New DSM Criteria Manual Challenged by Expert for Lack of Validity

Setting standards for the assessment of psychiatric criteria in workers' compensation claims has been a major challenge. Subjective criteria has been difficult for the experts, evaluators and courts to yield an objective analysis.

With a new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or

D.S.M., to be published a new challenge to the assessment tool has been made.

"Just weeks before the long-awaited publication of a new edition of the so-called bible of mental disorders, the federal government’s most prominent psychiatric expert has said the book suffers from a scientific 'lack of validity.'"

Read the complete article "Psychiatry’s Guide Is Out of Touch With Science, Experts Say" NY Times

Survivors of COVID-19 appear to be at increased risk of psychiatric sequelae

A recent study concludes that survivors of COVID-19 appear to be at increased risk of psychiatric sequelae. This reports reflects the potential for an increased surge of workers’ compensation claims attributed to exposure to coronavirus in the workplace.

Neurological symptoms like fatigue common in mild COVID

Neurological and psychiatric symptoms such as fatigue and depression are common among people with Covid-19 and maybe just as likely in people with mild cases, according to a new review study led by a UCL researcher.

Urgent Care Centers Opening For People With Mental lllness

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org

Hoping to keep more people with mental illness out of jails and emergency rooms, county health officials opened a mental health urgent care center Wednesday in South Los Angeles.

The goal of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Mental Health Urgent Care Center is to stabilize and treat people in immediate crisis while connecting them to ongoing care. Run by Exodus Recovery, it will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and can serve up to 16 adults and six adolescents. During their stay of up to one day, patients will undergo a psychiatric evaluation, receive on-the-spot care such as counseling and medication and be referred for longer-term treatment.

The center can take people in severe crisis and expects many will be brought in by police and paramedics, said Connie Dinh, vice president of nursing services for Exodus. But she said it cannot accept people who are incoherent, extremely aggressive or need emergency medical attention. They will still need to be treated at hospitals or inpatient psychiatric facilities.

Staff will be able to place people on 72-hour psychiatric holds if they are a danger to themselves or others.

Mental health urgent care centers, also known as crisis stabilization units, are opening throughout California in response to the shortage of psychiatric beds and the increase in patients with mental illnesses showing up at hospital emergency rooms with nowhere else to go,...


[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• Medicare Experiment Could Signal Sea Change For Hospice (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Are Your Medical Records Vulnerable To Theft? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• HHS Inspector General Scrutinizes Medicare Observation Care Policy (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• The Latest In Medical Convenience: ER Appointments (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• California: Medical Delay and Denial Protested (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Questions About Who Should Perform In-Office Surgeries (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Credibility is Essential Where Superseding Intervening Events Exist - Unpublished Opinion

Credible evidence is essential in the proof of a workers’ compensation case. To prove a case at trial the parties must offer credible evidence to the trier of the facts, especially where there appears to be a laundry list of intervening and superseding events since the time of the accident at work.

Getting Tattoos Evidences Total Disability

An injured worker, who obtained tattoos to camouflage surgical scars of 6 surgical interventions, was held to be totally and permanently disabled. The evidence, presented at the time of trial, was found by the Judge of Compensation to provide a basis for an increase in the worker’s psychiatric disability that rendered the employee unable to work.

The worker testified that the side effects of a laundry list of medications that manifested low stamina and dry eyes. The drugs included:

• Buspar, an anti-anxiety medication, three times a day
• Nortiptyline, and anti-pain and antidepressant medication, three times a day
• Oxycontin, a pain medication, four times a day
• Topomax, a seizure medication used for pain relief, twice a day
• Methodone, a pain medication, four times a day
• Wellbutrin, an antidepressant, two to three times a day
• Bethanechol, a medication for dry mouth
• Prevacid, a stomach medication

The appellate forum affirmed the decision of the trial judge, Stephen Tuber, who in an extensive written decision  rejected the opinions of the respondent’s medical experts, Drs. Galina and Effron in favor of that of the petitioner’s expert, Dr. Peter Crain.

