Could Super-Stressed Teacher Obtain Benefits for Stroke she had at Home?

What Do You Think?

There are circumstances where an employee can have a stroke at home and collect workers’ compensation benefits. But as a case involving a stressed-out teacher shows, the employee will have to provide some decent medical evidence that her employee caused the stroke.

Being a teacher is without question difficult. But could it give you a stroke? One teacher in a New York public school claimed that it could and that, in her case, it did -- in April 2022. 

At the time of the medical event, the teacher already had long-standing hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. She smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. The last time she saw her primary care doctor before she had the stroke was January 2022.

The teacher claimed that the stroke, which happened at home and during non-work hours, occurred because of the stress she experienced at work, including stress that arose when she had a run-in with the school principal. 

Her doctor agreed, testifying that the stroke was caused by the stress and emotional trauma at work which caused her blood pressure to rise to "a crisis stage.”

"All I can say [is] that if the employment was as stressful and as toxic as [claimant] believed it to be, then definitely that could have decompensated her blood pressure to the point where she may have suffered a stroke,” the doctor stated.

The workers’ compensation board denied the claim and the teacher appealed.

A workers’ compensation claim based on a stroke may be compensable where the stroke occurs outside of normal work hours but is caused by stress at work. For the claim to be compensable, the claimant has to show a causal connection between the job and the stroke.

Could the teacher obtain workers’ compensation benefits for stroke?

A. Yes. The doctor’s testimony was sufficient to establish a causal connection between her employment and her injury.

B. No. Her doctor’s opinion was wishy-washy, and there were other factors that could have caused her stroke.

If you selected B, you agreed with the court in Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District, No. CV-23-2329 (N.Y. App. Div. 02/13/25).

The court pointed out that a doctor’s medical opinion about whether work caused a stroke during non-work hours need not be expressed with absolute certainty. However, the doctor must be able to point to a probable causal connection. The mere possibility of a connection isn’t sufficient.

Here, the doctor stated that the stroke was caused by the stress and emotional trauma the employee endured at work, which led to her blood pressure spiking and hence to the stroke. 

However, “he conceded at his subsequent deposition that he did not know what claimant's blood pressure readings may have been between her January office visit and her April stroke," the court wrote. Thus, the doctor’s opinion was merely supposition, the court indicated.

Further, there were other possible causes of the event: the claimant had multiple risk factors for stroke, including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and cigarette smoking.

“Under these circumstances, and given claimant's multiple risk factors, substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that claimant's proof was insufficient to establish a causal connection between her employment and her stroke,” the court wrote.

It affirmed the board’s decision.

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