Arizona: Portion of Former Soldier’s PTSD Disability Apportioned to Special Fund

As is the case in a number of states, Arizona allows “apportionment” of certain permanent injury claims between an employer and a “special fund” where the employee’s permanency results from the combination of a pre-existing condition and a subsequent work-related injury. Not all pre-existing conditions will support apportionment, however. For example, in Arizona, if the pre-existing condition is a “psychoneurotic disability,” the claimant must have received treatment for that condition “in a recognized medical or mental institution” [see Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 23–1065(C)(3)(n)]. An Arizona appellate court has held that where, prior to sustaining a back injury with the employer, an employee served in the military for several years, completed a tour of duty in Iraq, and thereafter experienced PTSD, depression, and anxiety, her outpatient treatment at a VA clinic constituted “treatment in a recognized medical or mental institution” within the meaning of the statute.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis 

See Special Fund Div. v. Industrial Comm’n of Ariz. (La Palma Correctional Ctr.), 2016 Ariz. App. LEXIS 148 (June 21, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 91.02.

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