Kentucky: ALJ’s Findings that Fatal Heart Attack Was Not Causally Linked to Employment Found Erroneous

Where uncontradicted evidence indicated that the deceased service center manager had been under extreme stress—on the day prior to the manager’s fatal heart attack he had been advised by an EPA representative that the service center’s gas tanks were not in compliance and would have to be removed—and that in the hour or so prior to the cardiac event, the manager had performed strenuous work-related activities, it was error for an ALJ to find that the manager’s death was unrelated to his work and, therefore, not compensable, held a Kentucky appellate court. Acknowledging that the Kentucky legislature in 1996 amended Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.0011(1) to prevent recovery in “mental-mental” claims, the court noted that “mental-physical” claims were still compensable. It indicated the manager’s widow was not attempting to recovery for her husband’s anxiety, but because of his death. The court said the uncontradicted evidence indicated the manager felt the loss of gasoline sales would likely doom the business. The evidence of strenuous activity was also unchallenged. Substantial evidence did not support the ALJ’s findings that the widow failed to show a causal relationship between the fatal heart attack and the employment.

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. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Thomas v. Eddie’s Service Ctr., 2015 Ky. App. LEXIS 156 (Nov. 13, 2015) [2015 Ky. App. LEXIS 156 (Nov. 13, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 56.02 [56.02]

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

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