Mental harm from on-the-job accidents must be compensated like physical injury, NM justices rule

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Nov. 20, 2023 in Santa Fe. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)

Workers in New Mexico who suffer mental harm from a physical injury on the job can seek full compensation, the state’s highest court has ruled.

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Monday overturned the state’s limits on how long someone can receive workers’ compensation benefits for a “secondary mental impairment” caused by a physical workplace injury.

In a unanimous 21-page ruling , the justices said part of the state Workers’ Compensation Act that caps benefits for mental impairments violated the New Mexico Constitution.

Workers with mental impairments were treated differently than workers with subsequent physical disabilities stemming from an injury, which violated the equal protection clause, the justices wrote.

For example, in a previous case , a man who injured one leg and walked around on crutches ended up blowing out his other leg and both shoulders, explained attorney Victor Titus. That man got full benefits for the subsequent injuries, while Titus’ client who suffered mental harm after a physical workplace injury did not.

Workers with both mental and physical disabilities lose some capacity to work, the justices wrote on Monday, and a mental disability affects workers in the same way a physical one does by preventing them from earning a wage.

“The idea that mentally disabled workers may be entitled to recover less compensation than physically disabled workers is contrary to the purposes of the Act, which guide our equal protection analysis,” they wrote.

On Jan. 21, 2016, special education teacher Ana Lilia Cardenas injured her left knee while trying to restrain a student in a chair at Aztec Municipal Schools, according to court records. The student allegedly fought with Cardenas, and the chair tipped over and hurt her knee. A doctor found the knee injury caused mental harm.

Workers’ Compensation Administration Judge Reginald Woodard in March 2019 awarded Cardenas 150 weeks of benefits for her knee. Monday’s ruling struck down the part of the law which limited her benefits for the damage to her mind to the maximum allowed for her knee.

Cardenas appealed in April 2019, and argued the mental harm should have been treated as a separate injury and therefore entitled her to between 500 and 700 weeks of benefits. She argued the law itself treated workers with a subsequent physical injury differently from those with a subsequent mental one.

Titus, Cardenas’ attorney, said in an interview on Monday the ruling is significant because everybody’s mental injuries will be compensated like their physical counterparts.

“Those people will now be treated similarly to a subsequent physical injury that arises,” Titus said.

The Court of Appeals ruled in Cardenas’ favor in January 2022, and a month later the Aztec Municipal Schools and its insurer asked the Supreme Court to review the decision.

Joshua Collins, the attorney for the school district, was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.

According to court rules, the school district could ask the justices to hear the case again, if it can say they overlooked or misunderstood some point of state law or fact. It would have to do so by April 16.

Not the first time

In 2005, the Supreme Court found the law’s limits on benefits for mental impairments was unconstitutional.

Lawmakers tried to address this problem by amending the law in 2015. That change tied the maximum benefits for a mental impairment to the maximum for the physical injury that caused it.

Cardenas argued this didn’t solve the problem, and the law was still unconstitutional.

This area of law comes up in almost every legislative session, said Titus, who has argued more than 20 workers’ compensation cases before the court.

“In every one of them, they try to do what they call the ‘fix,’ where the Legislature redefines the statutes,” Titus said. “It never ends, man.”

The post Mental harm from on-the-job accidents must be compensated like physical injury, NM justices rule appeared first on Source New Mexico .