SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – After a teacher was injured on the job, she was awarded worker’s compensation under existing New Mexico law. Now, the state’s highest court says the conditions on her initial award were unconstitutional.
A special education teacher, Ana Lila Cardenas, injured her knee on the job and then sought workers’ compensation. A judge initially awarded her compensation for the knee injury and a related mental impairment. However, because the initial impairment was to the knee, the judge limited the compensation for the mental impairment to the same time limit as the knee injury (150 weeks).
The worker appealed the decision, arguing that limiting the mental impairment to 150 weeks violated the equal protection clause of the New Mexico Constitution. Then the issue went to the New Mexico Supreme Court.
Now, justices on the Supreme Court have reached a unanimous decision, saying that the existing state law creates unequal treatment for workers who received mental impairments and workers who received physical impairments.
“Both mentally disabled workers and physically disabled workers are impaired in their capacities to perform work. A mental disability compensable under the [Workers’ Compensation Act] affects workers in the same way as a compensable physical disability does by preventing them from earning a wage because of an on-the-job accident,” the New Mexico Supreme Court wrote in an opinion by Justice Briana H. Zamora. “The idea that mentally disabled workers may be entitled to recover less compensation than physically disabled workers is contrary to the purposes of the Act, which guide our equal protection analysis.”
