Brenne v. Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations

• Decision Date: 27 February 1968
• Citation: 38 Wis.2d 84,156 N.W.2d 497
• Parties: Doris BRENNE, Special Admnx. of the Estate of Donald A. Brenne, Decd., Respondent, v. DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, LABOR & HUMAN RELATIONS et al., Appellants.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 497

156 N.W.2d 497

38 Wis.2d 84

Doris BRENNE, Special Admnx. of the Estate of Donald A Brenne, Decd., Respondent, v. DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, LABOR & HUMAN RELATIONS et al., Appellants.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Feb. 27, 1968.

Gavic & Richardson, Robert R. Gavic, Spring Valley, for respondent.

CONNOR T. HANSEN, Justice.

The trial court directed the commission to reconsider the rule established in Barber v. Industrial Commission (1942), 241 Wis. 462, 6 N.W.2d 199, 143 A.L.R. 1222. It is our conclusion that this should be done.

The particular statute involved is sec. 102.03, Stats., entitled Conditions of liability, which provides as follows:

'(1) Liability under this chapter shall exist against an employer only where the following conditions concur:

(d) Where the injury is not intentionally self-inflicted.'

We deem the historical background and development of the law relating to workmen's compensation death benefits from suicide to be of particular significance.

The Wisconsin Workmen's Compensation Law was enacted in 1911. Thereafter, Massachusetts formulated what has generally been referred to as the 'Sponatski Rule.' In re Sponatski (1915), 220 Mass. 526, 108 N.E. 466, 468, L.R.A. 1916A, 333:

'It is that where there follows as the direct result of a physical injury an insanity of such violence as to cause the victim to take his own life through an uncontrollable impulse or in a delirium of frenzy 'without conscious volition to produce death, having knowledge of the physical nature and consequences of the act,' then there is a direct and unbroken causal connection between the physical injury and the death.'

Although Sponatski was a workmen's compensation case, this standard was derived from the case of Daniels v. New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Co. (1903), 183 Mass. 393, 67 N.E. 424, 62 L.R.A. 751. Daniels was not a workmen's compensation case, but rather a tort action.

This court first considered the question of workmen's compensation death benefits resulting from suicide in Barber. The court adopted in Sponatski rule. In Barber there was a strongly worded dissent by Mr. Justice Fowler, joined in by Mr. Justice Fritz, which recognized a distinction between a claim for death benefit under workmen's compensation law and a cause of action under tort law. A year later in Jung v. Industrial Commission (1943), 242 Wis. 179, 7 N.W.2d 416, the court by a four-to-two majority affirmed the rationale and result of Barber. Jung was the last occasion this court considered this question.

There is no question but that the Sponatski rule (voluntary, wilful choice test) was the majority rule at the time of Barber. It would appear that some jurisdictions still adhere to its rationale; however, a reputable number of jurisdictions, with statutory provisions substantially similar to those of Wisconsin, have either abandoned it or in the cases of first impression adopted the 'chain-of-causation test.' It appears that Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont (by dictum only) and Washington still adhere to the rule of Sponatski. However, recent lower court decisions in Ohio and Pennsylvania reveal a trend toward the 'chain-of-causation' rationale. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi and New York have adopted the 'chain-of-causation test.' See 15 A.L.R.3d, 616, 621--623 (1967).

The law of workmen's compensation is not intended to employ the common-law concepts of negligence in determining liability. Work-connection rather than fault underlies recovery. The purpose of the workmen's compensation statutes is to provide financial and medical benefits to the victim of 'work-connected' injuries and their families--regardless of fault, and to allocate the financial burden to the most appropriate source, the employer, and, ultimately the consumer of the product. Clearly, in a proper case, the provisions of sec. 102.03(1)(d), Stats., should be given full force and effect so that industry should not have to carry the burden of compensating for a death for which it was in nowise responsible. See Whitehead v. Keene Roofing Co. (Fla.1949), 43 So.2d 464. The concept of workmen's compensation law is entirely different than the tort concept, where liability is based upon fault. See Cutler-Hammer, Inc. v. Industrial Commission (1958), 5 Wis.2d 247, 92 N.W.2d 824. Even in criminal cases the important element of 'intent' requires the sound mind and discretion of the accused. There can be no intention to commit an act in the sense of the workmen's compensation act if the mind of the actor is such that it is not sound, and that because of compulsion due to a work-connected injury he is unable to exercise a sound discretion.

In reality the Sponatski rule, as adopted by this court in Barber, incorporates both the Daniels standard of tort liability based upon fault and the M'Naghten rule (1843), 10 Clark & F., *200, *210, *211, 8 Eng. Reprint 718, for criminal insanity, into the law of workmen's compensation. The incorporation of such standards is inappropriate within the framework of the workmen's compensation statutes.

Modern psychiatry knows that a manic depressive condition operates to break down rational mental processes, placing the person afflicted in a mental state in which death actually seems more attractive than living, and in which he may not only have a conscious volition to produce death, but be eager to do so.

The burden of proof is on the claimant to establish by substantial evidence that the 'chain-of-causation' exists. The claimant does this by showing that the industrial injury caused the suicide. The record before us is devoid of any significant event in the life of the deceased from the time of the accident until his death. In workmen's compensation law, we are not concerned with foreseeability as understood in negligence actions under tort law, but only as to causation under the statutory liability.

There are inherent difficulties in proving that one who kills himself by his own hand does so because of injuries sustained in an accident, however the burden of proof is upon the claimant.

Larson, in his scholarly treatise on workmen's compensation, concludes:

'The question whether the actor appreciated the consequences of his act should not be decisive on the fundamental question whether that act was the natural and foreseeable result of the first injury. To say that it was not such a result, one must take the position that it is unforeseeable that a man, in unbearable pain, will knowingly take his own life. That position is simply untenable, and if any evidence is needed, the number of compensation cases presenting these facts should be proof enough. If the sole motivation controlling the will of the employee when he knowingly decides to kill himself is the pain and despair caused by the injury, and if the will itself is deranged and disordered by these consequences of the injury, then it seems wrong to say that this exercise of will is 'independent,' or that it breaks the chain of causation. Rather, it seems to be in the direct line of causation.' 1A Larson, Law of Workmen's Compensation, p. 510.22, sec. 36.30 Chain of causation test.

The statutory provisions of California are remarkably similar to those in Wisconsin. The exclusion is predicated on an 'intentionally self-inflicted act.' In a comparatively recent case of first impression the California Supreme Court considered the matter presently before us and therein stated:

'We believe that in those cases where the injuries suffered by the deceased result in his becoming devoid of normal judgment and dominated by a disturbance of mind directly caused by his injury and its consequences, his suicide cannot be considered 'wilful' within the meaning and intent of the Act.' Burnight v. Industrial Accident Commission (1960), 181 Cal.App.2d 816, 2 Cal.Rptr. 786.

While the act of suicide may be an independent intervening cause in some cases, it is certainly not so in those cases where the incontrovertible evidence shows that, without the injury, there would have been no suicide;...