Greek: Medical Uncertainty Did Not Defeat the Bus Driver’s Injury and Death Claims

A bus driver died before his workers’ compensation claims could be decided. In Matter of Greek v. Dansville Central School District, Nos. CV-23-2419 and CV-24-1269 (N.Y. App. Div., Third Department, Oct. 15, 2026), the court upheld New York awards after examining whether the existing evidence permitted a fair hearing and supported industrial causation. The opinion separates three questions that a family’s file can contain: benefits attributable to the worker’s lifetime, benefits arising from the death, and the evidence needed to decide each claim.

A collision, a cardiac arrest and two claims

Walter Greek drove a school bus for a self-insured district. His cardiologist had treated premature ventricular contractions and cardiomyopathy but had found no imminent risk of fainting or other symptoms that would impair safe commercial driving. On April 5, 2022, Greek lost control of an empty bus while entering the employer’s garage parking lot and struck another bus. He was found in ventricular fibrillation. First responders began CPR and transported him to a hospital, but his normal heart rhythm could not be restored for approximately an hour. He sustained neurological, kidney, lung and rib fracture injuries, remained comatose and died five days later. Greek, page 2.

The file contained a lifetime compensation claim and a separate death-benefit claim. After Greek’s surviving spouse also died, the executor pursued both. The employer challenged the continuation of the lifetime claim, the failure to place it on a no-further-action calendar after Greek’s nonappearance, and the causal connection between employment, injury and death. Several Board decisions were amended during the appeals. Greek, pages 2–3.

The record could be tested even though the worker could not testify

The court applied New York law allowing the Workers’ Compensation Board to continue and decide a claim after an injured employee dies. It also recognized the competing concern: An undeveloped record can leave an employer unable to question the worker or obtain a medical examination on disputed causation or disability. The Board therefore had to consider the actual evidence and opportunity to contest it, rather than deciding solely from the fact of death. Greek, page 4.

Here, surveillance footage showed the accident, and hospital records documented what followed. The employer could—and did—retain a physician to review the medical records. That evidence allowed it to develop and present its position on the disputed causal sequence. Substantial evidence supported the Board’s assessment that the matter could fairly proceed, so the court upheld its exercise of discretion.

The employer’s separate nonappearance objection failed because of its timing. It asked for the lifetime claim to be placed on the no-further-action calendar in December 2023, more than a year and a half after the May 2022 conference ended and after extensive further proceedings. The court upheld the Board’s finding that the objection under 12 NYCRR 300.38(g)(16) had been waived. That ruling applied New York’s procedural framework to this litigation history. Greek, pages 3–4.

The employer’s pre-accident cardiac-event theory was not established

The employer maintained that an unrelated heart event caused Greek to lose consciousness and crash, and that resuscitation caused some of the later injuries. The court reviewed that theory under New York’s rule that, absent substantial contrary evidence, an accident occurring in the course of employment is presumed to arise out of it. The employer’s proposed explanation needed to be assessed against the medical testimony. Greek, pages 4–5.

Greek’s longtime treating cardiologist, who had treated him since 2017, said he had been doing well and that ventricular fibrillation would have been surprising given his earlier history. That doctor also explained that chest trauma could cause an arrhythmia. A second cardiologist, who treated Greek after the accident, agreed that trauma could have precipitated the fatal rhythm and said it was impossible to be absolutely certain whether the arrhythmia preceded the collision or resulted from it. The employer’s reviewer acknowledged assuming that Greek had lost consciousness before the crash. Greek, page 5.

The Board credited the treating evidence and found that the record did not establish the employer’s proposed sequence. It found the ensuing injuries compensable because they resulted either from the work-related accident or from necessary medical treatment of those injuries. The appellate court deferred to that supported resolution of conflicting evidence. The distinction is important: The opinion describes uncertainty about precisely when the arrhythmia began. It does not describe medical proof conclusively establishing that the collision preceded the arrhythmia. Greek, pages 5–6.

The death claim required its own causal explanation

The court separately considered whether the work-related injuries contributed to Greek’s death. The death certificate identified complications of probable cardiac arrhythmia due to nonischemic cardiomyopathy as the immediate cause, while listing multiple blunt-force injuries as significant contributing factors. The medical examiner explained that the trauma more likely than not added stress to an already frail heart and contributed to death. The cardiologist who treated Greek after the accident could not say that the traumatic injuries played no role in his death and had no reason to dispute the medical examiner’s assessment. Greek, page 6.

Applying established Third Department precedent, including Matter of Hickey v. Skanska-Walsh JV/Pace Car Plumbing LLC, 224 A.D.3d 1018, 1020 (2024), the claimant needed to establish a contributing work-related cause rather than the sole or most direct cause. The Board credited the individualized medical explanation, and the court found substantial evidence supporting the death-benefit determination. The preexisting heart condition and the industrial injuries therefore had to be evaluated together, with the doctors explaining their respective roles.

Some appeals were dismissed as moot; the operative decisions were affirmed

The court dismissed the appeals from the November 20, 2023, June 18, 2024 and August 1, 2024 decisions because later amended decisions had superseded them. It affirmed the three operative amended decisions—May 21, May 30 and June 25, 2025—without costs. The mootness ruling concerned superseded decisions; it did not eliminate the awards the amended decisions sustained. Greek, pages 3, 7.

This October 15 decision comes from New York’s Appellate Division, Third Department, and applies New York compensation law, including its statutory presumption and procedural rules. Its value to a California reader lies in the concrete evidence problem: Preserve the accident footage, treating history, emergency records and medical explanation before assuming that a deceased worker’s account is the only way to establish what happened. California rights require California law. Our separate guide to accrued and unpaid California benefits addresses the employer-payment question under Labor Code section 4700, while the death-benefit guide addresses dependency and the separate death claim.