Lockwood v. Independent School District No. 877

SCOTT, Justice.

At issue for the first time before this court is whether the Minnesota Workers’ Compensation Act affords compensation to an employee who suffers a disabling mental injury caused by work-related mental stress. The Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals ruled that it does and awarded employee temporary total disability benefits for 28 months. In the absence of a clearly expressed legislative intent that such an injury is compensable, we reverse.

The employee, Ronald K. Lockwood, Sr., was the principal of a senior high school located in Buffalo, Minnesota, from July 1973 until…