Both Mr. Preece and Mr. Garner stated that they did not 
subject claimant to unusual sanctions for her absenteeism. Mr. Garner pointed 
out that he tried to reduce the stress on claimant by suggesting medical 
treatment and offering her a daytime, nonshift, B-operator's 
position.

 
 

[¶28.]  We do not think that the dead bird 
incident was unusually stressful under the circumstances. Workers in an 
industrial job like claimant's can expect some resentment and even harassment 
from fellow workers who must work double shifts because of their fellow 
employee's absenteeism. Moreover, claimant's supervisors, Mr. Preece and Mr. 
Garner, responded to the dead bird incident according to claimant's wishes by at 
first downplaying the incident and then by reprimanding those responsible. We 
can only hope that this kind of cooperation with the harassed worker is the 
industry standard.

 
 

[¶29.]  Claimant contends in her brief that the 
stresses that caused her mental harm were unique because no other workers 
suffered from migraine headaches like she did. She argues that her headaches 
caused unusual stress which in turn caused more headaches. This argument is 
improperly based on a subjective standard. Under the proper objective standard, 
we need only decide whether the disciplinary procedures and worker harassment 
suffered by claimant as a result of her headaches and absenteeism were the same 
as would be suffered by any other worker in a similar job under those 
circumstances. We think that the district court had substantial evidence to 
conclude that claimant did not suffer objectively unusual stress. The court's 
decision was not clearly erroneous.

 
 
Attorney's 
Fees

 
 

[¶30.]  Claimant has moved that we award her 
attorney a fee of $5,392.50, to be paid from the worker's compensation fund, for 
his work on this appeal. The motion is based upon § 27-12-604(c), W.S. 1977 
(June 1983 Replacement) which states:

 
 
"The district court may 
appoint an attorney to represent the employee or claimants and shall allow him a 
reasonable fee for his services at the conclusion of the proceeding. The 
attorney shall be paid according to the order of the court either by the 
director or from the amounts awarded to the employee or claimants or from the 
employer."6

 
 
If we interpret the word 
"proceeding" to include only trial proceedings, then this statute does not 
authorize the court to order appellate fees. On the other hand, if proceeding 
means the entire case through appeal, then we may set a reasonable appellate 
fee.

 
 

[¶31.]  We think that the word "proceeding" 
should be interpreted broadly to authorize the award of appellate fees in 
worker's compensation cases. We reach this conclusion by interpreting § 
27-12-604(c) so that it can be read together with § 27-12-609, W.S. 1977 (June 
1983 Replacement) to form a rational statutory scheme. Section 27-12-609(a) 
states that

 
 
"[a] person or attorney 
shall not receive a fee for procuring any benefit under this act [§§ 27-12-101 
through 27-12-804] which exceeds the amount determined by the court under W.S. 
27-12-604(c)."

 
 
In addition, § 
27-12-609(b) states that

 
 
"[e]very person violating 
this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not 
more than five hundred dollars ($500.00), to which may be added imprisonment in 
the county jail for a term not to exceed ninety (90) 
days."

 
 

[¶32.]  In essence, § 27-12-609 funnels all 
awards of attorney's fees in worker's compensation cases through § 27-12-604(c). 
If we were to hold that we could not order payment of appellate fees under § 
27-12-604(c), then no attorney could be legally paid for representing a worker 
on appeal. As a result, few, if any, lawyers would voluntarily take such 
appeals. The worker's only choice would be to find an attorney willing to take 
his appeal pro bono, or to appeal pro se. The worker would be opposed by an 
employer represented by a paid attorney. Section 27-12-609(a) only prohibits the 
unauthorized payment of attorneys who procure "any benefit" under the act. It 
does not prevent an employer from hiring a lawyer to contest 
benefits.

 
 

[¶33.]  We do not think that the legislature 
could have intended a system in which the deck is stacked so heavily against the 
workers. "This court has adopted a policy of liberally construing statutes 
relating to worker's compensation in light of their beneficent purpose." 
Conn v. Ed Wederski Construction Company, 
Wyo., 668 P.2d 649, 652 (1983). We believe that the critical word "proceeding" in § 
27-12-604(c) should be interpreted broadly to permit us to set reasonable 
attorney's fees for worker's compensation appeals.

