Opinion ID: 1656139
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: This is a case of first impression in Iowa but courts elsewhere have been presented with it:

Text: The largest volume of recent legislation on the meaning of injury has involved various mental and nervous conditions which, as the tangible effects of mental states on physical functions are better understood, have come to play a large part in modern concepts of disability. The cases may be thought of, for convenience, in three groups: mental stimulus causing physical injury; physical trauma causing nervous injury; and mental stimulus causing nervous injury. Larson, Law of Workers' Compensation, § 42.20 at 7-784. We need not decide whether any such claim is allowable under the Iowa statute because we find no record support for allowing Newman's claim under any of the three groups of cases last mentioned by Professor Larson. As to the first and third groups, there was no evidence of any work-related mental stimulus. There was no fright or shock. And no job stress, even subjective in nature, is even claimed. We are then left only with Larson's second group of cases: physical trauma causing nervous injury. If the physical trauma was imaginary it can form no basis for recovery because, on this record, it was a product of Newman's mental condition and not his work. We find no cases which permit recovery when employment merely provided a stage for the nervous injury. See Albertson's Inc. v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board of California, 131 Cal.App.3d 308, 316, 182 Cal.Rptr. 304, 309 (1982). [1] Newman's showing rose no higher than evidence of imagined physical traumathe alleged scalding of his throat. Under the circumstances we think this did not amount to substantial evidence of physical trauma. A number of factors combine to lead us to this conclusion: Newman's preexisting mental condition; strong evidence that the explosion he claimsand that nobody else sawwas physically impossible; and the absence of any objective sign of trauma. We neither accept nor reject any of the three Larson categories of nervous condition cases. (Neither do we accept the commissioner's conclusion that imaginary trauma can be the proximate cause of a compensable injury.) Newman's showing will not support a recovery under any recognized theory. The trial court was correct in reversing the commissioner's decision. AFFIRMED.