City of Boulder v. Streeb

• Decision Date: 30 September 1985
• Docket Number: No. 83SC170,83SC170
• Citation: 706 P.2d 786
• Parties: CITY OF BOULDER, State Compensation Insurance Fund, Industrial Commission of Colorado, Mike L. Baca, Richard J. Wise, and Peter Nims, individually and as Members of the Industrial Commission of Colorado, and Charles McGrath, Director of the Division of Labor, Petitioners, v. Barbara E. STREEB, Suzanne E. Streeb and Andrew D. Streeb, widow and dependent children of Ronald Streeb, Deceased, Respondents.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 786

706 P.2d 786

CITY OF BOULDER, State Compensation Insurance Fund Industrial Commission of Colorado, Mike L. Baca, Richard J Wise, and Peter Nims, individually and as Members of the Industrial Commission of Colorado, and Charles McGrath Director of the Division of Labor, Petitioners, v. Barbara E. STREEB, Suzanne E. Streeb and Andrew D. Streeb widow and dependent children of Ronald Streeb, Deceased, Respondents.

No. 83SC170.

Supreme Court of Colorado,

En Banc.

Sept. 30, 1985.

Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., Kathryn J. Aragon, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for petitioners, Indus. Com'n, Members of the Com'n, and Director, Div. of Labor.

William J. Baum, Pamela L. Musgrave, Denver, for petitioner, State Compensation Ins. Fund.

Thorburn, Sakol & Throne, Barre M. Sakol, Boulder, for respondents.

QUINN, Chief Justice.

We granted certiorari to review the decision of the court of appeals in Streeb v. City of Boulder, 671 P.2d 436 (Colo.App.1983), which vacated an order of the Industrial Commission ("commission") denying death benefits under section 8-52-102, 3 C.R.S. (1984 Supp.), ¹ of the Worker's Compensation Act ("Act") to the widow and children of the decedent, Ronald Streeb, whose death was allegedly caused by a cardiac arrhythmia, which in turn was allegedly brought about by the combination of a preexisting congenital heart condition, mitral valve prolapse, and job-related mental stress. The referee denied compensation and concluded that, regardless of whether mental stress was the cause of a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, the stress itself could not "be found to be derived from an injury or occupational disease arising out of and in the course of [the decedent's] employment" and that, therefore, "the question of whether that stress was the proximate cause of [the decedent's] death is not and will not be addressed." The commission affirmed the decision of the referee and the widow and children appealed to the court of appeals. The court of appeals, after initially ruling that "[a]ny reasonable doubt as to whether a compensable injury arises out of and in the course of employment must be resolved in favor of the claimant," concluded that "[e]vidence of job stress accompanied by emotional or mental tension may be sufficient to support an award for compensation." 671 P.2d at 438. The court accordingly vacated the commission's order and remanded the case for further findings by the referee consistent with its ruling. We conclude that the court of appeals incorrectly defined the burden of proof applicable to a claimant in a worker's compensation proceeding, that the court correctly determined that job-related mental or emotional stress may constitute the cause of an injury or occupational disease under the Act, and that the referee failed to apply the appropriate legal standards in determining whether the decedent's injury arose out of and in the course of employment. We therefore affirm in part and reverse in part, and we remand the case to the court of appeals with directions to return the matter to the commission for a further evidentiary hearing by the referee.

I.

The decedent, Ronald Streeb, was a lieutenant in the Boulder Fire Department ("department") and had worked approximately eleven years as a fire fighter before his death on November 16, 1979. His job consisted of supervising a fire engine company and directing fire fighting activities at the scene of fires. The decedent was forty years old at the time of his death. Following his death, his widow and children filed a claim for worker's compensation benefits.

According to the testimony of the decedent's doctor, Dr. William Hilty, the decedent had a preexisting heart condition known as mitral valve prolapse, which consisted of a thickened heart valve that would not completely close. The decedent also suffered from hypertension that was controlled through medication. Dr. Hilty testified that it is extremely rare for this condition to prove fatal in a person of the decedent's age. Where the condition is fatal, it normally is due to cardiac arrhythmia, which is a form of irregular heart rhythm. A common factor in producing cardiac arrhythmia, according to the doctor, is emotional or psychological stress, which causes the body to produce adrenaline and thereby trigger rhythm disturbances in the heart beat.

