What Do You Think?
Delaware workers’ compensation law requires “but-for” causation when an employee’s pre-existing condition is aggravated by a specific, identifiable industrial accident. But the employee has to meet a higher standard if she can’t point to an identifiable accident.
The third-grade teacher in a recent Delaware case had a history of severe, uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes, and anxiety. The evening before a performance evaluation by her principal, she became extremely anxious and had back spasms. That principal, she said, was overly critical of her. A negative evaluation could lead to her termination, although the process normally would take years, and she hadn’t received prior negative evaluations.
The following morning, the teacher was at school when her legs collapsed. She had had a spinal stroke, which left her paraplegic.
She filed a workers’ compensation claim, arguing that the stress of the impending evaluation caused the stroke. The Industrial Accident Board denied the claim. It reasoned that the teacher failed to show that her job, rather than her existing medical conditions, caused the stroke.
If a worker has a preexisting disposition to a certain physical condition which had not manifested before the workplace accident, an injury attributable to the accident is compensable if the injury would not have occurred but for the accident. When there is no identifiable accident, however, the claimant must show that the “ordinary stress and strain of employment” was a “substantial cause” of the injury.
On appeal, the teacher argued that the court should have applied the less strict, but-for standard because there was an identifiable accident; the evaluation.
Did the Board apply the right standard?
A. Yes. The teacher did not point to any physical activity she was engaging in when the stroke occurred and the evaluation was not unexpected.
B. No. The evaluation was an identifiable accident.
If you selected A, you agreed with the court in Johnson v. Christiana Sch. Dist., No. C.A. No. N25A-05-005 KMM (Del. Super. Ct. 07/16/26), which affirmed the Board’s decision.
To qualify as an identifiable industrial accident, the court said, an event must be specific, physical, unexpected, and traceable to a definite time, place, and circumstance. The court acknowledged that the teacher suffered a catastrophic event at work. But there was no identifiable, physical, and unexpected event. “Indeed, [the teacher] did not pinpoint a specific moment in time when she suffered an accident. Thus, she was not entitled to use the less strict “but-for” standard to show her job caused her injury.
Some of the facts also weakened her claim that the evaluation and stroke were causally linked. For example, she had never received a negative evaluation. Moreover, even if the principal gave her a negative evaluation, and assuming it led to her termination, that process would take years.
Because substantial medical evidence supported the finding that her stroke was driven by her long-standing medical conditions rather than her job stress, the court affirmed the denial of benefits.
