Workers’ Compensation System and Disability Claims for Stress

As the wife of a workers’ compensation lawyer, I have some specific responses to Ralph Frammolino’s article, “Claims for Stress Devour Billions” (Part I, March 15).

First let me relate the circumstances of a couple of stress cases my husband is handling. One involves a worker who has won awards for high production in her company. It is her company’s policy to encourage workers to beat their own top rate of production. Unless the worker produces more than she did last year, no matter how much she accomplishes, in the eyes of her employer, it is not enough. The longer my husband’s client worked for the company, the harder she tried to surpass her own past successes, the more hours of overtime (uncompensated) she worked, and the more symptoms of stress she suffered--loss of appetite, insomnia, and the resultant decline in health and well-being.

Increasingly common are stress cases filed by nurses, whose employers, responding to economic pressures, are notorious for understaffing and overworking nurses.

Relentless demands of some employers do cause real and debilitating stress to their workers. Until such employers change the policies that cause such terrible pressure on workers, workers will suffer; some will break down, some will seek compensation.

Right now the law provides a remedy to the injured worker through workers’ compensation, a no-fault insurance designed to keep the litigation costs down and to keep the workers’ awards down.

Stress claims are tremendously difficult to prove. Actual stress, not merely perceived stress, must be proved (which injury often manifests itself in emotional or psychological symptoms that are hard to measure). Further, it must be proved that the cause of such injury is due to the job.

The “opportunistic lawyers” that the Californians for Compensation Reform complain about are restricted by law to a fee that is about 12% of the worker’s settlement. Doctors (who are indispensable experts to both sides) usually earn substantially more than the lawyers. Their fees are not restricted by law.

After spending a few years listening to my husband talk about cases, there is at least one way I can think of to reduce costs. Instead of both the applicant and the defendant hiring doctors evaluate the worker’s injuries, the parties could hire only one doctor, an independent medical examiner, who represents neither side in the case, thereby potentially cutting these costs by half.

LOIS WARREN

Los Angeles