New Mexico Cannot Differentiate Between Secondary Mental Benefits and Secondary Physical Benefits
Capping secondary mental impairment benefits—pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 52-1-41(C)(2015)—to the number of weeks allowable for the worker’s original physical injury [e.g., 150 weeks where the mental injury is secondary to an injury to the knee] where a secondary physical impairment resulting from a scheduled physical injury is not similarly capped, violates the equal protection guarantee contained in the New Mexico Constitution because it treats workers with secondary mental impairments differently than similarly situated workers with secondary physical impairments, held the New Mexico Court of Appeals [Cardenas v. Aztec Mun. Schs., 2022 N.M. App. LEXIS 3 (Jan. 24, 2022)].
Background
The facts were not in dispute. The worker, a special education teacher, sustained a knee injury in a January 2016 workplace accident. Subsequently, she filed a workers’ compensation claim for both her primary knee injury and for a secondary mental impairment she alleged resulted from and was caused by the original injury to her knee. An independent evaluating psychologist concluded that the worker’s psychological impairment was causally related to the workplace injury to worker’s knee and that the worker was 15 percent disabled by her psychological impairment.
The dispute between the parties concerned the length of time the worker would receive compensation benefits for her secondary mental impairment. Under NMSA 1978, Section 52-1-42(A)(4), the duration of partial disability benefits for a secondary mental impairment is limited to the number of weeks allowable for the worker’s original physical injury. Where, as here, the original physical injury was to a scheduled body part—here, the knee—the worker was limited to the duration of benefits listed for an injury to that body part. Thus, because the worker’s scheduled injury was to her knee, her secondary mental impairment benefits to 150 weeks, and a WCL entered an order to that effect.
The worker contended that capping the duration of benefits for a secondary mental impairment resulting from a scheduled physical injury, when a secondary physical impairment resulting from a scheduled physical injury was not similarly capped, violated the equal protection guarantee contained in the New Mexico Constitution because it treated workers with secondary mental impairments differently than similarly situated workers with secondary physical impairments. The worker pointed out that if her secondary mental impairment was treated the same as an unscheduled secondary physical impairment, she would be entitled to up to 500 weeks of partial disability benefits, rather than the 150 weeks she was awarded.
Court of Appeals: Unconstitutional
The Court of Appeals agreed with the worker. The Court said it could see no difference related to the purposes of the Workers' Compensation Act between workers with subsequently arising secondary physical disabilities that were causally connected to a compensable work-related accidental injury, and workers with secondary mental impairments, as defined by the Act. The workers in both groups would have become secondarily impaired as the result of an original work-related accidental injury and both groups would have lost earnings as the result of their secondary disability. They were similarly situated with regard to the Act’s purpose: to provide workers compensation for earning capacity lost or diminished due to a disability caused by and resulting from a work-related accidental injury.
Differentiating between the two types of secondary injury was constitutionally impermissible. The case was remanded for proceedings consistent with the Court’s opinion.