New York Expands its Workers’ Compensation Law to Extend Workplace-Related PTSD Coverage to All Employees

The most recent amendment to New York’s Workers’ Compensation Law, which went into effect on January 1, 2025, permits any employee to seek workers’ compensation benefits when they experience a “mental injury premised upon extraordinary work-related stress incurred at work.”  The amendment effectively expands an earlier 2017 amendment to the law that provided a subset of first responders (i.e., certain police officers, firefighters, etc.) workers’ compensation benefits eligibility when they endure extraordinary stress from a work-related emergency, such as PTSD (or similar conditions).  Now, not only can any employee seek workers’ compensation benefits for mental injury premised upon extraordinary work-related stress, but they can also do so regardless of whether their injury stems from a work-related emergency or not. 

Typically, an employee is unable to obtain workers’ compensation benefits for mental injuries if the stress is part of the “normal” work environment.  However, with the passage of the 2017 amendment, the Board no longer could reject a claim for certain first responders on the basis that their extraordinary work-related stress was part of the “normal” work environment.  Rather, the relevant analysis became whether the stress itself emanating from a work-related emergency was “extraordinary,” suggesting that the Board should consider factors such as the diagnosed condition itself, the event that may have triggered the stress-related condition, the types of job duties performed and the industry in which it was performed, the impact on the worker, etc. to determine whether the injury was tied to extraordinary work-related stress. 

While this latest amendment may lead to an increase of mental health-related claims, the impact may be more limited given the continued need to make this “extraordinary” showing.  Employers, however, should make sure to train their HR managers to allow for the filing of workers’ compensation claims under these circumstances.  And practitioners should also account for this new type of filing in the context of discrimination claims.  While discrimination claims are generally not barred by “workers’ compensation exclusivity,” they should consider the potential preclusive effect of Board decisions and otherwise account for potential offsets in exposure valuations. 

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