N.Y. Court Finds Enough Medical Evidence to Award Benefits to School Bus Driver’s Estate

Case File

While questions swirled of whether a school bus driver had a heart attack before or after he collided with other vehicles, medical evidence was sufficient to support a finding that impact came before the cardiac event, supporting an award of benefits.

Case

Matter of Greek v. Dansville Cent. Sch. Dist., Nos. CV-23-2419, CV-24-1269 (N.Y. App. Div. 10/15/26).

What Happened?

A school bus driver for a New York school district, which was self-employed, was under the care of a cardiologist for "extra heartbeats." The condition had been treated and posed "no imminent risk of syncopal episode or other symptoms that would" affect the driver's ability to safely operate a school bus.

Nonetheless, while driving an empty bus into the parking lot of the district's bus garage, the driver lost control due to an apparent medical event and crashed into another bus parked nearby. The driver was found to be unresponsive and in ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest.

The driver was transported to the hospital, where he remained comatose until his death five days later.

The driver's spouse filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits, and when she died, the estate took over.

Regarding the lifetime claim, a Workers' Compensation Law Judge rejected the district's argument that the lifetime claim should abate due to the driver's death, and the Workers' Compensation Board affirmed.

The district appealed to Appellate Division.

Rule of Law

In New York, an employee's injury is compensable when it arises both out of and in the course of employment, meaning that it must be a natural incident to the work, one of the risks connected with the employment, flowing therefrom as a natural consequence and directly connected with the work. Also, the injury must have been received while the employee was doing the work for which he was employed.

What Appellate Division Said

According to Appellate Division, the accident indisputably occurred while the driver was working and led to injuries, leaving questions of whether the accident and certain of those injuries also arose out of his employment. Appellate Division keyed in on evidence from a physician who conducted review of the driver's medical records on behalf of the district. The physician admitted that he had assumed that the driver lost consciousness before the accident due to a cardiac event.

On the other hand, the driver's cardiologist testified that it was "unclear" what caused the driver to go into ventricular fibrillation and that it would have been "surprising" for a premature ventricular contraction to do so given the lack of prior indication that the driver was prone to sustained abnormal heart rhythms.

Rather, the driver's cardiologist opined that chest trauma could cause such an arrhythmia, and another doctor who treated the driver after the accident agreed that chest trauma could have precipitated his fatal arrhythmia. This doctor testified that it was impossible to be "absolutely certain" whether the arrhythmia occurred before the accident or was caused by trauma he sustained in the accident itself.

"The Board therefore found that the credible medical proof did not establish that an unrelated cardiac event caused decedent to lose consciousness prior to the accident and that all of decedent's ensuing injuries were compensable since they were either caused by the work-related accident itself or by necessary medical treatment for the injuries he sustained," the court wrote. "Notwithstanding evidence that might support a different result, '[a]ccording deference to the Board's resolution of credibility issues with regard to the conflicting medical evidence and witness testimony, we find that substantial evidence supports the Board's determination that claimant's injuries arose out of and in the course of [his] employment"

Verdict: Appellate Division affirmed the Board's ruling.

Takeaway

When the Workers' Compensation Board makes a credibility determination on medical evidence, Appellate Division won't disturb the Board's finding absent substantial evidence to the contrary.

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