New York Amends Workers' Compensation Law to Include Mental Injury
On January 1, 2025, the state's Workers' Compensation Law will permit all workers to file claims for mental injury premised upon extraordinary work-related stress.
Prior to the Amendment, workers' compensation for mental injury was limited to a work-related emergency experienced by a small subset of first responders including: police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, or other persons certified to provide medical care in emergencies. The Amendment greatly expands the scope of the law by now permitting all workers to file claims for mental injury premised upon extraordinary work-related stress.
With the implementation of the Amendment, workers and management alike will need to consider the potential impact of an employee filing a workers' compensation claim for mental injury on a subsequent claim of discrimination against the employer. And there are indeed a host of considerations on this front, including whether theexclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation law could potentially bar or narrow such discrimination claims based on earlier field workers' compensation claims.
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