Court Opinion

ID: 9577885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:06.791311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:24.389059
License: Public Domain

PIERCE, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent.
Contrary to the holding of the majority, distress over a disciplinary action does not meet the Colorado statutory definition of injury and therefore is not compensable. *742Accordingly, I would set aside the Commission’s order.
A few more facts will help explain my position. As the majority has stated, the claimant was involved in an altercation with a patient. The patient complained to the hospital administration, and an investigation ensued. As a result, a corrective action against claimant was taken based on the hospital director’s conclusion that claimant had failed to comply with standards of efficient performance because his actions increased the power struggle between the patient and himself, rather than decreasing it. Claimant was administratively suspended with pay for five days, changed to another shift, and required to attend an assaultive patient workshop.
Following his suspension, he returned to work. However, he testified that he was “very apprehensive, nervous, and really upset.”
Approximately seven weeks after the suspension, claimant consulted a psychiatrist. That psychiatrist testified that the disciplinary action was a major source of stress for claimant who had never been disciplined before in his professional career. Another psychiatrist testified on behalf of the petitioners that claimant had a personality disorder, but he diagnosed it as having existed throughout most of claimant’s adult life and opined that the incident involving the patient was a symptom of claimant’s disorder, not a cause of it.
The testimony indicated that claimant had pre-existing hypertension. However, the record does not clearly establish that this hypertension was of the type that is responsive to environmental stimuli. Claimant testified that, to his knowledge, he had no hypertension before working at Fort Logan.
The Commission concluded that “but for the incident ... and claimant’s resultant perception of the incident, the manifestation of claimant’s condition would not have occurred.” It ruled that there was an aggravation of a pre-existing psychiatric condition which was caused by a work-related incident.
Cases involving mental disabilities are generally divided into three categories: (1) mental-physical, where a mental stimulus causes physical injury, e.g., City of Boulder v. Street, 706 P.2d 786 (Colo.1985); (2) physical-mental, where a physical stimulus causes a mental disability; and (3) mental-mental, where a mental disability is caused by a mental stimulus, In re Claim of Aurora v. Industrial Commission, 710 P.2d 1122 (Colo.App.1985). See IB A. Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, 42.23 (1985); Troost, Workers’ Compensation & Gradual Stress in the Workplace, 133 U.Pa.L.Rev. 847 (1985). Within this last category there are two distinct situations: (1) a mental disability which is caused by an identifiable incident of sudden shock, thus resembling an “accident”; or (2) a mental disability which is a result of protracted or gradual mental stimulus such as stress, thereby resembling an occupational disease as in In re Claim of Aurora, supra.
Asserted here is a mental disability in the mental-mental category which resembles an “accident.” Thus, in order to establish its existence, claimant must establish the elements of § 8-41-108(1), C.R.S., which states that an accident is:
“[A]n unforeseen event occurring without the will or design of the person whose mere act causes it; an unexpected, unusual, or undesigned occurrence; or the effect of an unknown cause or, the cause being known, an unprecedented consequence of it.”
The critical question here is whether claimant’s altercation with a patient, or a disciplinary action such as the one that claimant was subjected to, is such an unforeseen or unexpected or unusual occurrence that it could properly support the compensation of a subsequent mental disability. I would rule that it is not.
Situations which typically support compensation of a mental disability resulting from some mental or emotional shock are exemplified by Chernin v. Progress Service Co., 9 N.Y.2d 880, 216 N.Y.S.2d 697, *743175 N.E.2d 827 (1961) (taxicab driver developed paranoid schizophrenia after his cab struck a pedestrian); Pathfinder Co. v. Industrial Commission, 62 Ill.2d 556, 343 N.E.2d 913 (1976) (worker began suffering from headaches, numbness, and nervousness after seeing a coworker’s severed hand); and Peters v. New York State Agriculture & Industrial School, 64 A.D.2d 749, 406 N.Y.S.2d 638 (1978) (child-care worker suffered severe emotional reaction to a riot by twenty-five delinquent boys who were under his supervision).
I am aware that a previous statutory definition linking accident and injury to trauma was entirely eliminated by a 1965 statutory amendment. See T & T Loveland Chinchilla Ranch v. Bourn, 173 Colo. 267, 477 P.2d 457 (1970). However, the current statute nevertheless requires an “unexpected” or “unusual” occurrence. A disciplinary action or an altercation with a mental patient, not being out of the ordinary in the circumstances of claimant’s employment, does not meet this criterion.
I would further note that the Commission’s application of a “but for” test is not the appropriate test. A claimant in a workmen’s compensation case has the burden of proving entitlement to benefits by a preponderance of evidence. Boulder v. Streeb, supra. Use of a “but for” test lessens that burden because it weakens the requirement that claimant prove that the existence of a contested fact is more probable than its nonexistence. See Industrial Commission v. Jones, 688 P.2d 1116 (Colo.1984).
Therefore, under the circumstances at issue, the Commission erred in concluding that claimant had sustained a compensable industrial injury.