Glossary Check: N.M. Psychiatric, Mental, Nervous Injuries

Santa Fe, NM (WorkersCompensation.com) -- When a worker's injury isn't physical or apparent, it often can be tough to understand.

A good first step might be to get a handle on the vocabulary, and here is how the State of New Mexico defines the terms related to psychiatric injuries.

Mental impairment. Primary mental impairment occurs when a worker has lost the ability to function mentally or emotionally at a normal level as the result of a severe and unusual workplace event. Ordinary workplace stress does not qualify, nor does ordinary emotional stress or mental problems. A mental impairment claim requires a diagnosis of mental illness from a doctor.

Key Features

--> Primary mental impairment occurs without a physical injury.
--> Secondary mental impairment results from a physical impairment that is the result of a work injury.

Workers' Comp 101: In Jensen v. New Mexico State Police, 788 P.2d 382 (N.M. Ct. App. 1990), a dispatcher sought total disability benefits based on a mental impairment brought on by the stress of understaffing. Previously, other dispatchers left the job due to sexual harassment, low pay, stress, alcoholism, a better-paying job, and retirement. The workers' compensation judge concluded that the dispatcher did not suffer a compensable impairment because the stress that understaffing caused was not outside the worker's usual experience nor would it involve significant symptoms of distress in a worker in similar circumstances. On appeal, the court agreed with the WCJ, highlighting that during the months of October, November, and December 1987 and January 1988, worked only 11 day shifts and five evening shifts alone. "Worker's duty schedule was not disproportionate to the solo shifts worked by other dispatchers," the court reasoned.

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