 
 

[¶34.]  We note that most worker's compensation 
appeals involve a single issue. Often the lawyer taking the appeal is the same 
lawyer who represented the worker below and is already familiar with both the 
facts and law. Consequently, on October 31, 1984, we issued an order setting the 
sum of $750 as a presumptive reasonable fee for worker's compensation appeals.7 That order does not force us to set 
a fee of $750 in all cases, but it does serve as guide for appellate fees and 
for our fee analysis which follows. See appendix for text of 
order.

 
 

[¶35.]  If claimant had prevailed in this case, 
she could have been awarded, at most, $840. This figure represents two-thirds of 
her wages for fifteen-day period during which her migraine headaches forced her 
to miss work. Section 27-12-402(a), W.S. 1977 (June 1983 Replacement). In the 
contest over this $840 claim, the worker's compensation fund has already paid 
fees of $2,317.50 to claimant's attorney for his representation at trial. That 
payment was approved by the district court under the authority of § 
27-12-604(c), W.S. 1977 (June 1983 Replacement).

 
 

[¶36.]  In the context of a private civil case 
where the litigant pays her own attorney's fee, such a fee would hardly be 
reasonable with just $840 at stake. We will not further comment upon the 
district court's award of fees, however, because neither the employer nor the 
worker's compensation division has raised the issue. Also, we realize that § 
27-12-604(c) was intended by the legislature to provide workers with adequate 
trial representation when confronting employers with greater resources. If 
attorney's fees were never paid in minor cases, then some employers might 
contest even the most meritorious minor claims, hoping to win by 
default.

 
 

[¶37.]  Claimant's award of $2,317.50 for trial 
attorney's fees is relevant to our analysis of appellate fees. Claimant's 
attorney prepared for trial to the extent of earning a $2,317.50 fee. Much of 
his preparation should have carried over to this relatively simple appeal. The 
record bears out this observation. Claimant's lawyer raised the same legal and 
factual issue in this appeal as he raised below. He filed a sixteen page brief 
involving a single issue which is controlled by a single, recent Wyoming case, Consolidated Freightways v. Drake, 
supra. The statement of facts, which consumed five and one-half pages of 
claimant's brief, should have been easily written because counsel tried the case 
below and was already familiar with the facts.

 
 

[¶38.]  Claimant's motion for appellate fees of 
$5,392.50 cannot be justified. The issue on appeal was relatively simple and 
well known to claimant's attorney. We believe that $750 is a reasonable 
attorney's fee for this appeal.

 
 

[¶39.]  The judgment of the district court is 
affirmed and appellant's motion for attorney's fees is granted in the amount of 
$750. We cannot grant appellant's motion for costs until submission of receipts 
as required by our order of October 31, 1984.

 
 

URBIGKIT, 
J., 
concurs in part and dissents in part.

 
 
APPENDIX

 
 
IN RE ATTORNEY FEES FOR 
APPEAL OF WORKER'S COMPENSATION MATTERS

 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT, 
STATE OF WYOMING

 
 
OCTOBER TERM, A.D. 
1984

 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE 
ORDER

 
 

[¶40.]  The Court hereby establishes the 
following as reasonable compensation to be allowed attorneys for appeals in 
worker's compensation cases:

 
 
Seven Hundred and Fifty 
dollar ($750.00) fee.

 
 
Travel and per diem 
amounts as authorized by law for state employees.

 
 
Other expenses as are 
supported by receipts and determined to be necessary by the 
Court.

 
 
Dated October 31, 
1984.

 
 
By the 
Court

 
 

s/ John J. 
Rooney 

John J. Rooney 

Chief 
Justice

 
 

1 Bidding into a job is a 
process through which the company assigns its job openings to its union 
employees. Those employees bid for the job in competition with each other, and 
the employee with the highest rating under the bargaining agreement receives the 
position.

 
 

2 In Exploration Drilling Company v. Guthrie, Wyo., 
370 P.2d 362, 364 (1962), we said:

 
 
"It is well settled in 
Wyoming that 
compensation is not made to rest upon the condition of health of the employee or 
upon his freedom from liability to injury through a constitutional weakness or 
latent tendency. Also it matters not, as far as the right to compensation is 
concerned, whether the weakness or liability to injury has come about by disease 
or existed from birth."

