We tend to work hard, long hours. Unfortunately, long hours often result in poor physical conditioning and stress. Many employees, as a result, are placing themselves in position to suffer a heart attack.

If you have a heart attack, either at work or at home, can you successfully file a workers’ compensation claim? Are heart attack work comp benefits available? This question depends largely upon the cause of the heart attack.

Work Related

Workers’ compensation laws vary from state to state, but generally, an injured employee receives workers comp benefits for an injury that is work related.

Heart Attacks?

However, heart attacks are harder to prove as work related. Different states have different standards.

Missouri Heart Attacks

Under Missouri law, specifically Section 287.020(3) RSMo., “An injury resulting directly or indirectly from idiopathic causes is not compensable.” In the case of Huffmaster v. American Recreation Products, 180 S.W.3d 525, 529 (Mo.App. E.D. 2006), “idiopathic cause” for an accident was defined as those

“conditions … ‘peculiar to the individual: innate.’ Evidentiary support is required to successfully claim an event is entirely idiopathic, i.e., the event results from some cause personal to the individual, such as a physical defect or disease.”

This creates some gray areas for workers compensation benefits for a heart attack. To be successful, a Missouri employee will have to establish that the working conditions, like heat, physical exertion, or stress were the prevailing factor in causing the heart attack. If the medical evidence supports this, you could have a successful claim. This could be true even if the heart attack or stroke occurred at your home. You can rest assured that the employer’s insurance company will look closely at your medical records. The claim will likely be denied and strenuously defended if the insurance company finds that you have or have had medical conditions that contribute to heart attacks, like high blood pressure, obesity, or high cholesterol.

Arkansas Heart Attacks

Arkansas law is just as complicated. A.C.A. Section 11-9-114 provides that:

(a) A cardiovascular, coronary, pulmonary, respiratory, or cerebrovascular accident or myocardial infarction causing injury, illness, or death is a compensable injury only if, in relation to other factors contributing to the physical harm, an accident is the major cause of the physical harm.
(b)(1) An injury or disease included in subsection (a) of this section shall not be deemed to be a compensable injury unless it is shown that the exertion of the work necessary to precipitate the disability or death was extraordinary and unusual in comparison to the employee’s usual work in the course of the employee’s regular employment or, alternately, that some unusual and unpredicted incident occurred which is found to have been the major cause of the physical harm.

A “major cause” is one that contributes more than 50% of the cause. Under Arkansas law, as a result, the work that led to the heart attack must have been “extraordinary and unusual in comparison to the employee’s usual work” or, “some unusual and unpredicted incident occurred”, that was the major cause of the heart attack must occur.

Conclusion

In either state, it is your burden of proof to establish that your heart attack was caused by conditions related to your work. These cases are very complicated. You will need the advice of an experienced workers compensation attorney. Your attorney can help you obtain a doctor’s medical opinion of what caused your heart attack. Discuss the option of getting a second opinion with your workers compensation attorney if the physician the employer requires you to see does not support your case.

Please contact us to discuss your workers compensation claim.