Dr. Crain testified that the reason why the injured worker obtained the tattoos made “psychological sense.” The reviewing form held that “…She explained that she obtained tattoos to help her deal with her "suicidal ideation" and to camouflage the scars she bore from the multiple operations.”

Kiessling v. Prudential Insurance Company, NO. A-3051-08T23051-08T2,  2010 WL 1928711 (Decided May 10, 2010)

To read more about psychiatric disability and workers' compensation click here.

Click here for more information on how Jon L Gelman can assist you in a claim for workers' Compensation claim benefits.

NJ vaccine mandate imposed for Health Care Workers and others

NJ Governor Phil Murphy signed Executive Order No. 283, requiring covered workers at health care facilities and high-risk congregate settings to be up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, including having received a booster dose. All covered workers will be required to be vaccinated by the dates set forth in the Order and will no longer be permitted to submit to testing as an alternative to vaccination, except for the purposes of providing accommodation for individuals exempt from vaccination as set forth in the covered setting’s vaccination policy. This requirement aims to strengthen protections against the spread of COVID-19 and the highly transmissible Omicron variant to vulnerable populations across the state.

U.S. Department of Transportation Announces Final Rule on Traveling by Air with Service Animals

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it is revising its Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) regulation on the transportation of service animals by air to ensure a safe and accessible air transportation system.  The final rule on Traveling by Air with Service Animals can be found HERE.

Unpaid Intern? You Probably Aren't Protected Against Sexual Harassment

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

This story first appeared on ProPublica.

In 1994, Bridget O'Connor began an internship at Rockland Psychiatric Center, where one of the doctors allegedly began to refer to her as Miss Sexual Harassment, told her that she should participate in an orgy, and suggested that she remove her clothing before meeting with him. Other women in the office made similar claims.

Yet when O'Connor filed a lawsuit, her sexual harassment claims were dismissed because she was an unpaid intern. A federal appeals court affirmed the decision to throw out the claim.

Unpaid interns miss out on wages and employment benefits, but they can also find themselves in "legal limbo" when it comes to civil rights, according to law professor and intern labor rights advocate David Yamada. The O'Connor decision (the leading ruling on the matter, according to Yamada) held that because they don't get a paycheck, unpaid interns are not "employees" under the Civil Rights Act—and thus, they're not protected.

Federal policies echo court rulings. The laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including the Civil Rights Act, don't cover interns unless they receive "significant remuneration," according to commission spokesperson Joseph Olivares.

"At least with respect to the federal law that we enforce, an unpaid intern would not be legally protected by our laws prohibiting sexual harassment," Olivares said in an email to ProPublica.

It's unclear how many interns are sexually harassed at work....

[Click here to see the rest of this article]

VA pays out $200 million for nearly 1,000 veterans’ wrongful deaths

Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from cironline.org

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone. In Shreveport, La., a veteran overdoses on morphine while housed in a locked VA psychiatric unit. In a Minnesota VA psych ward, a veteran shoots himself in the head. In Portland, Ore., a delusional veteran jumps off the roof of the VA hospital. These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting. In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans. “It wasn’t about the money, I just thought somebody should be held accountable,” said 86-year-old Doris Street, who received a $135,000 settlement in 2010 as compensation for the 2008 death of her brother, Carl Glaze. The median payment in VA wrongful death cases was $150,000. Click for larger image Glaze, a...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Costliest 1 Percent Of Patients Account For 21 Percent Of U.S. Health Spending

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from www.kaiserhealthnews.org

