Owens v. Virginia Department of Transportation/Commonwealth

COLEMAN, Judge.

Major Ridley Owens appeals the Workers’ Compensation Commission’s decision denying him benefits for the aggravation of his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), allegedly caused by the sound of a utility cover dropping behind him. The commission held that Owens failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the startling sound gave rise to a compensable psychological injury by accident. According to the commission, the noise was neither out of the ordinary for Owens’s workplace nor so dramatic or frightening as to shock the conscience. Owens contends the evidence was…