As is well known to the workers’ compensation practitioner, work-related psychological injuries are challenging, to say the least, as the case law of the last decade has not been favorable to the injured worker. The burden of proof in a claim petition proceeding dealing with a disability caused by psychological or mental factors is divided into three categories: physical/mental, which is a psychiatric disability caused by a work-related physical trauma; mental/mental, which focuses on a psychological impairment stemming from nonphysical stimuli at work; and mental/physical, which pertains to an actual, physical injury that is brought about by psychological stress.
Many attorneys do not take psychological impairment cases as a matter of course, given that the mental/mental variety has a much higher burden of proof than the other categories. According to the 1990 state Supreme Court case of Martin v. Ketchum, injured workers claiming a “mental/mental” injury must demonstrate “abnormal working conditions” in an effort to prove that the work-related stress is not caused by subjective, perceived or imagined employment stressors. Since that time, case after case has been rejected by the appellate courts as not compensable due to a supposed lack of abnormal working conditions. Therefore, practitioners are often wary of getting involved in any psychological injury cases.
