Divided over the issue, the Michigan Supreme Court on Friday tossed what it considered a “rigid” legal test when determining whether post-traumatic stress disorder and non-epileptic seizures were connected to a dietician’s electrocution and fall from a ladder, thus reviving the disability claim earlier rulings suggested were not proven to be connected to the workplace injury.
Doctors disagreed whether the worker’s 2012 fall while cleaning a light fixture at Transitional Health Services of Wayne, Michigan, which caused head and shoulder injuries, were connected to the woman’s mental injury diagnosis, which the defense in No. 163559 argued could have been related to abuse, a divorce and other family issues.
At issue was a four-factor legal test that stemmed from a 2001 case Martin v. Pontiac Sch Dist., which the ruling described as “initially designed to be used merely as a ‘guide’ when determining whether a plaintiff has demonstrated that their workplace injury significantly contributed to the claimed disability” that “has morphed into a straitjacket” legal requirement for disability, according to the ruling.
As outlined in Martin, the validity of a claim is weighed based on “(1) the number of occupational and nonoccupational contributors to the disability, (2) the relative amount of contribution of each contributor, (3) the duration of each contributor, and (4) the extent of permanent effect that resulted from each contributor.”
Applying the so-called “Martin test,” a magistrate, the Michigan Compensation Appellate Commission, and the state Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the employer, arguing there was no “objective” evidence connecting the woman’s mental injuries to her fall from a ladder and electrocution.
Four state Supreme Court justices called the Martin test “rigid” and instead applied 1993 case law outlined in Farrington v Total Petroleum Inc. to reverse and remand the case. Under the so-called “Farrington test,” an injured worker “must show that their health injury was significantly caused or aggravated by employment considering the totality of all the occupational factors and the claimant’s health circumstances and nonoccupational factors.”
Two judges dissented because “there was a lack of evidence supporting (the) plaintiff’s claim of developing non-epileptic seizures as a result of her accident” and that “the case was a poor vehicle to consider altering the longstanding standards set forth” in the Martin test.