Uncontroverted testimony from the Boulder fire chief, coworkers of the decedent, and the decedent's widow established that the decedent suffered a great deal of tension and frustration relating to his work. In 1978 the decedent had unsuccessfully applied for the position of fire chief. Once the new chief took office, several employees who were junior in rank to the decedent were promoted to positions superior to his. Shortly before his death the decedent had applied for the position of captain, but he was similarly rejected. The decedent also underwent full paramedical training on his own time because he strongly believed that fire fighters ought to be trained to deal with medical emergencies. He thereafter submitted to the department numerous proposals that would have mandated such training for all fire fighters. These proposals, however, were consistently rejected. The decedent had been reprimanded by the department in the past for persisting in these efforts. Finally, the decedent was disturbed by the department's policies requiring that he communicate the concerns of the fire fighters in his charge to his immediate supervisor rather than directly to the chief. The evidence indicated that the relationship between the supervisory hierarchy and the employees was generally tense due to differences in managerial philosophy, although the decedent himself was never the individual target of any of the policies adopted by the department.

The decedent's frustration over his situation at work was so great that on occasion, according to his widow, "you could see the tension in his body." The evidence established that there were no other significant sources of mental stress in the decedent's life. The decedent had been on vacation for a period of ten days prior to his death, during which time he did an unspecified amount of construction work. He was to return to work on the day on which he died.

The likely cause of the decedent's death, according to Dr. Hilty, was an irregular heart rhythm which, when combined with mitral valve prolapse and job-related emotional stress, resulted in the fatal arrythmia. The imminence of the decedent's return to work, according to the doctor, may have exacerbated his stress level by increasing his tension just prior to his scheduled return to work.

The referee found in pertinent part as follows: that the decedent suffered from a congenital heart condition known as "mitral insufficiency" and died of cardiac arrhythmia; that the decedent did not have a heart attack; that he had no significant financial or domestic problems which subjected him to stress; and that the main sources of stress in the decedent's life were his failure to receive a promotion within the fire department, the rejection of the paramedical proposals made to his superiors, and the cumulative tension experienced resulting from the lack of adequate communication with his superiors and his disagreement with their management philosophy. The referee and the commission denied the claim for compensation because, in their view, the stress experienced by the decedent did not qualify as "an injury or occupational disease arising out of and in the course of employment," thereby rendering unnecessary any resolution of the question of the proximate cause of the decedent's death.

In reversing the order of the commission and remanding the case for further evidentiary hearing, the court of appeals stated:

Any reasonable doubt as to whether a compensable injury arises out of and in the course of employment must be resolved in favor of a claimant, and the mere fact that an injury befalls a claimant at a moment when he is not performing labor for his employer does not necessarily prove that the injury did not arise out of and in the course of employment.... Evidence of job stress accompanied by emotional or mental tension may be sufficient to support an award for compensation.

Under the evidence presented, there is no basis for the referee's finding that the stress was not associated with decedent's employment, and thus, its role as the cause of decedent's death should have been addressed. We therefore hold that the commission erred in not remanding this matter to the referee to make specific findings on whether the arrythmia [sic] which precipitated the death was caused by job related stress arising out of and in the course of employment. (citations omitted).

We granted certiorari to consider whether the court of appeals improperly defined the standard of proof applicable in worker's compensation cases and whether job-related stress may constitute the legal cause of a compensable injury under the Act. We discuss these issues in the order stated and then consider whether the referee employed the proper legal standard in denying the claim of the widow and children.

II.

The initial issue relates to the appropriate burden of proof in a worker's compensation proceeding. A claimant in a worker's compensation case has the burden of proving entitlement to benefits by a preponderance of evidence. Prestige Homes, Inc. v. Legouffe, 658 P.2d 850 (Colo.1983); State Compensation Insurance Fund v. Kindig, 167 Colo. 32, 445 P.2d 72 (1968); Baca County School District v. Brown, 156 Colo. 562, 400 P.2d 663 (1965). While the provisions of the Act are to be interpreted liberally in favor of the rights of injured workers, e.g., Padilla v. Industrial Commission, 696 P.2d 273 (Colo.1985); James v. Irrigation Motor and Pump Co., 180 Colo. 195, 503 P.2d 1025 (1972), this rule of liberal construction does not lessen the...