Post-traumatic stress disorder  and depression are frequently at issue in workers’ compensation claims, often giving rise to complex questions regarding the appropriate course of treatment. While traditional modalities such as counseling and daily prescription medications can be effective for some individuals, these treatments do […]

What Do You Think? To obtain compensation for an occupational disease, an employee has to show that she had the condition and that her job caused it. A case involving an emergency dispatcher highlights the […]

Case File Was a deputy's exacerbation of PTSD after shooting someone in the line of duty more like a heart attack or tripping with arthritis? A New Jersey court weighed in on determining "injury" under […]

Case File Although performing CPR on people, including children, who might not pull through isn't beyond what a firefighter might expect on the job, witnessing the deaths of two babies in a 16-month period following […]

What Do You Think? An employer can end up owing a sizable penalty to an employee if it denies his workers’ compensation claim and that denial is “frivolous.” As one case shows, there are special […]

What Do You Think? To recover for a mental injury, it must be caused by work-related stress that is truly unusual for the job in question. Because firefighters respond to a lot of difficult situations, […]

Federal Focus A Transportation Security Administration worker had to watch a training video on shootings and participate in an active shooter role play scenario, which triggered his PTSD and supported his workers' compensation argument. Simply […]

Case File Work is stressful—sometimes very stressful. But an employee is unlikely to have a compensable claim based on stress alone. Instead, she’ll have to show that stress was out of the ordinary—greater than what […]