The Claimant had a Stroke While at Work and Has Suffered Ongoing Medical Problems. Is This a Compensable Injury?

For starters, looking to the relevant code section, O.C.G.A. §34-9-1(4) recognizes “strokes” as being potentially compensable.  Specifically, in relevant part, this code section states: “”Injury” or “personal injury” means only injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment … “Injury” and “personal injury” shall not include… heart disease, heart attack, the failure or occlusion of any of the coronary blood vessels, stroke, or thrombosis unless it is shown by a preponderance of competent and credible evidence, which shall include medical evidence, that any of such conditions were attributable to the performance of the usual work of employment.”

Importantly, in “stroke” claims, the burden is on the claimant to show a causal connection between the heart attack and the stroke. U. S. Casualty Co. v. Thomas, 106 Ga. App. 441 (1962) (reversed on other grounds). See also Aflac, Inc. v. Hardy, 250 Ga. App. 570 (2001).

One case of particular relevance is Pitts v. City of Rome, 256 Ga. App. 278 (2002).  There, the Court of Appeals affirmed a denial of a widow’s claim for compensation based on her husband’s stroke at work.  In so doing, the Court drew upon logic from a prior Georgia Supreme Court case (241 Ga. 213):  “In “heart attack” cases, it is often difficult for the trier of fact to find the line between a non-compensable heart injury that is a symptom of an existing  disease merely manifested during job exertion, and a compensable heart injury to which the job exertion was a contributing precipitating factor.  Although this case involves a cardiac embolism [i.e., a stroke], rather than a heart attack, we find that this same difficult line must be drawn here.”  The Court further noted that the widow-claimant had only proved that it was “a possibility” that the on-the-job stress contributed to the onset of the stroke sustained by her late husband, and as such, she had not sustained her burden of proof. 256 Ga. App. at 280.

So what evidence can be used to counter a doctor’s opinion that a stroke was related to on-the-job stress?  As in Pitts, it would be prudent to dig deeply into the claimant’s medical, social, and personal history.  In Pitts, the claimant was shown to have risk factors which included “advancing age, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, smoking, and a genetic history as well as a previous history of vascular disease.”  In addition, the claimant’s son in Pitts had recently been involved in legal troubles.

Ultimately, when faced with a stroke claim, the critical investigation of same would include interviews with friends, family and coworkers to determine whether the claimant had been complaining of job stress prior the stroke (or any other kinds of stress, for that matter).  Additionally, other key pieces of information include the duration of the claimant’s employment, the claimant’s financial condition, and genetic predisposition to strokes.  Along those lines, the claimant’s complete medical file would need to be obtained to analyze other potential risk factors, and the claimant’s physicians would need to be interviewed or deposed to assess their opinions as to the relatedness of the claimant’s job to the stroke.

In conclusion, a claim involving a stroke places an extremely heavy burden on the claimant to prove that the stroke “arose out of” the claimant’s employment.  The onus is certainly on the claimant to produce competent medical evidence linking the job to the resulting stroke, which may be difficult to obtain.  In addition, from a defense perspective, there are myriad other factors which can and should be investigated to punch holes in a claimant’s contention regarding an “on the job” stroke injury.