Printing - FECA-PT2 - National Association of Letter Carriers

premises and, if not, this should be explained.
d. The need for additional statements from co-workers, witnesses, or other sources will be
determined by the circumstances of the case, the discrepancies in the evidence, or other matters
requiring clarification.
2-0804-9 Idiopathic Falls
9. Idiopathic Falls.
a. The CE should give particular attention to those cases where the injury is due to a fall which
may have been caused by a personal and non-occupational pathology, such as a myocardial
infarction, fainting spell, or epileptic seizure. Injuries caused by such conditions are excluded from
coverage under the FECA unless there is intervention or contribution by some hazard or special
condition of the employment, including normal furnishings of an office or other workplace.
b. In such cases it is the CE's responsibility to obtain appropriate evidence from the injured
employee, the immediate superior, the witnesses, and the attending physician, showing whether
the fall was due to an idiopathic condition or an unknown cause. If the incident was due to an
idiopathic condition, the record must also clearly show whether the fall was to the immediate
supporting surface (floor) or whether some special condition, hazard, or instrumentality of the
work contributed to or intervened as a cause of the injury. If some factor of the employment
intervened or contributed to the injury resulting from the fall, the employee has coverage under
the FECA for the results of the injury but not for the idiopathic condition which caused the fall.
c. A distinction must be made between idiopathic falls and those falls which are merely
unexplained. If a fall is not shown to be caused by an idiopathic condition, it is simply unexplained
and is therefore compensable if it occurred in the performance of duty. An idiopathic fall is one
where a personal, non-occupational pathology causes an employee to collapse. An unexplained fall
is one where the cause is unknown even to the employee.
The ECAB made the distinction between idiopathic and unexplained falls in the following two cases:
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