Police officer timely files claim for PTSD decade after triggering event: court

The Arizona Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a finding that a police officer timely filed his claim for post-traumatic stress disorder almost a decade after the event that triggered his condition.

The Phoenix patrol officer responded to a home invasion call that resulted in a fatality in 2011. After this incident, the officer began experiencing anxiety, sadness and difficulty sleeping. In February 2020, he met with a counselor who diagnosed him with “unspecified trauma” and a stressor-related disorder, according to No. 1 CA-IC 24-0024.

In January 2021, he met with a doctor who diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. Upon filing a workers compensation claim in May 2021 he listed his date of injury as Jan. 29, 2021, but explained that his injury was caused by the 2011 home invasion incident. The city contested the claim as untimely, asserting that he should have known of his work-related condition by February 2020 when he met with the first therapist.

An administrative law judge found that he did not know he had a work-related injury until he was diagnosed with PTSD in 2021.

The Arizona Court of Appeals explained that a worker has one year after the date of injury to file a claim, a period that does not begin until he “recognizes the nature of his injury, the seriousness of the injury and the probable causal relationship between the injury and the employment.”

The city attempted to argue there is not much difference between PTSD and “unspecified trauma,” the court said, but establishing such is not equivalent to establishing that the officer was aware of the cause of PTSD such that he should have known to file a claim.

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