Tennessee: Sheriff Secretary’s PTSD Claim Related to Violent Threats Barred as Untimely

A county sheriff’s personal secretary who, according to third-party witness accounts, was told by the sheriff during a heated exchange that her “ass is fired,” and that he would “shave her dog, sugar her gas tank and burn her house down” may not recover workers’ compensation benefits for her alleged PTSD condition resulting from the incident since the first notice of injury to her former employer was the filing of an intentional tort action against the sheriff and the county almost a year after the incident—Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-201(a) generally requires notice to be filed within 30 days after the occurrence of the accident.  The former secretary contended that she went into a state of panic after the confrontation and had to seek psychiatric help.  She also contended the sheriff had actual knowledge of her claim, but the court indicated that the evidence did not preponderate against the trial court’s finding that the former secretary failed to provide notice of her injury as required by the statute.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Nuchols v. Blunt County, 2014 Tenn. LEXIS 666 (Sept. 19, 2014) [2014 Tenn. LEXIS 666 (Sept. 19, 2014)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 126.03 [126.03]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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