What Is a Workplace Mental Injury?

A workplace mental injury is an illness or injury caused by something that happens at work. Mental injuries can result from an accident causing direct injury to the brain or stress and anxiety resulting from a physical injury. Workers who suffer from workplace related mental injury are entitled to workers' compensation. They also may be able to seek third-party compensation for their pain and suffering.

Mental Injury Categories

There are three categories of workplace mental injuries:

• Mental injuries that produce a physical injury (Mental-Physical Injury):
  Did you suffer a heart attack or another physical injury as a result of extreme anxiety at work? You must show that the mental stimulus, such as a bank robbery, directly caused your physical ailment in order to receive workers' compensation benefits.
• Physical injuries with mental components (Physical-Mental Injury):
  These mental injuries result from the stress, anxiety and hardship caused by a physical workplace injury. For example, you may have become depressed because of a severe back injury that resulted in paralysis. These types of mental injuries are important aspects in a workers' compensation claim because they can endure long after the physical injury has healed. They may also lead to higher compensation and/or increased benefits.
• Mental injuries with mental components (Mental-Mental Injury):
  These injuries are the most difficult to prove because you must show that a mental stimulus at work brought on a mental injury. In addition, you have to prove that the working conditions were abnormal. For example, a police officer who saw his partner be shot and then became depressed would not qualify, as this is a "normal" job hazard. A bank employee who suffered anxiety after being held hostage, however, might qualify for workers' comp benefits under this category.

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