A 58-year-old Maryland woman breaks her ankle, develops a blood clot and, unable to find a doctor to monitor her blood-thinning drug, winds up in an emergency room 30 times in six months. A 55-year-old Mississippi man with severe hypertension and kidney disease is repeatedly hospitalized for worsening heart and kidney failure; doctors don't know that his utilities have been disconnected, leaving him without air conditioning or a refrigerator in the sweltering summer heat. A 42-year-old morbidly obese woman with severe cardiovascular problems and bipolar disorder spends more than 300 days in a Michigan hospital and nursing home because she can't afford a special bed or arrange services that would enable her to live at home. These patients are among the 1 percent whose ranks no one wants to join: the costly cohort battling multiple chronic illnesses who consumed 21 percent of the nearly $1.3 trillion Americans spent on health care in 2010, at a cost of nearly $88,000 per person. Five percent of patients accounted for 50 percent of all health-care expenditures. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of patients accounted for just 2.8 percent of spending that year, according to a recent report by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Sometimes known as super-utilizers, high-frequency patients or frequent fliers, these patients typically suffer from heart failure, diabetes and kidney disease, along with a significant psychiatric problem. Some are...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• What to Do About Futile Critical Care (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Health Spending Over The Coming Decade Expected To Exceed Economic Growth (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Health Care Spending Will Peak Around 2025 and Then Flatten Out (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• 11 Barriers to Hand Hygiene Compliance (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Deaths Linked to Cardiac Stents Rise as Overuse Seen (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Law Will Shift Demographics For Medicaid Toward Healthier Group, Study Finds (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Many Cancer Patients Overtreated In Final Days (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Burnout Classified as a Medical Condition

Today's post is shared from etui.org 

Meeting in Geneva on 20-27 May 2019 for its 72nd session, the World Health Organization (WHO) World Assembly has taken a landmark decision. Referring to the conclusions of health experts, it has declared burn-out to be an “occupational phenomenon”, opening the door to having it classified in the WHO's International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Codenamed “QD85”, burn-out is now to be found in the section on “problems associated with employment or unemployment”.

In the words of the WHO, burn-out “specifically refers to phenomena related to the professional context and should not be used to describe experiences in other areas of life.”

The new International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) will come into force on January 1, 2022.

First identified in the 1970s, burn-out had not yet been listed in any of the international classifications (i.e, that of the WHO or the American Psychiatric Association).

The UNO’s specialist agency had initially stated that burn-out had been included as a disease in the ICD, a classification used for identifying health trends and statistics. However, the next day a WHO spokesperson issued a revised statement, saying that burn-out was going to be switched from the category “factors influencing health status” to “occupational phenomena”, though without being included in the list of “diseases”.

“Inclusion in this chapter means that burn-out is not conceptualized as a medical condition, but as an occupational phenomenon”, the spokesman clarified in a communiqué.

Click here to read about the ETUI

See also:

Vers une reconnaissance du burn-out comme maladie ?, in : Le Monde, 28/05/2019

The new WHO classification is available online: https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/129180281

WHO Press release

Labor groups ask employers to address "burnout" among their workers

…. 

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900jon@gelmans.com has been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

NJ Receives 1,181 COVID Complaints

The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) received 1,181 complaints from workers and customers in the first four weeks of Gov. Murphy’s executive order expanding workplace protections during COVID-19. 

NYC Prepares for the Next Pandemic

Planning ahead is critical to avoiding uncontrollable infectious diseases. Looking forward, employers and insurance carriers should expand their health prevention programs and join efforts like those New York City has announced to prepare for the next pandemic. Inventing prevention is a necessity.

NJ Governor Declares State of Emergency in Advance of Winter Storm

NJ Governor Murphy has declared that all State offices will close at 1pm on December 16, 2020 due to inclement weather conditions. Personnel who are not designated as weather essential should go home and continue to work their regular shift via telework. 

Subject of Smear Campaign Recovers for Psychiatric Condition

An employee, who was the object of a smear campaign that included being the subject of  circulated pornographic cartoons, was permitted to seek benefits for psychological residuals flowing from the humiliation, shock and anger that resulted in her loss of sleep. The worker was treated for an adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressive mood.


