Campbell v. Young Motor Co., 83-97

• Decision Date: 28 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-97,83-97
• Citation: 41 St.Rep. 1218,211 Mont. 68,684 P.2d 1101
• Parties: Rebecca CAMPBELL, Widow of Raymond Campbell, Claimant and Respondent, v. YOUNG MOTOR COMPANY, Employer, and Federated Mutual Insurance, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

Page 1101

684 P.2d 1101

211 Mont. 68

Rebecca CAMPBELL, Widow of Raymond Campbell, Claimant and Respondent, v. YOUNG MOTOR COMPANY, Employer and Federated Mutual Insurance, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 83-97.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted Nov. 30, 1983.

Decided June 28, 1984.

Corette, Smith, Pohlman & Allen, Robert Carlson and Dolphy Pohlman argued, Butte, for defendant and appellant.

Greg J. Skakles argued, Anaconda, for claimant and respondent.

SHEA, Justice.

Defendants, Young Motor Company, employer, and Federated Mutual Insurance, the insurer, appeal a judgment of the Workers' Compensation Court awarding death benefits to Rebecca Campbell, the widow of Raymond Campbell, who committed suicide five years after he sustained a compensable injury. The trial court found there existed a causal connection between the injury and the ultimate suicide. We affirm.

The primary question, one not decided by this Court, is whether the Workers' Compensation Act permits recovery for a suicide, if it can be shown that a previous compensable injury was a substantial contributing cause of the suicide. Assuming that such recovery is permitted, the second question is whether substantial credible evidence supports the findings of the trial court that Raymond Campbell's injury was a substantial contributing cause of his suicide. The third issue is whether the trial court erred in awarding costs and attorney fees to the claimant under section 39-71-611, MCA, of the Workers' Compensation Act. This issue is controlled by our answer to the legal question and to the sufficiency of the evidence question, for, under the statute, claimant is entitled to costs and attorney fees if the order is affirmed.

Before setting forth the facts on which the claim was based, we discuss first the question of whether a claim for death benefits under the Workers' Compensation Act can be based on a contention that an injury eventually led to the suicide of the employee. The employer argues that suicide was of personal origin and was a superceding intervening cause as a matter of law.

This state has no statutes dealing with the effect of suicide on the right to recover death benefits. One statute in effect at the time of the injury (January 8, 1974), bears on the question of causation. Section 92-608, R.C.M.1947, provides in substance that if an injury is the proximate cause of death, death benefits are payable even though the death did not immediately follow the injury. The last part of this statute simply provides that there is no liability for compensation after a worker's death if the worker dies from some "cause other than the injury, ..." This Court, in Breen v. Industrial Accident Board (1968), 150 Mont. 463, 436 P.2d 701, set forth the requirements of proximate cause under this statute, and specifically stated that:

"... this, of course, does not mean that the injury must be the sole cause of death, but it does mean that an injury must be a substantial contributing cause in the sense that death would not have occurred but for such injuries." 150 Mont. 472-473, 436 P.2d at 706.

The employer argues for an absolute rule that suicide is per se an intentional act that is an independent, intervening cause, and therefore that as a matter of law, recovery of death benefits cannot be permitted. Claimant argues, on the other hand, that recovery of death benefits is permitted if the required connection between the compensable injury and the suicide is established.

Both the majority and the minority rules of other jurisdictions permit recovery of death benefits where there is a suicide. In effect, no jurisdictions recognize suicide as an intentional act that automatically breaks the chain of causation to defeat a claim for death benefits. Both the majority and the minority rules are set forth in Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law, Vol. IA, Sec. 36.00, at 6-117:

"Suicide under the majority rule is compensable if the injury produces mental derangement and the mental derangement produces suicide. The minority rule is that suicide is not compensable unless there has followed as the direct result of a work-connected injury an insanity of such severity 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."

In applying the law to the facts here, the trial court adopted the majority rule, and we approve.

The minority rule, as Larson explains, was once the majority rule, but it "... was gradually displaced as majority rule by the chain of causation test, which found compensability if the injury caused the deranged mental condition which in turn caused the suicide." Larson, supra, Sec. 36.10, at 6-118. In explaining the role of intervening cause in the analysis, Larson explains that the focus must be "... not on the employee's knowledge that he is killing himself, but rather on the existence of an unbroken chain of causation from the injury to the suicide ..." Larson, supra, Sec. 36.30, at 6-136. In other words, as Larson explains:

"... if the first cause produces the second cause, that second cause is not an independent intervening cause. 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 forseeable result of the first injury." Larson, supra, Sec. 36.30, at 6-136.

While the employer's position is an easy one to assert and apply, that is, that suicide is per se intentional and therefore a sufficient intervening cause to cut off the chain of causation leading from the initial injury, this position adopts too hard and fast a rule on the dynamics of cause and effect. The more reasonable and humane rule is one that was set forth by the Delaware Supreme Court in Delaware Tire Center v. Fox (1979), 401 A.2d 97, where the Court held that death benefits were available where the worker committed suicide. The Court stated:

"In applying this [chain of causation] test, death by suicide would be compensable if it is caused by severe pain and despair which proximately results from a compensable accident, and is of such a degree as to override normal and rational judgment. A suicide committed under such circumstances cannot be said to be 'intentional' even though the act itself may be volitional. (Citations omitted.)"

This chain of causation rule recognizes that the injury and the post-injury trauma, mental as well as physical, may take a path anticipated by no one, but nonetheless be traceable to the injury itself. We are convinced, furthermore, that the majority rule we have adopted here more completely fulfills the statutory duty (section 39-71-104, MCA) imposed under the Workers' Compensation Act to liberally construe its provisions in favor of the employee.

On the question of causation, the employer argues that the suicide note itself set forth the reason Campbell took his own life, and that it supports only a finding that the injury was not the precipitating cause of his suicide. Further, the employer argues that the opinion of a psychologist, who performed a psychological autopsy on Campbell by using his previous medical records and history, was faulty because the psychologist failed to interview two fellow employees at Greyrock Trucking who would not have supported the opinion that Campbell had constant pain and that he was in a deep depression.

Before his death, Campbell wrote a suicide note that read:

"To Mom [on outside of envelope]

"I'm going home with Grandma and Grandad. [Both had predeceased him.]

"Be sure and tell [my son] someday why I went there.

"I'm very sorry mom but I just couldn't let someone else take he[r]?

"Love you always."

The employer argues that proper application of the chain of causation test shows that despite any depression precipated by Campbell's inability to work and his heavy drinking, the substantial factor in his suicide was the loss of his wife and children who moved out one month before the death because of his heavy drinking and abusive behavior. The employer also attacks the opinion of a psychologist who performed a psychological autopsy of Campbell, and who concluded that the injury was a very significant and very substantial cause of Campbell's depression and ultimate suicide. The employer argues that the opinion was faulty because the psychologist did not interview Campbell before his death and because he failed to interview two fellow employees of Campbell at Greyrock Trucking who would not have supported the psychologist's opinion as to Campbell's depression or his suffering from pain as the result of his injury. The evidence, however, fully supports the trial court's findings and conclusions.

On January 8, 1974, Raymond Campbell seriously injured his back while working as a car body repairman for Young Motor Company in Anaconda. The injury led to two surgeries, but the surgeon testified that he expected Campbell to have...