Connecticut: FedEx Driver Recovers for Physical and Psychological Injuries

The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed an award of TTD benefits for an 11-month time period where evidence indicated the employee, who delivered parcels for the employer, fell ill while delivering a package to a fire station and, upon examination, fire personnel detected an abnormal heart rhythm and called an ambulance. Subsequent tests at a local hospital showed the employee’s heart rhythm devolved into a form of irregular accelerated heartbeat and further tests showed he had low potassium levels due to dehydration. The employee presented evidence that both his route and the number of packages he was required to deliver daily had been expanded in the months leading up to the incident. On the day of the incident, it was hot. The employee, who was required to drive a truck without air-conditioning, had worked for hours without a lunch break—he was behind on his deliveries that day—and had been unable to stay hydrated. The commissioner found that the employee’s psychological injuries resulted from the life-threatening trauma he suffered as a result of the atrial fibrillation he experienced and the resulting need for emergency medical treatment. The high court noted that there was some conflict in the evidence, but it was within the province of the board to affirm the commissioner’s findings.

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 Advance.

See Hart v. Federal Express Corp., 2016 Conn. LEXIS 74 (April 19, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 5.04.

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

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