Objective test needed for stress claims
A New Brunswick court has ruled a federal employee’s claim for workers’ compensation for depression stemming from workplace stress shouldn’t be subject to provincial limitations on what constitutes compensable stress.
Sheila Stewart was an employee of the federal government in New Brunswick. She felt she wasn’t being given enough work by her supervisor, who gave other employees overtime even though she was available. Her disenchantment was compounded by what she perceived as difficult working conditions, including a vent over her workstation that blew cold air on her and contributed to shoulder problems, as well as low shelves that required her to kneel to file materials. When she complained about the workstation, she was moved to another workstation that was configured differently.
Stewart’s supervisor later asked her if she wanted to return to her former position. At the time, it would have been a sideways move as both jobs paid the same. However, shortly after she transferred, the position she left was reclassified to a higher wage rate. Stewart felt she was tricked and her supervisor knew ahead of time about the reclassification but didn’t tell her.
Workers’ comp claim from gradual onset stress
Over time, Stewart’s stress built up and she developed depression. She filed a claim with the New Brunswick Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission (WHSCC). Stewart said the gradual onset of stress at work constituted an accident under the Government Employees’ Compensation Act (GECA), which applied to all federal employees regardless of where they worked.
The WHSCC and its appeals tribunal both denied Stewart’s claim, finding the depression and stress weren’t the result of a workplace accident as defined by New Brunswick’s Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA). The GECA stipulated federal employees were to receive compensation “at the same rate and under the same conditions as are provided under the law of the province where the employee is usually employed,” found the tribunal.
New Brunswick’s WCA excluded the gradual onset of stress at work from its definition of an accident, so an accident under the GECA had to exclude it as well, said the tribunal.
However, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal disagreed, finding the GECA provision that provided for the same conditions as provincial legislation was intended to mirror a province’s compensation scheme once entitlement had been determined, not to redefine the GECA’s own definitions.
“Parliament has not, in my view, delegated to the legislature of each province the right to amend federal legislation by redefining ‘accident’ in GECA in the province’s own image,” said the court. “Nor did Parliament intend to create a patchwork across Canada whereby federal employees in different provinces are faced with different thresholds for proving a compensable injury.”
The court of appeal sent the case back to the tribunal to determine whether Stewart’s gradual onset of stress qualified as an accident under the GECA definition. However, the tribunal denied the appeal because Stewart wasn’t present at the hearing. The court questioned the tribunal’s approach in requiring Stewart to be present and decided to address the matter itself.
Federal scope for stress compensation broader than provincial: Court
Gradual onset of stress caused by work factors was a work-related accident under the definition in the GECA, found the court, which stated an “accident includes a willful and an intentional act.” The word “includes” indicated the intention of the act was to give an “expansive definition” that doesn’t exclude mental stress, said the court. While most provincial legislation specifically excludes stress unless it is caused by “an acute reaction to a traumatic event” — as in New Brunswick’s WCA — the GECA has no such restriction.
The tribunal had already found Stewart’s depression and stress were caused by work factors when it found it wasn’t caused by an acute reaction to a traumatic event, noted the court. Since it was work-related, the door was open to compensation, it said.
There were no limitations to the meaning of “accident” in the GECA, which was “pan-Canadian” and not limited by the policies of provincial jurisdictions, said the court. That said, the determination for an injury caused by gradual onset of stress should have a higher bar than an obvious physical injury, it said. The majority of the court agreed there should be an objective test of how a reasonable person would react to the factors that contributed to Stewart’s stress.
The work given to others was of a different job classification than Stewart’s. Given the employer’s right to assign work, a reasonable person wouldn’t expect the employer to assign work to someone at a different classification, found the court.
Stewart had asked for a stool to use with lower shelves and was provided with one. Therefore, a reasonable person wouldn’t expect the low shelves to cause the stress it did for Stewart, said the court.
A reasonable person also would expect Stewart to be assigned a different station after she complained about the conditions at her original station and not that she would react negatively, found the court.
Finally, the court looked at Stewart’s claim she was tricked into transferring to her old position shortly before the position she left was reclassified. It was common knowledge in the office both positions were subject to a reclassification review and she took a chance by transferring, said the court. And there was no evidence the supervisor knew the result of the review in advance.
Applying the objectivity test, Stewart was not entitled to compensation because her gradual onset of stress wasn’t an accident, said the court.
Stress caused by normal job environment not compensable
One Court of Appeal judge, Justice Joseph Robertson, agreed with the majority but for different reasons. The test for whether gradual onset of stress is a compensable injury should not be reasonableness but whether the cause is “unusual or excessive” for the workplace, said Robertson.
Otherwise, “compensation would be available for an archipelago of subjectively and irrationally unpleasant disagreements in one’s workplace life that, in the fullness of time, weigh, along with other stressors of daily life, upon a person’s mental well-being to the point of giving rise to a medical diagnosis of depression.
“The events which (Stewart) singled out as being evidence of harassment and intimidation were nothing more than instances of normal interaction between employees,” said Robertson.
For more information see:
•Stewart v. Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission, 2010 NBCA 67 (N.B. C.A.).
Jeffrey R. Smith is the editor of Canadian Employment Law Today, a publication that looks at workplace law from a business perspective. For more information, see employmentlawtoday.com.
