# School District No. 1 v. Department of Industry, Labor & Human Relations

> Wisconsin Supreme Court · March 5, 1974 · 62 Wis. 2d 370

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9696044

## Case

- **Full name:** School District No. 1, Village of Brown Deer and Another, Appellants, v. Department of Industry, Labor & Human Relations and Another, Respondents
- **Court:** Wisconsin Supreme Court
- **Decided:** March 5, 1974
- **Citations:** 62 Wis. 2d 370; 215 N.W.2d 373; 1974 Wisc. LEXIS 1545
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Wilkie
- **Judges:** Hanley, Wilkie
- **Cited by:** 56 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9696044

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that to "determin[e] whether there has been an accident [for the purposes of the Act, the court] must look from the perspective of the injured person"
- discussing showing required of claimant whose mental injury was not caused by trauma

## Opinion text

Wilkie, J.
(dissenting). The majority correctly conclude that the legislature did not intend to limit an employer’s liability for mental injuries to their employees solely to those instances where these mental injuries are traumatically caused. Indeed, there is no statutory language limiting liability for mental injuries in such a manner.
My quarrel with the majority, therefore, is that they conclude as a matter of law that the mental injury un-traumatically caused here was not the result of an industrial accident within the meaning of the workmen’s compensation law. They conclude the “ ‘fortuitous event, unexpected and unforeseen’ ” must be “out of the ordinary” to permit recovery.
As justification for this restrictive view of when a worker may recover for nontraumatic mental injury, the majority opinion states:
“. . . Without some effective means of evaluating an employee’s claim of mental injury, this court would open the floodgates to numerous fraudulent claims of mental injury.”
The Workmen’s Compensation Act expresses the legislative determination that an employee should be compensated for injury sustained while performing service growing out of and incidental to his employment where *380 the accident or disease causing harm arises out of his employment.
I agree with the reviewing court’s statement in its opinion affirming the order of the department which awarded compensation to the applicant in this case:
“. . . The protection against abuse lies in the competence and good judgment of the department’s hearing examiners. Furthermore, the protection of the interests of employees who have suffered mental harm due to an accidental occurrence during the course of employment outweighs the possible harm that may result to employers and insurance carriers as a result of the possibility that some cases of feigned mental harm may be awarded compensation.”
Whether an applicant has indeed suffered an accidental injury arising out of her employment and resulting in mental harm is a question of fact for the department. The appellant in this case did not challenge the findings of the department that the claimant did suffer a mental injury arising out of claimant’s employment and that the applicant was performing services incidental to her employment at the time of the injury. I would affirm the decision of the reviewing court.
The holding of Ver Hagen v. Gibbons 1 against recovery for nontraumatically caused mental injury in a negligence action is not involved here since this is a work compensation case where recovery is not based on fault. My views as expressed in the dissent to Ver Hagen still stand. That dissent states that in logic mental injury should be compensable with proof of accompanying physical inj ury.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Chief Justice Hallows joins in this dissenting opinion.
(1970), 47 Wis. 2d 220 , 177 N. W. 2d 83 .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9696044. Public record. Not legal advice.