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Plymouth County Retirement Board v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Board12/4/2003
d of benefits." In his ultimate conclusion, and analyzing the same facts, the Superior Court judge agreed with the magistrate. In this view, the judge erred. The magistrate's ultimate conclusion that the interpersonal conflicts described by Newman did not rise to the level of personal injury covered by G. L. c. 32, § 7(1), amounts to an error of law.
" t is settled that the term 'personal injury ' as it appears in G. L. c. 32, § 7, should be interpreted similarly to the same term [in the worker's compensation statute,] G. L. c. 152." Adams v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 414 Mass. 360, 361 n.1 (1993). " o succeed on his application, the [claimant] had to prove one of two hypotheses: that his disability stemmed from 'a single work-related event or series of events' Kelly's Case, 394 Mass. 684, 688 (1985); or, if the disability was the product of gradual deterioration, that 'the employment exposed [the claimant] to an "identifiable condition . . . that is not common and necessary to all or a great many occupations."' Ibid., quoting from Zerofski's Case, 385 Mass. 590, 595 (1982)." Blanchette v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 20 Mass. App. Ct. 479, 485 (1985) (footnote omitted).
In arriving at its conclusion in this case, CRAB considered whether Newman's disability arose from an "identifiable condition . . . that is not common and necessary to all or a great many occupations," Sugrue v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 45 Mass. App. Ct. 1, 5 (1998), quoting from Blanchette v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 20 Mass. App. Ct. at 487, and concluded that it did. In reviewing CRAB's decision, the motion judge was required to give "consideration to CRAB's experience in the area and its function in applying the controlling statute, necessarily on a case-by-case basis, to a difficult area of the law as well as to the agency's responsibility to differentiate between the special requirements for other benefits, such as ordinary disability retirement pursuant to G. L. c. 32, § 6(1)." Adams v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 414 Mass. at 367. It appears that the motion judge did not give CRAB's decision the deference that it deserved.
As stated by the court in Blanchette, recovery of accidental disability benefits for mental incapacity due to a gradual deterioration stemming from an identifiable condition not shared by many occupations, "might occur, for example, in occupations involving constant exposure to life threatening situations or to continual traumatic or depressing events. However, it should be noted that the 'identifiable condition' spoken of in Kelly's Case [,supra,] need not necessarily be unique to the occupation in order to warrant a recovery. . . . The key, in a case involving G. L. c. 32, § 7(1), once the physical or mental disability is established, is proof that the identifiable condition at work is an efficient cause of the disability." Blanchette v. Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 20 Mass. App. Ct. at 487 n.7.
Unlike the claimant in Blanchette, 20 Mass. App. Ct. at 484, there was no evidence that Newman had any pre-existing mental or emotional illness. Newman's own psychiatrist opined that "the incidents at work were the proximate cause of the decompensation and that he cannot return to that job ." In addition, the regional medical panel opined that "more likely than not, the patient's symptoms are related to his reported work stresses" and noted that "other factors or conditions which might account for the patient's onset and severity of symptoms do include the friend's suicide and the incident reported about the noose which was subsequently placed in the patient's environment."
In combination with these medical facts, the
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