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Guide to Virginia Workers’ Compensation Law

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V. Psychological and Psychiatric Claims A. 1. Psychological and psychiatric problems can be compensable under the Act as either an injury by accident, disease, or compensable consequence. Under an injury theory, a strictly psychological injury must either be related to a physical injury, or related to "an obvious sudden shock or fright arising in the course of employment." The event causing the sudden shock or fright must be something extraordinary, taking into account the employee's work duties, and so dramatic and frightening that it "shocks the conscience." 2. 3. Under a disease theory, the Commission will apply the normal standards for occupational diseases and ordinary diseases of life to determine whether the disease is compensable under the Act. Finally, the psychological or psychiatric disease could be considered a compensable consequence of the work injury or another compensable disease. The normal rules for analyzing causation and compensable consequences apply here.

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