State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div. v. Ramsey

• Decision Date: 08 October 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-244,91-244
• Parties: STATE of Wyoming, ex rel., WYOMING WORKERS' COMPENSATION DIVISION, Appellant (Petitioner), v. Judy RAMSEY, surviving spouse of Steven Ramsey, Appellee (Respondent).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 936

839 P.2d 936

STATE of Wyoming, ex rel., WYOMING WORKERS' COMPENSATION DIVISION, Appellant (Petitioner), v. Judy RAMSEY, surviving spouse of Steven Ramsey, Appellee (Respondent).

No. 91-244.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Oct. 8, 1992.

Joseph B. Meyer, Atty. Gen., and J.C. DeMers, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Phillip T. Willoughby, Casper, for appellee.

Before MACY, C.J., THOMAS, URBIGKIT ^* and GOLDEN, JJ., and PRICE, District Judge.

URBIGKIT, Justice.

Can a suicide become a compensable event for worker's compensation coverage? We answer the question in the affirmative in concurring with the decision of the administrative hearing officer which was affirmed upon first appellate review by the district court. Our decision employs the chain of causation test as the predominating principle on this subject within the volume of appellate cases. See Leslie A. Bradshaw, Annotation, Suicide as Compensable Under Workmen's Compensation Act, 15 A.L.R.3d 616, 631 (1967).

Steven R. Ramsey suffered a very severe 1988 industrial accident. He was eligible for and received worker's compensation benefits. His effort to receive compensation through a third-party culpable negligence case was not productive although pursued through appeal to this court. Ramsey v. Pacific Power and Light, 792 P.2d 1385 (Wyo.1990). Following the 1988 injury, regular medical care and a total disability status continued after the accident, including psychiatric care and use of anti-depressant medication. Mr. Ramsey was not able to resume any significant employment. It was Sunday, April 26, 1990, and the family had planned to go out for dinner. Mr. Ramsey excused himself from joining them, stayed home and committed suicide.

His widow, Judy Ramsey, appellee herein, applied for survivor benefits under worker's compensation, received an administrative denial, pursued the claim through hearing before the administrative hearing office and obtained a favorable reversal. The Wyoming Workers' Compensation Division took an appeal by a petition for review to the district court where the award benefit and favorable decision of the administrative hearing officer was affirmed. Dissatisfied, the Workers' Compensation Division has again appealed to now place benefit eligibility before this court.

Our review presents two coordinate but quite different questions: As a matter of law, can a suicide under Wyoming law ever trigger survivorship entitlement to benefits and, then, as a matter of fact, if the benefit should ever be available, is proper causative proof provided in this record? ¹ The Workers' Compensation Division argues that the non-applied statutory bar to benefit eligibility is a legal error of the administrative hearing officer and the district court. The Workers' Compensation Division states the issues:

1. Does the suicide death of an Employee-Claimant need to meet the definition of injury under W.S. § 27-14-102(a)(xi), as supplemented by the Wyoming Workers' Compensation Division's rules and regulations, in order to be compensable?

2. Was there sufficient evidence to find that Employee-Claimant's death constituted a compensable injury within the definition of W.S. § 27-14-102(a)(xi) as supplemented by the Workers' Compensation Division's rules and regulations?

3. Was the hearing examiner correct in applying W.S. § 27-14-403 in determining the issue of compensability and, if so, was there sufficient evidence to find compensability under that statutory section?

Mrs. Ramsey restates in response:

1. Did the Administrative Law Judge err in finding substantial evidence that the death of Steve Ramsey was the direct result of his work related injury?

2. Did the Administrative Law Judge err in finding that the death of Steve Ramsey was a consequence of his injury and therefore compensable to his widow?

