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Humboldt Community Schools v. Fleming12/22/1999
e second issue concerns Humboldt Schools' attempt to obtain a lien against the suit proceeds of a medical malpractice suit against Dr. Hizon to indemnify it for the workers' compensation benefits it had paid. See Iowa Code § 85.22(1) (1997).
II. The Workers' Compensation Award.
Judicial review of decisions by the industrial commissioner is on error, and courts are bound by the agency's factual findings if they are supported by substantial evidence. Gates v. John Deere Ottumwa Works, 587 N.W.2d 471, 474 (Iowa 1998); Iowa Code § 17A.19(8)(f).
Under workers' compensation law employers shall pay compensation "for any and all personal injuries sustained by an employee arising out of and in the course of the employment . . . ." Iowa Code § 85.3(1) (1993). In Dunlavey we held the term "personal injuries" includes a mental injury without an accompanying physical injury under certain circumstances. We held:
n order for an employee to establish legal causation for a nontraumatic mental injury caused only by mental stimuli, the employee must show that the mental injury "was caused by workplace stress of greater magnitude than the day-to-day mental stresses experienced by other workers employed in the same or similar jobs," regardless of their employer. Dunlavey, 526 N.W.2d at 857 (quoting Graves v. Utah Power & Light Co., 713 P.2d 187, 193 (Wyo. 1986)).
We labeled this the "unusual stress" standard and listed three reasons for adopting it: (1) it strikes a balance by providing employees with benefits for work-related losses while placing limits on the amounts the employer must pay, (2) it limits the scope of similar jobs against which to compare the worker's stress, and (3) recovery is further limited by requiring a stress level greater than that of similarly situated employees. Dunlavey, 526 N.W.2d at 857-58. Humboldt Schools argues that the stress alleged by this decedent was not unusual compared to that faced by other superintendents, and the claim thus fails the test of Dunlavey.
III. The Legal Test.
Humboldt Schools contends the commissioner applied the wrong test, saying:
Humboldt Schools argues that the legal standard in this case is not whether the alleged job stress is greater than the routine everyday job stresses faced by that particular superintendent. Instead, Humboldt Schools contends that the correct legal standard is whether the alleged job stress is unusual as compared to stresses normally faced from time to time by other superintendents.
This, however, was not the test applied by the commissioner's ruling. It stated the test as follows:
Under Dunlavey, legal causation exists if these stresses and tensions, when viewed objectively and not as the employee perceives them, were of greater magnitude than the day-to-day mental stresses workers employed in the same or similar jobs experience routinely regardless of employer. . . . Evidence of the stresses of other workers employed by the same employer in the "same or similar jobs will usually be most persuasive and determinative on the issue." (Quoting Dunlavey, 526 N.W.2d at 858.)
The latter is an accurate statement of the principles underlying mental-injury claims as set out in Dunlavey, that is, whether the mental injury was caused by workplace stress of greater magnitude than the day-to-day mental stress of other workers in the same or similar jobs. Dunlavey, 526 N.W.2d at 857. We reject Humboldt Schools's argument that the commissioner applied the wrong legal test.
IV. The Intentional-Injury Defense.
Humboldt Schools contends that irrespective of whether the Dunlavey test was met
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