Workers’ compensation provides benefits for workers who are injured on the job. Working rotating shifts—such as working nights one week and days the next—can cause workers to develop sleep disorders or aggravate the severity of sleep disorders from which workers are already suffering. And sleep disorders, such as insomnia and shift-work maladaptation syndrome, can lead to other health problems. Are shift workers who develop sleep disorders or whose pre-existing sleep disorders are aggravated by shift work entitled to benefits under workers’ comp? Stated differently, are such disorders work-related? Here are two cases in which courts and tribunals came to different conclusions on this issue.
WORKER IS ENTITLED TO BENEFITS
FACTS
A worker alternated between two shifts every two weeks: One shift was from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the other was from 5:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. The worker had experienced sleep problems since he was a child. But it wasn’t until he was assigned to work days only for four months that he realized that the shift work was the reason his sleep problems were getting worse. Sure enough, during the four months that he worked only days, his condition improved. But when he was reassigned to rotating shifts, his condition started deteriorating again. A specialist diagnosed the worker with narcolepsy, a severe and chronic sleep disorder that can’t be cured. The worker filed a claim for workers’ comp benefits for the seven, two-week periods during which he’d been reassigned to rotating shifts.
DECISION
The ON Workers’ Compensation Appeals Tribunal ruled that the worker was entitled to workers’ comp benefits.
EXPLANATION
The tribunal acknowledged that the worker’s narcolepsy was a pre-existing condition unrelated to his work. But medical evidence showed that rotating shift work can aggravate narcolepsy’s symptoms, which appears to be what happened to this worker. The worker’s condition improved when he was placed on regular day shifts for the first time. And it deteriorated once again when he resumed working rotating shifts. Because the nature of shift work was a “significant contributing factor to the aggravation” of the worker’s pre-existing condition, the worker was entitled to workers’ comp benefits, the tribunal concluded.
Decision No. 207/90, [1991] O.W.C.A.T.D. No. 96, Feb. 4, 1991
WORKER ISN’T ENTITLED TO BENEFITS
FACTS
A worker worked a 28-day backward rotating cycle—that is, he rotated from the day shift (8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) to the night shift (midnight to 8:00 a.m.) to the evening shift (4:00 p.m. to midnight) over four weeks. He worked this cycle for seven years without incident. But then he began experiencing sleep difficulties. He missed work on several occasions because of severe sleeplessness. The worker considered himself disabled by a “cognitive deficit” that diminished his alertness on the job. So he applied for workers’ comp benefits, claiming that he had an injury called “shift-work maladaptation syndrome” that arose out of and in the course of his employment.
DECISION
A NS court ruled that the worker wasn’t entitled to workers’ comp benefits.
EXPLANATION
Only injuries or conditions “arising out of or in the course of a worker’s employment”—that is, those caused by a hazard incident to the work—are covered by workers’ comp. Shift-work maladaptation syndrome is a disability that might be covered by workers’ comp if it arose out of or in the course of a worker’s employment. But the court ruled that there was no evidence that this worker’s condition was “either caused or aggravated by the requirements of the job.” The worker had a “natural and innate intolerance” to changes in his sleep patterns that ultimately made him vulnerable to shift-work maladaptation syndrome. When he did shift work, he experienced the symptoms of the disorder. But just because a condition manifests itself at work doesn’t mean that it arises out of work, the court said.
Michelin North America (Canada) Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Board (N.S.), [2002] NSCA 166 (CanLII), Dec. 30, 2002
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