NEW LAW THAT WENT INTO EFFECT WHEN THE CLAIM WAS BEING RECONSIDERED SHOULD HAVE BEEN APPLIED, CLAIMS MAY NO LONGER BE DENIED ON THE FACTUAL FINDING THAT THE STRESS EXPERIENCED BY CLAIMANT IS NOT GREATER THAN THAT WHICH USUALLY OCCURS IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT, POLICE OFFICER CLAIMED ANXIETY AND PHOBIAS RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD (THIRD DEPT).
The Third Department, reversing the Workers’ Compensation Board, determined that a new provision of the Workers’ Compensation Law, which directly related to claimant police officer’s disability claim (anxiety and phobias related to the sight of blood), was intended to take effect immediately and should have been applied by the Board. The Board had denied the claim finding that the sight of blood is a usual occurrence in police work:
In September 2016, claimant applied for reconsideration and/or full Board review, which the carrier opposed. On April 10, 2017, while that application was pending, Workers’ Compensation Law § 10 (3) (b) was materially amended, effective immediately. The amendment provided that, as relevant here, “[w]here a police officer . . . files a claim for mental injury premised upon extraordinary work-related stress incurred in a work-related emergency, the [B]oard may not disallow the claim, upon a factual finding that the stress was not greater than that which usually occurs in the normal work environment” … . …
In our view, by directing that the apparent substantive change in the law was to take effect immediately, “the Legislature clearly indicated that th[is] amendment[ is] to be viewed as remedial, designed to correct imperfections in prior law, by giving relief to [an] aggrieved party”… . Moreover, as a general rule, “the law as it exists at the time a decision is rendered on appeal is controlling”… . Consequently, we find that, under these circumstances, the Board was bound to apply the law as it existed at the time it was considering and determining the reconsideration and/or review application, notwithstanding the parties’ apparent failure to make supplemental arguments in submissions to the Board addressing this change in the law. Matter of McMillan v Town of New Castle, 2018 NY Slip Op 04801, Third Dept 6-28-18
WORKERS’S COMPENSATION LAW (NEW LAW THAT WENT INTO EFFECT WHEN THE CLAIM WAS BEING RECONSIDERED SHOULD HAVE BEEN APPLIED, CLAIMS MAY NO LONGER BE DENIED ON THE FACTUAL FINDING THAT THE STRESS EXPERIENCED BY CLAIMANT IS NOT GREATER THAN THAT WHICH USUALLY OCCURS IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT, POLICE OFFICER CLAIMED ANXIETY AND PHOBIAS RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD (THIRD DEPT))/POLICE OFFICERS (WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW, NEW LAW THAT WENT INTO EFFECT WHEN THE CLAIM WAS BEING RECONSIDERED SHOULD HAVE BEEN APPLIED, CLAIMS MAY NO LONGER BE DENIED ON THE FACTUAL FINDING THAT THE STRESS EXPERIENCED BY CLAIMANT IS NOT GREATER THAN THAT WHICH USUALLY OCCURS IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT, POLICE OFFICER CLAIMED ANXIETY AND PHOBIAS RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD (THIRD DEPT))/BLOOD (ANXIETY RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD, POLICE OFFICERS, WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW, NEW LAW THAT WENT INTO EFFECT WHEN THE CLAIM WAS BEING RECONSIDERED SHOULD HAVE BEEN APPLIED, CLAIMS MAY NO LONGER BE DENIED ON THE FACTUAL FINDING THAT THE STRESS EXPERIENCED BY CLAIMANT IS NOT GREATER THAN THAT WHICH USUALLY OCCURS IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT, POLICE OFFICER CLAIMED ANXIETY AND PHOBIAS RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD (THIRD DEPT))/ANXIETY (WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW, ANXIETY RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD, POLICE OFFICERS, WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW, NEW LAW THAT WENT INTO EFFECT WHEN THE CLAIM WAS BEING RECONSIDERED SHOULD HAVE BEEN APPLIED, CLAIMS MAY NO LONGER BE DENIED ON THE FACTUAL FINDING THAT THE STRESS EXPERIENCED BY CLAIMANT IS NOT GREATER THAN THAT WHICH USUALLY OCCURS IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT, POLICE OFFICER CLAIMED ANXIETY AND PHOBIAS RELATED TO THE SIGHT OF BLOOD (THIRD DEPT))