Terence McGee's nerves were shattered.

As director of food services of a Greenville retirement home, McGee had felt the stress building for years. A budget crunch, complaining residents, frequent employee turnover, harsh supervisors and a depleted staff were some of the things that had taken him to the end of his rope.

"I was mentally and physically shot," McGee said.

Finally, it was too much. McGee went to a psychologist, who told him to take a month at home to recuperate. And last year, McGee sued his former employer Peninsula United Methodist Homes Inc. for workers' compensation benefits – and won.

McGee's battle was an unusual one. Workers' comp claims have traditionally been filed over physical injuries, such as strained backs or broken bones. But some lawyers say claims in Delaware over mental stress may swell in the future.

That's because of a little-noticed Delaware Supreme Court decision in 1994. The ruling opened the way for claims based on ordinary job stress, expanding the notion that such mental claims had to be based on some sudden trauma, such as witnessing a workplace shooting or an explosion on the factory floor.

In writing its opinion, the state court justices acknowledged concerns that the floodgates might open to stress claims.

Indeed, Delaware's rules are now among the loosest in the nation when it comes to awarding payment for job stress, said Bruce Wood, senior counsel for the American Insurance Association trade group. Only seven other states allow claims arising from simple day-to-day job stress, Wood said.

"Everybody's job is stressful," said James F. Maher, a New Castle labor lawyer. "And in companies that are downsizing, stress is a real factor – for those who are downsized and those who are left behind."

"The concern in the employer community at that point was that this could be a tidal wave," he said.

So far, it's been only a trickle.

McGee brought one of only three such cases in which Delaware employees won disability benefits such as back wages. In the last two years, the workers' comp office of Delaware's labor department has logged reports of some 60,000 potential workplace injuries. Of those, 95 were based on mental stress, administrator John Kirk III said.

"Workers don't know about it yet," said Clifford B. Hearn Jr., a Wilmington insurance lobbyist and attorney for workers' comp claimants. "Blue-collar workers don't traditionally think about stress" as grounds for a claim. "And white-collar workers don't traditionally think of workers' comp."

Some fear that won't last.

"As soon as people get to know the law, you'll see a lot of claims. ... A lot of white-collar environments are going to really be socked," said Thomas J. Koval, safety director at Raytheon Constructors Inc. in Delaware City and head of the workers' comp committee for the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce.

As blue-collar jobs decrease in Delaware and jobs such as banking and health care increase, Koval said, "all the intelligent lawyers we have in this community ... are going to see one well drying up and another one that's pretty fertile."

The Cephas decision

The case that opened the door wider for job-stress claims was that of Aubrey Cephas, a staff lieutenant who handled inmates' complaints at Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna.

After his caseload suddenly tripled, Cephas suffered headaches, blackouts, vomiting and hives. The problems kept him from working for six weeks in 1990, he said.

The state Industrial Accident Board agreed, awarding medical expenses and lost wages for the six-week period. The Supreme Court affirmed that decision, saying that a work-related mental disorder could be considered an injury, to be covered by workers' comp.

Other states have tightened their rules after being barraged with job stress claims. In California, claims grew sevenfold from 1981 to 1991, but fell off dramatically after 1993 reforms ruled out complaints in which the causes of stress were largely personal rather than work-related.

In a 1993 study, the National Council on Compensation Insurance found that successful stress claims paid an average of $12,400 in medical costs and lost wages.

A rise in such claims could hike employer's costs for workers' comp coverage. "It's just like auto insurance," Koval said. "As you have more cases and more losses, your rate rises."

Even employers not hit by stress claims could see rates rise. Larger companies who self-insure must cover the costs of claims themselves.

Last year, the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce considered pushing legislation that would narrow or eliminate the eligibility of stress-based claims. No bill was introduced, though the chamber may revisit the issue next year.

"Some people believe stress is not a workers' comp issue – that you have to show an actual physical injury, that's what the system was set up for," said A. Richard Heffron, chamber lobbyist.

Stressful litigation

One of the reasons companies haven't been besieged with stress claims is that going through the litigation can be even more stressful than the job problems.

To win benefits under the Cephas decision, workers must convince the board that stressful work conditions were a "substantial" cause of disability. Often lawyers for the employer will try to prove that the root of the worker's mental problems lie outside the workplace.

"The other side has to demonstrate that the person was a wacko prior to employment," psychologist Owen Lugar said.

Workers bringing claims "are going to have exposed every bit of grit or dirt in their history. ... The defense lawyer is going to look at them under a microscope, just like a rape victim asked about their sexual history," Philip E. Herrmann said. The Wilmington attorney handles workers' stress claims.

McGee found that out the hard way. At times, the daylong hearing focused on McGee's earlier spell of heavy drinking, and on his treatment for depression years before.

"The whole process is very degrading. ... You're literally on trial," McGee said. In last year's suit, he won benefits from his former employer, which owns the Methodist Country House in Greenville.

