Teacher files appeal after district stops paying assault leave

A teacher filed an appeal to the commissioner of education after a school district denied a grievance that she filed when the district stopped paying her assault leave.

The commissioner began his consideration of the appeal by examining the facts of the case. The teacher was highly allergic to peanuts. Her students intentionally exposed her to peanuts on two occasions by rubbing candy containing peanuts on her desk. The day after the second exposure, the teacher's husband emailed her school that he had taken her to the emergency room for swollen eyes and lips. Over the next few days, the teacher emailed school personnel to update them on her continued leave and medical treatment, which included steroid injections and infusions and treatment received at a hospital.

Approximately three weeks after the teacher was exposed to the peanuts, the teacher's husband emailed the district to let them know that the teacher still was in the hospital. About a week later, the district emailed the teacher to let her know that she had exhausted her personal leave. At that time, the teacher requested assault leave.

The statute that grants a teacher the right to take assault leave states as follows: "An employee of a school district who is physically assaulted during the performance of the employee's regular duties is entitled to the number of days of leave necessary to recuperate from all physical injuries sustained as a result of the assault. At the request of an employee, the school district must immediately assign an employee to assault leave and, on investigation of the claim, may change the assault leave status and charge the leave against the employee's accrued personal leave or against an employee's pay if insufficient accrued personal leave is available."

As required by the statute, the district immediately placed the teacher on assault leave at her request and began to investigate her claim.

In response to the district's investigation, the teacher provided the district with a form titled, "Certification of Health Care Provider for Employee's Serious Health Condition When Requesting Temporary Disability or Extension of Temporary Disability" (disability certification form). 

The health care provider completing the form was a rheumatologist. In the form, the doctor noted that the teacher "continues to have diffuse muscle pain, joint pain. Not sure if her flare [up] is related to her underlying autoimmune disease, or flare of fibromyalgia. She reports her symptoms got worse after she was exposed to peanuts in the classroom." The doctor also noted on a different form that "she continues to have diffuse muscle pain, joint pain" and that "symptoms begin [sic] to flare up due to peanut exposure. She also has fibromyalgia which can flare up any time."

Following receipt of this documentation, the district stopped paying the teacher assault leave and the teacher filed a grievance.

While the grievance was pending, the teacher fainted, fell and suffered a cervical herniated disc, which required surgery. The surgeon observed that the teacher was hypersensitive to multiple agents, noting that "throughout the course of my care for this patient, it has become evident to me that patient has extreme hypersensitivities to multiple agents in addition to her autoimmune diagnoses including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis for which she take [sic] multiple medication including anti-TNF agents." 

He went on to describe several reactions the teacher had during his treatment of her to various agents related to her surgery, including severe reactions to a routine steroid-lidocaine injection and adhesive bandaging, as well as postoperative medication. The surgeon concluded that that "in the approximately 2.5 months that I have been caring for this patient, I have concluded that she has extreme hypersensitivities well beyond that of most other allergy and autoimmune patients that I have encountered in my experience." 

He noted that she "receives steroids routinely for her autoimmune conditions" and was still recovering from the exposures related to surgery three weeks later. Based on these observations, he opined, "Given my experience with this patient, I do believe that, in reasonable medical probability she has been unable to work due to illness and consequent injury resultant from extreme hypersensitivity reactions to offending agents that she was repeatedly exposed to while at work."

The district argued that it properly stopped paying the teacher assault leave because the medical evidence suggested other causes for the teacher's symptoms, including an underlying autoimmune disease and/or fibromyalgia. It argued that even if even if peanuts initially caused an allergic reaction, the duration was unclear, and there were other causes for the teacher's symptoms.

The commissioner agreed with the district and found that the evidence did not conclusively establish that the teacher's leave was caused by a sustained allergic reaction to the peanuts the students exposed her to.  Therefore, the district was lawfully entitled to stop paying her assault leave.