MICHELLE WATTS, Applicant
COUNTY OF MILWAUKEE, Employer
COUNTY OF MILWAUKEE, Insurer
An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Worker's Compensation Division of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.
The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission agrees with the decision of the ALJ, and it adopts the findings and order in that decision as its own.
The findings and order of the administrative law judge are affirmed. The application is dismissed.
Dated and mailed August 29, 2007
wattsmi . wsd : 185 : 8 ND § 3.41
/s/ James T. Flynn, Chairman
/s/ Robert Glaser, Commissioner
/s/ Ann L. Crump, Commissioner
In her petition, the applicant asserted that the failure of the county deputies on duty to come to her immediate aid "while she was being assaulted" on May 15, 2004, caused her to suffer stress of greater dimension than similarly-situated employees. (1) The applicant focuses on the brief period between the time she exited the interview room, and the time the county deputy arrived to confront the inmate. When the deputy did arrive, the inmate was inside the interview room tearing up the applicant's papers. Had the inmate been chasing the applicant after they exited the interview room, or had he been physically assaulting her, this would have been a different case. The commission infers that from an objective viewpoint, the greatest degree of stress the applicant would have experienced in the work incident occurred when she and the inmate were still in the interview room, and the inmate threatened to "bust me [the applicant] over my mother fucking head with a chair." The applicant and the inmate "bumped into each other" as the applicant exited the room, but she did not indicate that the inmate ever physically attacked her or chased her. The inmate's verbal threats were understandably frightening to the applicant, but even she conceded that they were not unusual for an individual in her position, and that she previously "had been called all kinds of names" by inmates.
The commission rejects the argument that the events that occurred in the interview room, or the events that unfolded after the applicant exited the interview room, constituted unusual stress for an individual in the applicant's position. The administrative law judge correctly dismissed the claim because the applicant's experience did not reach a compensable level of stress as established by the case law.
cc:
Attorney Gene A. Holt
Attorney Mark A. Grady
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