Still, the board agreed the stress that took McGee out of work for a month was job-related. McGee simply "reached a point where the work factors causing his stress were overwhelming, and it was necessary for him to take some time off," wrote Jesse I. Hastings and R. Howard Seward of the workers' comp board in documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

The board awarded about $800 for McGee's psychologist bills, and ordered the employer to reinstate the vacation time McGee had used during his four weeks off. McGee, 63, retired last year to run an antique shop with his wife in Mullica Hill, N.J.

Another reason the floodgates haven't opened is that victories have been hard to come by.

In 15 of the 95 stress complaints in the last two years, employers paid disability benefits for lost wages without a dispute.

In another 40 cases, workers filed petitions with the Industrial Accident Board to settle the dispute. Ten later withdrew their petitions, and 18 are still awaiting hearings.

Since the Cephas decision, a total of eight have been argued before the board, which awarded lost wages and medical benefits in two cases, and medical benefits only in one.

Employers or their insurers are less likely to settle stress-related claims than other kinds of more conventional workers' comp suits, said John J. Sullivan Jr., a Wilmington claimants attorney.

"They know the board is reluctant to award benefits for stress claims," Sullivan said.

That keeps some workers from risking the time and expense of pursuing a case, said Wilmington attorney Cassandra Kaminski, who represents employers in stress-claim hearings.

What's more, even when workers won, she said, "there was only a limited amount of back pay awarded. The board didn't give an open-ended period of wage losses." By law, the board awards a maximum of $375 per week for time lost because of disability.

Stressful supervisors

Not surprisingly, when most workers go to the trouble of filing a stress claim, the alleged cause of the problem is their boss or co-workers.

Take autoworker John Hogan, who said workplace stress took him off the job at Chrysler Corp.'s Newark plant.

The workers' comp board found Hogan's boss posted notes that criticized him in foul words, attacked him verbally in front of other workers, and squirted him with a water bottle that Hogan thought held chemicals.

Hogan was "clearly victimized by his supervisor, and the employer did not dispute that," Kaminski said. In 1994, the board awarded him payment for the weeks stress put him out of work, and for legal costs.

But claims don't come only from the rank and file. John Brazier of Bel Air, Md., is in the midst of a suit against computer game maker Microleague Multimedia Inc. of Newark, where he was president.

According to Brazier's petition to the workers' comp board, he was under pressure to fire his son and was finally demoted.

Mentally, "I hit the wall," he said. Work stress took him off the job for six weeks, Brazier said.

Stress claims in Delaware have come from a wide spectrum of workers – a nurse, a truck driver, a senior corporate secretary. The employers targeted by such suits range from banks to bakeries and from an insurance company to a water company. Men are as likely to file claims as women, Kaminski said.

"The disease knows no boundaries," Koval said.

Some may worry that Delaware's relaxed rules will invite phony stress claims. But given the financial and emotional strain of pressing a claim, "I don't think anyone in their right mind would pursue it frivolously," McGee said.

In most cases, the causes of stress are wide open for argument. And fakers could be sniffed out by mental health specialists, Lugar said.

"This is not an exact science," he admits. But specialists have some well-established tools, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

The 584-question test for psychological problems was developed beginning in the 1920s, and came into wide use 50 years ago. "Is it 100 percent accurate? No, but it is sensitive to malingering," Lugar said.

Lugar, who specializes in workplace psychology, says employers can head off stress claims by boosting employee morale.

"An awful lot of managers have become increasingly sensitive to the fact that it's very costly – from a health care utilization standpoint, from a legal standpoint – not to improve the atmospherics at work," he said.

He prescribes grievance arbitration and other ways to let workers be heard. "That investment in a supportive environment for the work force is going to come back, time and time again, in loyalty," Lugar said.

"So when your supervisor has a bad day, you blow it off, instead of calling an attorney."

Employers could head off many suits by simply hearing out workers' gripes, Lugar said: "If I could give company owners one piece of advice, it would be listen, listen, listen."

Such advice might have avoided the claim Francis Pullella of Hockessin brought against BJ's Wholesale Club in New Castle.

Pullella, a meat cutter, said he complained unsuccessfully to managers for more than three years about a co-worker harassing him sexually.

Finally, the stress put him out of work for more than two months last year, he said. Pullella filed a workers' comp claim in October 1995; a year later, BJ's paid $6,700 to settle the claim.

The settlement covered lost wages and health care costs, but "I have a lot of anxiety as to whether that was the right thing to do. ... They should pay me for the pain and suffering I went through," Pullella said. He is pursuing a civil suit alleging sexual harassment.

That's the kind of experience that prompts psychologist Lugar to say that employers who don't pay attention to stressed-out workers are running a risk: "They're going to get kicked in the ass so often with lawsuits that they're going to change."