Worker was stressed and worked long hours, was performing regular duties
An Ontario worker’s fatal heart attack that occurred while on the job was not work-related, the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal has ruled.
The worker was hired in July 2000 and worked as a log haul transport driver for a lumber company. On April 12, 2006, he was inside his truck waiting in a line for his truck to be loaded at a timber stockpile. The loader operator signaled for the worker to move his truck up to the loader but there was no response. The loader operator then went up to the truck and found the worker unresponsive.
An ambulance took the worker to the hospital where attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. The worker – who was 47 years old – was pronounced dead of a heart attack. The death certificate indicated the immediate cause of death was “atherosclerotic heart disease,” but no other related causes or circumstances.
The worker’s wife submitted a claim to the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board for survivor benefits. She indicated that she believed the worker’s heart attack was caused by “stress, constantly being pushed for productivity and the extensive hours” from his employment.
The worker’s wife said the worker had been called to work for what was supposed to be two days in a row but it ended up being six days in a row that required the worker to stay at a motel. She claimed he had to work long hours and had trouble sleeping, causing him to feel tired. She said the worker’s log book showed he worked between 10 and 18 hours each day in the days leading up to the heart attack, and this schedule along with his responsibilities – he was a senior driver – lack of sleep and stress led to the worker’s death.
No link between heart attack and job duties: Board
The board denied the claim, stating that “generally, an underlying disease not related to work causes heart problems such as angina and heart attacks.” The board noted heart attacks could be viewed as in the course of employment if the worker had to do strenuous physical work that was unusual for him, had a high degree of emotional stress caused by a work activity, or the symptoms happened immediately. However, the board found that the worker was sitting in his truck when he suffered the heart attack, not involved in a strenuous activity. It also determined there was no evidence the worker suffered from stress beyond a normal level in his work.
The wife on behalf of the worker’s estate appealed the decision, but an appeals resolution officer (ARO) confirmed the board’s decision. The ARO agreed the worker’s sleep had been disrupted and he worked some long shifts, but there wasn’t anything indicating “specific stressors or unusual physical exertion differing from the type of work in which the worker was normally engaged,” particularly since no medical records were provided to identify the cause of death or the onset of the worker’s symptoms.
“While I accept the acute symptoms occurred in the course of employment I am unable to identify a specific causal association between the work and the acute condition,” said the ARO. “In the absence of the clinical records and the death certificate it is not in my view possible to establish the appropriate medical timelines of symptom onset or the specific cause of death.”
The worker’s estate appealed once again, this time to the appeals tribunal. The tribunal noted that the logs and time sheets showed the worker’s hours were significant enough that it was “more probable than not that the consequences of employment played a significant role in his health condition,” particularly since the worker didn’t have a pre-existing medical condition on record that could have contributed to the heart attack.
The tribunal referred to the board’s operational policy document covering cardiac conditions, which stipulated the condition is considered work-related if caused by a traumatic injury or shock at work, an inhalation of smoke or noxious gases, or complication of treatment for a work-related injury. The document also states that if death occurs immediately as a result of such a condition and while the condition is in the acute phase, full death benefits can be paid.
The tribunal found it was clear the worker was in his truck waiting for it to be loaded – doing no physical activity – when he suffered the heart attack. In addition, the cause of death was listed as heart disease with no other contributing factors and the worker had no known prior heart condition.
The tribunal also found the worker’s wife’s records on how many shifts he worked in the months and days leading up to the heart attack were unreliable as they weren’t from the employer’s records and were found to be different from the worker’s daily log. As a result, it couldn’t trust her claims to the extent they could be clearly identified as the cause of heart-attack-inducing stress.
The tribunal also noted that the worker had been working in his position for six years and was working his regular duties at the time of his death. The hours he worked were not unusual from what he was used to and there was no evidence of “acute emotional stress” that could have led to his onset of his cardiac symptoms, said the tribunal.
Finally, the tribunal found none of the symptoms listed in the operational policy document – an injury, inhalation, or complication of treatment – applied in this case. The worker was sitting in his truck and not subject to any of those things before his heart attack happened. In addition, there was also an absence of evidence that the worker’s condition was the “unexpected result of working duties” or over time, which failed to meet the definition of workplace accident, said the tribunal.
“The preponderance of medical evidence therefore supports that atherosclerotic heart disease, and not any work-related factor, caused the worker’s cardiac arrest (and death) on April 12, 2006,” said the tribunal. “No medical records have been adduced about the worker’s health prior to April 12, 2006 and therefore I accept that the worker was overwhelmingly affected by ‘atherosclerotic heart disease,’ a condition which had no relationship to his work-related activities.”
The tribunal denied the appeal.
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