Employment lawyers who represent plaintiffs have long faced the dilemma of how to help a plaintiff who has resigned from the workplace because he or she suffers from a psychological injury caused by an abusive boss or a hostile work environment, but is unlikely to be able to meet the high bar of “constructive discharge.”
Workers’ compensation, a logical place to turn, provides little relief for a plaintiff in this situation. Under workers’ compensation law, there is little chance that a plaintiff can recover lost wages as a result of a mental injury inflicted by an employer. Under Goyden v. State of N.J., Judiciary, Superior Court of N.J., 128 N.J. 54 (1992), the New Jersey Supreme Court held that to be awarded lost wages under workers’ compensation law to compensate for a mental illness caused by the employer, the claimant must prove that the mental illness arose out of objectively stressful work conditions. An employee cannot be awarded lost wages as a result of an employer-caused psychological injury if he or she is uniquely predisposed, because of his or her particular characteristics or personality, to suffer from a mental condition. To be compensable, the employer’s behavior toward the employee must be the type that is objectively stressful for all employees who are subject to it.
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