Willful Misconduct and WC Benefits Update: Verga v. WCAB

By
Megan K. Rogers

Verga v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd., (2008) 159 Cal. App. 4th 174

The Third District Court of Appeal determined that workers' compensation benefits are not available where an employee engages in harassing and demeaning behavior in the workplace, causing others to respond in a way the employee subjectively finds offensive and psychologically injurious. In such circumstances, the predominant cause of the employee's psychiatric injuries is not an actual event of employment within the meaning of the statutory scheme; the predominant cause is the employee's intentional abuse of co-workers. (Lab. Code, § 3208.3, § 3600)

The facts are as follows: The claimant asserted that her psychiatric injury was the result of harassment and persecution by her supervisor and coworkers. The board found, however, that the claimant was not entitled to benefits because she caused her own stressful work environment by being verbally abusive toward other employees and that she brought upon herself the disdain of coworkers. Substantial evidence supported factual findings that the claimant's supervisor and coworkers did not persecute or harass her. The board correctly concluded that false perceptions of the working environment were not actual events of employment and that the claimant's subjective misperception of her coworkers' reactions to her behavior as harassment did not entitle her to benefits. Although Cal. Const., art. XIV, § 4, provides for compensation without fault, the employee's verbal abuse of her coworkers could be described as willful misconduct.