Judge reverses WCB decision to deny benefits to officer

A Court of Queen’s Bench judge found fault with the way a Workers Compensation Board appeal tribunal handled the case of an Estevan police officer who was denied benefits related to PTSD.

“In the end, the Tribunal’s decision cannot stand,” wrote Justice Richard Elson in a lengthy decision released last month. “I am satisfied that it does not demonstrate an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis that is justified in relation to the evidence it received or the applicable law that constrained it.”

The key piece of law in question is a recently enacted change to The Workers’ Compensation Act stating unless proven otherwise, a worker diagnosed with a psychological injury is presumed to have sustained the injury on the job. Post-traumatic stress disorder is one such injury included under the changes.

Although Const. Jay Pierson was diagnosed with PTSD by more than one professional, the Estevan Board of Police Commissioners argued the officer’s claims of PTSD didn’t arise until after a disciplinary matter. The commission and the WCB contended the PTSD was not directly connected to Pierson’s duties, meaning he was not eligible for benefits.

The tribunal’s findings ran contrary to an earlier decision by an appeals officer for the WCB, who did grant compensation. Elson’s decision sends the matter back to the tribunal and, in the meantime, reinstates benefits.

Pierson is a longtime member of the EPS who spent approximately 14 years primarily as a forensic examination technician. He attended numerous traumatic scenes which Elson described as “somewhat gruesome.” Among files Pierson handled were suicides and deaths of teens and even an infant — the latter which hit him hard as the father of a young child himself.

He was found to have suffered PTSD due to a cumulative buildup of the incidents he dealt with on the job.

He eventually went into another area of policing within the EPS but had left a particular report incomplete, leading to an argument in early 2017 with his deputy chief.

One mental health assessment found Pierson experienced “an acute stress reaction with physiological symptoms” and sought help.

EPS administration, through Chief Paul Ladouceur, expressed a belief “that the cause of (Pierson’s) stress and anxiety related to ‘employee/employer relations’ and not the result of cumulative working PTSD,” Elson wrote.

But Elson said assessments found the argument with the deputy chief was not the source of the PTSD, but rather a trigger for it — a detail the judge found the tribunal wrongly ignored when deciding against Pierson’s claim.

“An administrative decision maker cannot avoid the responsibility of addressing pertinent legislation simply by ignoring or failing to consider it,” Elson wrote, referencing the presumption amendment.

He further referred to the tribunal’s findings that the EPS provided sufficient evidence pointing to “normal daily pressures and tensions in (Pierson’s) line of work,” and that there was no definitive evidence he had dealt with various “horrific situations” or that his symptoms sprang from anything other than the disciplinary meeting.

Again, Elson disagreed.

“The evidence unequivocally established the diagnosis of the applicant’s PTSD, a diagnosis made by a psychiatrist and confirmed by two psychologists ...,” he wrote. “No meaningful challenge could be asserted by persons who lacked the necessary psychiatric or psychological qualifications. It was certainly incapable of contradiction by the representatives of the EPS or the members of the Tribunal.”

Elson found the tribunal’s comments “reflect a misunderstanding of the nature and significance of the diagnostic evidence it received,” and that it even “appeared to go out of its way to challenge and question the diagnosis.”

He ultimately determined the tribunal had not applied the necessary presumption, meaning its decision could not stand.

As of Tuesday, an appeal had not yet been filed.