Opinion ID: 1542320
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Other jurisdictions' tests regarding psychological injuries within the context of physical-mental claims.

Text: In Spartin, this court viewed Dailey as fitting within the modern trend to compensate workers for emotional injury caused by job stress, and further noted that Professor Larson advocated a form of an objective test for mental-mental claims involving job stress. See Spartin, supra, 584 A.2d at 569. Thus, this court has turned to outside jurisdictions for guidance on these issues. Secondary sources reviewing case law from around the country confirm that the compensability of emotional injuries stemming from physical accidents is uniformly accepted. Larson states, [W]hen there has been a physical accident or trauma, and claimant's disability is increased or prolonged by traumatic neurosis, conversion hysteria, or hysterical paralysis, it is now uniformly held that the full disability including the effects of the neurosis is compensable. Dozens of cases, involving almost every conceivable kind of neurotic, psychotic, psychosomatic, depressive, or hysterical symptom, functional overlay, or personality disorder, have accepted this rule. 3 LARSON'S, supra, at § 56.03[1] (emphasis added); see also id. at § 53.06D (compiling cases nationwide that accept physical-mental claims). Further, [a]s in other connections, a preexisting weakness in the form of a neurotic tendency does not lessen the compensability of an injury which precipitates a disabling neurosis. Id. at § 56.03[2]; see also 3 LARSON'S, supra, at § 56.04[3] (discussing the aggravation rule and noting, [t]here appears to be no reported decision in which compensation was denied in this type of case solely because there was a preexisting neurotic tendency). Other commentators agree: Courts uniformly have held that a mental injury which implicates the existence of a physical impact stimulus or a physical injury satisfies the personal injury requirement [of workers' compensation laws]. The analogy to negligence cases concerning mental injuries is obvious. The existence of an objective, traumatic, work connected physical impact or injury provides an intuitive guarantee that the mental disorder is genuine and that the employment genuinely caused it. Lawrence Joseph, The Causation Issue in Workers' Compensation Mental Disability Cases: an Analysis, Solutions, and a Perspective, 36 VAND. L.REV. 263, 288 (1983); see id. at 288 n. 104 (citing supportive cases). Joseph further explains how courts can appropriately deal with predisposition: Courts generally have recognizedconsistent with present medical knowledgethat an individual's personal psychological disposition in part causes employment related mental injuries. Accordingly, courts have interpreted the arise-out-of employment requirement to account for this element of personal susceptibility. This interpretation arises from the axiom in workers' compensation law that employers must take employees as they arewith their personal bodily and mental deficiencies. Therefore, the appropriate arise-out-of employment inquiry in mental disability cases is whether the workers' employment aggravates, accelerates, or combines with his personal mental disposition to produce his disability. Id. at 299. Both Larson and Joseph cite to numerous cases throughout the country that recognize physical-mental claims without imposition of an objective test. A review of some of them demonstrates that while courts may apply slightly different language in the causation standard, they are straightforward tests that connect disability to the accident. For example, in Gartrell v. Dep't of Correction, 259 Conn. 29, 787 A.2d 541, 548-49 (C2002), the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiff that the aggravation of a preexisting psychiatric condition was compensable as a distinct injury when it was the direct consequence of a work-related physical injury; the court so held in part in recognition of a fundamental tenet of workers' compensation law . . . that an employer takes the employee in the state of health in which if finds the employee. Id. at 549 (internal quotation omitted). Regarding a causal standard, the court held that the physical injury had to be a but for cause of the aggravation. Id. In Illinois, psychological disabilities are compensable where a physical injury is a causative factor: [A] disability caused by a neurosis is compensable if it resulted from an accidental injury. The work-related accident need not be the sole causative factor of the neurosis but need be only a causative factor of the condition. Further, even where the psychological condition was a preexisting one, if the work-related accident aggravated the condition, it is compensable. Amoco Oil Co. v. Industrial Comm'n, 218 Ill.App.3d 737, 161 Ill.Dec. 397, 578 N.E.2d 1043, 1050 (1991) (internal citations omitted). [19] Illinois's ready compensation of physical-mental claims dates back at least to 1924. See United States Fuel Co. v. Industrial Comm'n, 313 Ill. 590, 145 N.E. 122, 123 (1924) (It is immaterial whether this [permanent incapacity to work] is caused by a physical injury or a mental disorder resulting from the injury.). The case of Love v. McDonald's Restaurant illustrates an example of another court that struggled to reach a proper standard in physical-mental claims. See 13 Kan.App.2d 397, 771 P.2d 557 (1989). In Love, the claimant fell down some stairs at work and later claimed that her neurosis was connected to that workplace accident. Id. at 558. Kansas's early cases had involved physical injuries, wherein the court applied the rule that the neurosis was compensable if directly traceable to the physical injury. Id. The court then considered mental-mental claims and added a causal element that sought to link the workplace to the ultimate disability. Id. This was because the statute specifically called for personal injury by accident; thus, absent the accident, the court imposed a causal connection requirement linking the claimed emotional disability to the workplace environmenta clearly distinct test for the distinct situation presented by gradual stress mental-mental claims. However, in a later case, the court then conflated the two tests, such that traumatic neurosis was compensable only if the mental disability [was] directly traceable to a work-related physical injury and could also be causally connected to the conditions and requirements of claimant's job. Id. at 559 (emphasis in Love; internal quotation and citation omitted). The appeals court in Love rejected the conflated test and returned to the straightforward requirement that the disability be directly traceable to a workplace accident. Id. at 560. This case further supports the distinction between physical-mental and mental-mental claims. The Kansas courts only created a new causal test in the absence of the physical accident because it was only then that work-connectedness was in doubt. If the employee proves the disability and proves that it is connected to a physical workplace accident (directly traceable in Kansas; causative factor in Illinois; but for in Connecticut), then there is no problem establishing that the disability arose out of employment.