Shealy v. Aiken County

Supreme Court of South Carolina · Torts

TortsWorkers' compensationMental-mental injuryworkers' compensationmental-mental injuryunusual or extraordinary conditionsparticular employment comparisonproximate cause

Facts

Shealy worked as a deep cover undercover narcotics agent for the Aiken County Sheriff's Department, a job involving highly stressful infiltrations of drug locations without a wire, backup, or police identification. In 1992, while infiltrating a bar, he learned a suspected drug dealer planned to take him "fishing," meaning to kill him and dispose of his body, and after a confrontation he felt under constant death threat and unable to work effectively. Shortly thereafter, he was told he would be terminated because the new sheriff was eliminating the deep cover program, which Shealy said left him under threat while losing police protection. Shealy was later hospitalized for depression, suicidal thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder, and acute alcoholism, but he also admitted contemporaneous non-work stressors including divorce, child custody litigation, bankruptcy, prior traumatic memories, and alcoholism.

Issue

For a mental-mental workers' compensation claim, should "unusual or extraordinary conditions of employment" be measured against employment in general or against the claimant's particular employment? If the latter standard applies, did substantial evidence still support the Full Commission's finding that Shealy failed to prove his work conditions proximately caused his psychological injuries, and were his additional arguments preserved?

Rule

In South Carolina, mental or nervous disorders resulting from emotional stimuli are compensable only if the emotional stressors are incident to or arise from unusual or extraordinary conditions of the claimant's particular employment. To recover, the claimant must prove both that he was exposed to unusual and extraordinary conditions in his employment and that those conditions were the proximate cause of his mental injury. Appellate review of the Full Commission is limited to whether its decision is affected by an error of law or is clearly erroneous in view of the substantial evidence on the whole record, and issues not ruled on by the trial court are unpreserved absent a Rule 59(e) motion.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Nina Torres works in Phoenix as a night-shift emergency veterinary technician for Desert Mesa Animal Clinic. Her job ordinarily includes handling frightened animals and upset owners, but over a four-month period she is twice cornered by armed pet thieves seeking narcotics, receives repeated threats after reporting them, and is told the clinic's private security contract will end while the threats continue; she later develops severe anxiety.

In evaluating Nina's mental-injury claim, which comparison should a court use to decide whether her work conditions were unusual or extraordinary?

Explanation. The governing rule compares the alleged stressors to the claimant's particular employment. The majority rejected a comparison to employment in general and treated unusual or extraordinary conditions as those arising from the claimant's own job context. Thus the proper inquiry is whether this sustained combination of threats and loss of protection was extraordinary relative to Nina's own work, not all work generally.