The trial court, that was affirmed, had concluded:


"...[t]he aforementioned events cannot be characterized as an honest attempt to ensure that an office is running in an efficient and effective manner. Here, [p]etitioner was subjected, in part, to a resignation rumor, a potentially improper layoff, together with the aforementioned . . . sexual propaganda . . . . [I]t shocks the conscience that same would have occurred over such a long period of time without otherwise being addressed by the employer."


In affirming the Appellate Court held:


"In finding in petitioner's favor, Judge Leslie A. Berich applied correct legal standards.  The Workers' Compensation Act is 'humane social legislation designed to place the cost of work connected injury upon the employer who may readily provide for it as an operating expense.'"


Lori Ross v. City of Asbury Park, Docket No. A-0379-08T3 


Click here to read more about stressful conditions and workers' compensation.

Medical Monitoring Available Under the Zadroga 9-11 Health Compensation Fund

The World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program is funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health under the Zadroga Act which was enacted last year.

MEDICAL TREATMENT for 9/11 responders
The program provides free treatment, including: doctor's visits, diagnostic testing and medications for WTC-covered conditions. Here is a list of covered conditions:

Aerodigestive Disorders

New onset or aggravation of pre-existing conditions for which clinical findings suggest onset is related to WTC exposure/injury:

• Interstitial lung diseases
• Chronic Respiratory Disorder –Fumes/Vapors
• Asthma
• Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome (RADS)
• WTC-exacerbated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Chronic Cough Syndrome
• Upper airway hyperreactivity
• Chronic rhinosinusitis
• Chronic nasopharyngitis
• Chronic laryngitis
• Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD)
• Sleep apnea exacerbated by or related to the above conditions

Mental Health Conditions
New onset or aggravation of pre-existing conditions for which clinical findings suggest onset is related to WTC exposure/injury:

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Major Depressive Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Anxiety Disorder (not otherwise specified)
• Depression (not otherwise specified)
• Acute Stress Disorder
• Dysthymic Disorder
• Adjustment Disorder
• Substance Abuse

“V codes” (treatments not specifically related to psychiatric disorders, such as marital problems, parenting problems etc.)

Musculoskeletal Disorders
New onset or aggravation of pre-existing conditions for which careful review of symptoms or other clinical information suggests relationship to WTC exposure/injury:

• Low back pain
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)
• Other musculoskeletal disorders

Are you eligible?
This program serves the workers and volunteers who responded to the September 11th attacks. If you did any paid work or volunteered, on or after September 11th, that was directly related to the disaster, you may qualify. To find out whether you are eligible, call 888-702-0630 or download and fill out an eligibility questionnaire and fax it to us at 212-241-1850.

For over 3 decades the Law Offices of Jon L. Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational and enviornmental exposures. Please contact our office if you require assistance in filing a claim under the newly enacted James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

Related articles

• Public Meeting Held On Zadroga Health Compensation Fund (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Zadroga Health Fund Benefits Scheduled to Begin in October (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• The James Zadroga 9/11 Health & Compensation Act of 2010 (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Special Master to be Appointed Soon for Zadroga Fund (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Zadroga Benefits for Utility Workers at World Trade Center Disaster Site For Anxiety (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Pulmonary Disease Linked to World Trade Center Disaster (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• NIOSH Seeks Information About World Trade Center Cancer Claims (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

OSHA: Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety

Within hours of his inauguration, President Biden moved swiftly to direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to promulgate an emergency standard to protect workers from COVID-19. The President signed an Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety on January 21, 2021.

NJ Supreme Court Bars Expansion of Injured Workers Remedies

Additional tort claim disallowed against insurance companies for intentional failure to comply with court of compensation's, an administrative agency, order to provide provide benefits.

Wade Stancil v. ACE USA (067640)
Argued 3/26/12 Decided 8/1/12 see http://tinyurl.com/d4pycqw

SYLLABUS 

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court.  It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the 

convenience of the reader.  It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court.  Please note that, in the 

interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized.) 

