Can You Get Workers’ Comp for Mental Stress in Louisiana?

Emotionally painful or traumatizing events on the job can leave you struggling just as much as a physical injury.

Many Louisiana workers don’t realize they can also get workers’ compensation benefits mental stress?

Yes, you can.

You might think of workers’ comp as being for, injuries like falls, broken bones, sprains, and concussions.

Louisiana workers’ comp also specifically includes mental injury.

This means you could get your mental health treatment paid for and some of your lost wages reimbursed if you have to miss work time.

Workers’ comp benefits can make a big difference in getting you back to a steady life after something disturbing happened at work.

Proving a workers’ comp claim for mental health problems is tricky.

But the workers’ compensation lawyers at Workers’ Compensation, LLC, know what to do. In this blog post, we’ll share the key points to getting workers’ comp for mental stress in Louisiana.

Workers’ Comp Is What We Do

2 Kinds of Mental Injury that Can Qualify for Louisiana Workers’ Compensation

The Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act clearly describes two ways that mental stress at work could create the type of injury that qualifies for workers’ comp:

1. If the mental injury “was the result of a sudden, unexpected, and extraordinary stress related to the employment and is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence.”
2. If the mental illness or injury was caused by a physical injury and “is demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence.”

The first type— an “extraordinary stress”—could include witnessing a disturbing incident at work such as violence, experiencing traumatizing treatment by others such as threats or emotional attacks, or getting involved in a distressing confrontation with a boss, co-worker or customer.

For a successful workers’ comp claim, the psychological trauma generally has to be traceable to a specific incident. If your mental distress results from a pattern of toxic conditions on the job over a long period of time, and not a particular episode, it will be harder to prove your claim.

But it’s not impossible. It may take an experienced workers’ compensation attorney to gather the evidence and present a strong case.

The second type, resulting from a physical injury, can be easier to prove under workers’ compensation in Louisiana.

Severe physical injuries often lead to mental health struggles like anxiety and depression.

And for the purposes of your claim, you can document your physical injury in concrete ways. You can clearly tie your mental difficulties to a particular experience that happened at work.

For either kind of case, you need certain kinds of compelling evidence.

What You Need to Prove a Workers’ Comp Claim for Mental Stress

A workers’ comp claim for mental stress under Louisiana workers’ comp has a few basic requirements:

• You must have a diagnosis of a mental illness from a psychiatrist or psychologist.
• Your diagnosis must meet the standards of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the American Psychiatric Association.
• Your mental illness or injury must be clearly tied to your work.

Louisiana workers’ compensation law repeatedly says you need “clear and convincing evidence” about your mental health condition in order to qualify for workers’ comp.

That can include medical evidence from your visits to psychiatrists or psychologists, details for your treatment including therapy and medication, statements from people familiar with the situation that happened at work that started your mental health problems, and statements from people who know you personally and know-how this trauma affected you.

The challenge of cases involving mental health is that you have to prove something that you experienced and felt but that other people can’t always see.

To make the strongest case that your mental health condition is serious and was caused by an event at work, you may want to work with a workers’ compensation lawyer.

A lawyer who focuses on workers’ comp cases will know what kind of evidence you need, how to find it, and how to present it.

Workers’ Compensation, LLC, has helped over 10,000 workers across Louisiana after their jobs impacted their health. Our workers’ comp attorneys have over 130 years of combined experience and have secured over $300 million in settlements for everyday Louisianans.

If you’ve suffered a mental health trauma at work, you can talk to us about it and get a free evaluation of your case.