Guard awarded workers' comp for PTSD after witnessing shooting
A workers' compensation judge's decision may indicate an opening for hard-to-prove claims based on psychological injury.
A workers’ compensation judge awarded benefits to a Philadelphia corrections officer for post-traumatic stress disorder he sustained when he witnessed the fatal shooting of an inmate who had just been released from the prison.
In granting Dion Jones’ claim petition, Workers’ Compensation Judge Lawrence Beck said that seeing a person shot and killed should not be considered a normal part of a job, even in a line of work that is often violent. He determined that not only was the incident abnormal, but also that the prison presented almost no evidence in the dispute as to what constituted normal levels of violence in a prison environment.
Pond Lehocky Giordano’s Ruxandra Osgood represented Jones in the case. She said workers’ compensation claims for purely psychological injuries make for difficult cases due to the high burden of proof they require; a claimant must not only demonstrate that they sustained a psychological injury at work, but also that the incident that gave rise to the injury was an abnormal circumstance.
Because of that high burden, Osgood said, few workers pursue claims based on psychological injuries. She said Beck’s decision indicates an opening for those types of claims.
While Jones’ employer, Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, argued that prison employees should expect to see violence as part of their job, Beck said the incident that Jones observed went beyond a typical prison altercation.
According to a letter accompanying the decision, Jones said that he had been manning a booth at the prison’s main gate when someone in a car fired approximately 10 shots at a former inmate who was waiting for a bus. Jones said he watched from 20 feet away as the victim died.
“This judge is not prepared to find, conclude or declare that the violent event at the heart of this case is de rigueur for this employment or expected in today’s society: the witnessing of a killing of one human being by another should not be considered ‘normal,’ especially absent any contrary evidence,” Beck wrote in his letter.
Osgood said that, particularly in the context of the recent proliferation of gun violence, the decision creates an easier path for employees in all lines of work to bring psychological injury claims in the rare event that they witness such an extreme event. “Even in occupations where violence may be expected … the judge indicated killing is a whole different situation,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be someone in a law enforcement position,” she said. “We need workers who are putting themselves on the line to feel protected if something happens.”
The judge awarded benefits to Jones from the time of the March 18, 2021, incident and ongoing, based on a compensation rate of $1,130. He found that the shooting was an abnormal condition that caused Jones to suffer PTSD. Beck also penalized the employer 30% of all indemnity benefits for a three-month period following the incident in which it failed to issue a document accepting or denying Jones’ claims.
Beck additionally ordered the prison to reimburse the claimant’s counsel for about $4,000 in litigation costs as a penalty for unreasonable contest. In his letter, he wrote, “Employer’s defense, or attack on claimant’s supporting evidence, boils down to the following: it is a prison; violence, even a killing, is expected and a circumstance for which claimant was trained. … Employer presented no evidence regarding the frequency of violence within claimant’s employment so as to conclude that this incident was not abnormal.”
David Porter of Bennett, Bricklin & Saltzburg represented Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and did not respond to requests for comment.
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