 
 

3 It is worth noting that 
this rule does not require especially susceptible individuals to prove that work 
stimuli is the preponderant cause of their mental injuries. The eggshell is 
taken care of as long as he can show that his mental injury arose out of an 
unusual employment stress and therefore can "fairly be traced to the employment 
as a proximate cause." Section 27-12-603(a)(iii), W.S. 1977 (June 1983 
Replacement). See also 1B Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law § 42.23, at 7-640 
(1985).

 
 

4 Maine creates an 
alternative test which allows some workers who suffer nontraumatic mental 
injuries to receive compensation even though they cannot show that they faced 
abnormal stresses. If a Maine worker can show, by clear and convincing 
evidence, that normal work stresses were the predominant cause of his mental 
injury, he is eligible for compensation. Thus, Maine "protects even the eggshell." Townsend v.     Maine Bureau of Public Safety, Me., 404 A.2d 1014, 
1019-1020 (1979).

 
 
The problem with 
Maine's 
alternative test is that it adopts a clear-and-convincing-evidence standard 
which cannot be found in our statutes. Section 27-12-603(a), W.S. 1977 (June 
1983 Replacement), specifically states that

 
 
"[t]he burden of proof in 
contested cases involving injuries which occur over a substantial period of time 
is on the employee to make proper proof of his claim by a preponderance of the evidence, and to 
also prove by competent medical authority that his claim arose out of and in the 
course of his employment, by showing by a preponderance of the evidence that * * 
*."

 
 
We could not adopt the 
Maine test 
without violating § 27-12-603(a).

 
 

5 Under our preferred 
test, the stresses of other workers in the same company with the same or similar 
jobs will usually be most persuasive and determinative of the issue. They are 
not controlling, however, in the face of a conflicting industry-wide 
standard.

 
 

6 "It is generally 
recognized that attorney's fees are not recoverable in the absence of express 
statutory or contractual obligation." Bowers Welding and Hotshot, Inc. v. 
Bromley, Wyo., 
699 P.2d 299, 307 (1985).

 
 

7 Until it was repealed in 
1983, § 27-12-609, W.S. 1977, set a presumptive attorney's fee of $500 for 
worker's compensation appeals.

 
 

URBIGKIT, Justice, concurring in 
part and dissenting in part.

 
 

[¶41.]  I would concur with the disposition of 
legal fees afforded by the majority. However, it is suggested in addition that 
the legislature should be invited to directly consider the subject in its 
current review in order to afford specific statutory direction and authority as 
once existed before the present inopportune deletion. In that context, the 
constitutional concerns are noted that Art. 10, § 4 of the Wyoming Constitution, 
as effectuating the worker's compensation exception, can realistically be read 
to contemplate availability of Art. 1 constitutional due-process rights in the 
application of worker's compensation benefits for covered employees. See 3 
Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law § 78.42(e), p. 15-229. New York Central R.R. Co. v. White, 243 U.S. 188, 201, 27 S. Ct. 247, 252, 61 L. Ed. 667 (1917).

 
 

[¶42.]  I would find that those constitutional 
guarantees should include reasonably available appeal opportunities which, by 
definition, would also include legal fees to provide adequate 
counsel.

 
 
"* * * The right of each 
employee to compensation from such fund shall be in lieu of and shall take the 
place of any and all rights of action against any employer contributing as 
required by law to such fund in favor of any person or persons by reason of any 
such injuries or death." Article 10, § 4, Wyoming Constitution.

 
 

[¶43.]  I respectfully dissent from the decision 
of the majority in their application of the test of Consolidated Freightways v. Drake, Wyo., 
678 P.2d 874 (1984) through effectuation of the greater magnitude than the 
day-to-day mental-stress test as derived from the case law of 
Wisconsin.

 
 

[¶44.]  It is recognized that the majority 
clearly, carefully and with thoughtfulness applied the Consolidated test which 
in philosophy had been approved by all members of the court in that case. 