Wade Stancil v. ACE USA (A-112-10) (067640) 

Argued March 26, 2012 -- Decided August 1, 2012

HOENS, J., writing for a majority of the Court.

The Court considers whether an injured employee may sue his employer’s compensation carrier for pain and suffering caused by the carrier’s delay in paying for medical treatment, prescriptions, and other services. Plaintiff Wade Stancil was injured in 1995 while employed by Orient Originals.  He received workers’ compensation benefits from his employer’s compensation carrier, defendant ACE USA (ACE).  In 2006, following a  trial, the court of compensation determined that Stancil was totally disabled.  In 2007, Stancil filed a motion in the compensation court seeking an order compelling ACE to pay outstanding medical bills.  

During a hearing on the motion, the compensation judge commented that ACE had a history of failing to make payments when ordered to do so.  On September 12, 2007, the compensation judge granted Stancil’s motion, warned ACE against any further violation of the order to pay, and awarded Stancil counsel fees.  On October 29, 2007, the parties returned to the compensation court for a further proceeding relating to the disputed bills.  After finding that the bills identified in the September 12 order remained unpaid and that ACE’s failure to make payment was a willful and intentional violation of the order, the court issued another order compelling ACE to make immediate payment and again awarding counsel fees.  

The court commented on its limited ability to ensure that carriers would comply with orders, noted that it lacked the authority to enforce orders through contempt proceedings, found that Stancil had exhausted his administrative remedies, and suggested that he seek further relief in the Superior Court.  In 2008, Stancil underwent additional surgery and psychiatric treatment.  Stancil’s physician attributed the need for additional treatment to an earlier treatment delay caused by the carrier’s delay in paying medical providers.  

On April 15, 2009, Stancil filed this lawsuit in the Superior Court.  In his complaint, Stancil claimed that ACE required him to undergo medical examinations by physicians of its own choosing and then rejected the recommendations of those physicians and refused to authorize the recommended medical care.  The complaint stated further that Stancil obtained orders from the compensation court, but ACE failed to comply.  Stancil contended that ACE’s failure to authorize needed treatment caused him unnecessary pain and suffering, a worsening of his medical condition, and expenses that should have been paid by ACE.  ACE responded by filing a motion to dismiss the complaint.  ACE argued that the Workers’ Compensation Act, N.J.S.A. 34:15-1 to -142 (the Act), is the exclusive remedy for the claims pled in the complaint and therefore no damages could be awarded.  The trial court granted ACE’s motion.  The court analyzed the impact of then-recently adopted amendments to the Act and found that the Legislature had foreclosed resort to the Superior Court for the kind of tort-based relief demanded by Stancil.

The Appellate Division affirmed.  418 N.J. Super. 79 (App. Div. 2011).  The panel agreed with the trial court that The Legislature’s amendments to the Act foreclosed Stancil’s claims.  The panel also rejected Stancil’s argument that ACE’s willful disregard of compensation court orders met the Act’s intentional wrong exception to the litigation bar. The Supreme Court granted certification limited to determining whether an employee who suffered a work-related injury has a common-law cause of action for damages against a workers’ compensation carrier for its willful failure to comply with court orders compelling it to provide medical treatment when the delay or denial of treatment causes a worsening of the employee’s medical condition and/or pain and suffering.  207 N.J. 66 (2011).  

HELD:  An injured employee does not have a common law right of action against a workers’ compensation carrier for pain and suffering caused by the carrier’s delay in paying for or authorizing treatment because 1) the workers’ compensation system was designed to provide injured workers with a remedy outside of the ordinary tort or contract remedies cognizable in the Superior Court; 2) in amending the Workers’ Compensation Act in 2008, the Legislature rejected a provision that would have given the compensation courts broader permission to authorize a resort to the Superior Court and adopted a remedy that permits compensation courts to act through a contempt power; and 3) 2allowing a direct common-law cause of action against a carrier would undermine the workers’ compensation system by substituting a cause of action that would become the preferred manner of securing relief.

CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER, JUSTICE LaVECCHIA, and JUDGE WEFING (temporarily assigned) join  in JUSTICE HOENS’s opinion. JUSTICE ALBIN filed a separate, dissenting opinion. JUSTICE  PATTERSON did not participate.

Related Blog Articles

Workers' Compensation: Bad Faith Claims Maybe Going to the Jury

Aug 05, 2011

The lower court had rejected the case and dismissed it holding that the jurisdiction for bad faith is exclusively within the purview of the Division of Workers' Compensation. Stancil v. ACE USA, 418 N.J. Super. 79, 12 A. 3rd 223...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

NJ Supreme Court To Rule on Several Critical Issues

Apr 23, 2012

A-112-10 Wade Stancil v. ACE USA (067640). 3. The Exclusivity Rule: Under the circumstances of this case, which include a finding by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that the accident was the result ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Related articles

• Willful OSHA Violation Alone Not Enough Alone to Circumvent the Exclusivity Doctrine
• Exclusivity Rule Adopted in MDL Aviation Law Case
• Aging Population Requires More Attention

Compensation denied for false imprisonment type situation

The NJ Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of an employee's claim for mental disability based upon confinement by the employer against her will. The reviewing tribunal accepted the rationale of the the compensation court judge that the event was not a material contributing cause of the disability.

Since the amendment to the NJ workers' compensation act in 1979, an employer is not responsible for a condition that is not materially contributing by the employment. Prior to 1979 the standard was that the employer took the employee as they found him or her. If the work related event was the "straw that broke the camel's back," the employer was then responsible for the end result.

In this instance, the trial judge had found that the employee had a pre-existing mental disability following from childhood sexual abuse and that condition was the sole material contributing cause of the injured workers' mental disability. The employment episode was deemed unrelated.

The Court held: "Here, the judge found appellant's history of childhood sexual abuse was in fact the true source of her disability; this finding is similar to Goyden, where the court found the appellant's compulsive personality and childhood problems caused his unfortunate reactions to his work environment. Id. at 458–59. Here, the testimony of Dr. Pipchick yields a similar analysis; she clearly stated that without the childhood sexual abuse, appellant would not have had the disabling response to the incident. Even though the incident may have “triggered” the appellant's PTSD, it did not cause the disability, and thus there is no basis for compensation."

For additional analysis of workers' compensation psychiatric disability claims see Gelman, Workers' Compensation Law, 38 NJ Practice 9.12 Psychological Disability--Harassment: "In Goyden the NJ Supreme Court rendered a split decision regarding the standard for awarding permanent disability for psychological illness arising out of stressful work conditions. The Court affirmed the opinion of the Appellate Division which stated that stress must stem from objectively proven stressful work conditions rather than from conditions the petitioner found stressful. The Court required the establishment of conditions “peculiar” to the workplace, conditions which justified the medical opinion that they were the “material” causes of the petitioner's disability.....“That Goyden's particular characteristics as a person may have made him more sensitive or susceptible to the influences of stress or even predisposed to develop a psychological illness does not impugn the Court's conclusion that his disability arose out of and in the course of employment,” the minority wrote. Goyden v. State, Judiciary, 128 N.J. 54, 607 A.2d 622 (1992)."

Rizzo v. Kean University, Not Reported in A.3d, 2014 WL 2590281 (N.J.Super.A.D.) June 12, 2014

Related articles

• Alleged Claim of Assault by Employer Results in a Dismissal
• Court Holds OSHA HazCom Standard Not A Bar To State Failure to Warn Claims
• Counsel Fees Awarded Against An Employer Who Failed to Pay Timely
• Duration of Temporary Disability Payments Increasing
• California's Independent Medical Review System Unreasonably Denies Injured Workers Benefits