What Do You Think?
New York employees who suffer psychological injuries can obtain workers’ compensation benefits for those injuries. But they generally have to show they faced extraordinary stress at work. A case involving a custodial worker in a facility who claimed that he deteriorated mentally after his workplace became a migrant processing center is a case in point.
The custodian was swept up in his employer’s 2023 decision to convert the building where he worked cleaning restrooms into housing for migrants seeking asylum. Things went down the toilet in terms of sanitation and safety when that happened, he said. There were multiple arrests at the facility, and police warned that some migrants were gang members. Also, despite the conditions, his employer provided no personal protective equipment.
After the conversion, the custodian worked several days and then called out sick due to mental stress. The employer then suspended him. During the suspension, according to the claimant’s supervisor, the claimant sent vulgar messages to staff regarding the migrants and their morals and hygiene, referring to himself at one point as a Batman villain. The supervisor said they had supplies such as gloves, masks and goggles, but that the claimant didn’t use them in accordance with the employer’s instructions.
At some point during the suspension, the employer fired the claimant. The claimant sought workers’ compensation for injuries consisting of adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood.
To recover for psychological injury, a claimant must show that the injury was “accidental” and arose out of and in the course of employment. To show it was accidental, he has to establish that the stress he experienced was greater than that which similarly situated workers experienced in the normal work environment.
Did the custodian have a compensable psychological injury?
A. No. The alleged unsanitary conditions didn’t seem extraordinary, especially given the supervisor’s statements and the short duration of his work in the facility.
B. No. Cleaning restrooms is stressful enough; doing so in an unsanitary facility with gang members present and arrests happening is extraordinarily stressful.
If you selected A, you agreed with the court in Wallace v. New York School Support Services, Inc., No. CV-24-1822 (N.Y. App. Div. 03/19/26), which ruled for the employer.
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The court explained that whether a stressor at work amounts to a workplace accident depends on whether it is one that a claimant should reasonably and ordinarily expect to encounter in the normal work environment, or whether the stressor is instead unusual, unexpected or extraordinary.
Here, the supervisor’s testimony indicated that the claimant in fact had access to appropriate PPE, but failed to properly utilize it. The court also pointed out that the period under which the claimant experienced increased duties was only five or six days. There was no indication that he was under a greater amount of stress than other similarly situated workers who performed similar work at the facility.
“Accordingly, we find that substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that claimant failed to present credible evidence of stress or extraordinary exposure to unsanitary conditions greater than that experienced by other similarly situated workers in the normal work environment,” the court said.
It denied the custodian’s claim for psychological injuries.