 
 

[¶45.]  Not then serving on this court, I now 
find no justification, directly stated, for the mental-injury differentiation in 
constitutional provision, statutory enactment or medical fact. Injury is injury 
in result, whether mentally or physically induced, except that the 
dehabilitating aspects of many physical injuries are the associated mental 
results. Mental injury can cause physical result, and many physical injuries 
result in mental impairment or operational injury.

 
 

[¶46.]  The anachronism of differentiation which 
is slowly being recognized in a diminished application in the employee-injury 
compensation cases should be eliminated from our law, and the claimant employees 
subjected to the same test, whether mental or physical injury, at least, in the 
absence of a specific statutory differentiation as constitutionally applied.1 See 1B Larson, Worker's 
Compensation Law, § 42.23(a), p. 7-632, "[T]here is no really valid distinction 
between physical and `nervous' injury." See also Annot., 97 A.L.R.3d 165, 
Workmen's Compensation - Mental Disorders.

 
 

[¶47.]  Under Wyoming law, I would follow the Oregon approach, Korter v. EBI Companies, Inc., 46 Or. 
App. 43, 610 P.2d 312 (1980); Matter of 
Shilling, 46 Or. App. 117, 610 P.2d 845 (1980). See discussion, Note, Workmen's Compensation - A Confusing Double 
Standard for Mental Injuries, XX Land and Water L.Rev. 287, 295 (1985). Cf. 
1B Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 42.22, p. 7-597. See also Williams v. Western Electric Company, 
178 N.J. Super. 571, 429 A.2d 1063 (1981), and Townsend v.     Maine Bureau of Public Safety, Me. 404 A.2d 1014 
(1979).

 
 

[¶48.]  Furthermore, withdrawal from the 
enunciated principle that worker's compensation law should be liberally 
construed to serve the purpose intended is not justified by differentiation of 
an injury as mental and not physical. Matter of Johner, Wyo., 643 P.2d 932 (1982); Conn v. Ed Wederski Construction Company, 
Wyo., 668 P.2d 649 (1983).2

 
 

[¶49.]  A comprehensive review of the record in 
this case provides thought that a nondifferentiated injury test would not 
necessarily or even probably change the denial status. It is not my thought that 
the result is sufficiently inappropriate in consideration of all of the evidence 
adduced at trial for a mandated reversal of the order in judgment in order to 
grant benefits, but only that a differentiated test for injury resulting from 
mental and not physical invasive factors should not be 
continued.

 
 

[¶50.]  I would reverse for the trial court to 
determine on the existing record whether the claimant suffered a job-related 
injury by determining whether she was injured in the covered employment, by 
court application of the same rules which would be applied as if the question 
was whether she lost a finger from a work-related machine.

 
 

1 We are obviously talking 
about cause, not result. Clearly, a migraine headache is in all regards overt, 
self-evident and dehabilitating, as much as stomach ulcers, either or both of 
which may result from emotional involvement in a direct, causative relationship. 
See 4B Chapman, Courtroom Medicine, Pain and Suffering § 100.45, Migraine, p. 
100-85, and 4 Chapman, supra, § 2.00, Definitions of Pain, p. 2-2; National Lumber & Creosoting Co. v. 
Kelly, Colo., 75 P.2d 144 (1937). There is no question in this case from a 
review of the evidence but that the migraine headaches were disabling. The sole 
question was whether that physical condition was the result of a job-related 
condition, causatively resulting in injury. Migraine headaches can arise from a 
"wide variety of etiological factors." Commonly, during and preceeding a 
headache attack, resentment, tension, fatigue, or exhaustion are prominent. The 
text further notes that an important psychological aspect of treatment is to 
attempt to make the patient aware of the relevance of headaches to attitudes, 
goals, values, and effort patterns. 4A Chapman, supra, § 21.10, Definition and 
Categories of Headaches, p. 21-6.

 
 

2 We should be careful to 
avoid mixing adjectives and adverbs. Migraines are normally a physical condition 
mentally induced, as is frequently the case with stomach ulcers; a gunshot wound 
is a physical condition physically induced; trauma psychosis is frequently a 
mental condition physically induced. All are injuries to the "whole self." 

.