We address the legal issue first and recognize a Workers' Compensation Division rule which adopts and interprets statutory provisions to specifically deny compensability where an injury is followed by suicide. Wyoming Worker's Compensation Rules and Regulation Fee Schedule, ch. 1, § 2(a)(ix)(C), at 6 provides in part: "The term 'willful intention to injure' as used in the Act, shall also include the employee's suicide or attempted suicide."

Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-102(a)(xi) (1991) provides in part:

"Injury" means any harmful change in the human organism other than normal aging and includes damage to or loss of any artificial replacement and death, arising out of and in the course of employment while at work in or about the premises occupied, used or controlled by the employer and incurred while at work in places where the employer's business requires an employee's presence and which subjects the employee to extrahazardous duties incident to the business. "Injury" does not include:

* * * * * *

(B) Injury caused by:

* * * * * *

(II) The employee's willful intention to injure or kill himself or another.

In consideration of the statute and the supplementing rule, the Workers' Compensation Division argues:

According to W.S. 27-14-102(a)(xi) II, " 'injury' does not include the employee's willful intention to injure or kill himself or another" or, under II(c), "injury due solely to the culpable negligence of the injured employee."

According to the Wyoming Workers' Compensation Rules, Regulations and Fee Schedule (Chapter I, Section 2(a)(ix)(C), p. 6 of the "Brown Book" effective October 28, 1989), "the term 'willful intention to injure' as used in the Act, shall also include the employee's suicide or attempted suicide." This prohibition against the compensability for suicide or attempted suicide has existed in the Wyoming Workers' Compensation rules since at least November 1, 1987, and has therefore not been altered or changed despite legislative consideration of the Act.

In addressing this topic, we simplify by examining whether a suicide, following a serious and totally disabling accident, can ever be compensable under the provisions of the Wyoming Worker's Compensation statute. Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-102(a)(xi).

Surprisingly, the Wyoming Supreme Court has not previously considered this well defined and clearly presented question. The Workers' Compensation Division, in arguing from analogy and practical policy, provides no case law from other jurisdictions. The argument is generally made by the Workers' Compensation Division that any of the available non-Wyoming decisions cannot come from jurisdictions which have dissimilar statutes. The comparison cases and the alternative statutes were not reviewed in briefing. See, however, Annotation, supra, 15 A.L.R.3d 616 and the near 100 cases cited therein specifically relating to this general and comprehensively litigated subject.

Mrs. Ramsey's appellate brief cites only one case, Matter of Death of Stroer, 672 P.2d 1158 (Okl.1983). In Matter of Death of Stroer, the court rejected absolute benefit preclusion and placed the burden upon claimant to prove the unbroken chain of causation from the event of compensable injury to a disturbance of mind which then resulted in suicide. Friedman v. NBC, Inc., 178 A.D.2d 774, 577 N.Y.S.2d 517 (N.Y.A.D.1991) provides a complete and equally logical direction of persuasion. In affirming the award, the court said:

Initially, we reject the contention that the claim is barred by Workers' Compensation Law § 10. It is well settled that if a work-related injury causes "insanity", "brain derangement" (Matter of Delinousha v. National Biscuit Co., 248 N.Y. 93, 94, 96, 161 N.E. 431) or "a pattern of mental deterioration" (Matter of Reinstein v. Mendola, 39 A.D.2d 369, 371, 334 N.Y.S.2d 488, aff'd 33 N.Y.2d 589, 347 N.Y.S.2d 455, 301 N.E.2d 438), which in turn causes suicide, death benefits may be awarded under Worker's Compensation Law § 10 (* * * 1A Larson, Workmen's Compensation § 36.40 * * *). "The question of whether a causal relationship exists between any particular work activity and an ensuing disability is an issue of fact for resolution by the [B]oard * * * " (Matter of Ottomanelli v. Ottomanelli Bros., 80 A.D.2d 688, 688-689, 436 N.Y.S.2d 442 * * *).

Friedman, 577 N.Y.S.2d at 518.

Post-injury suicide has been the subject of substantial litigation and significant academic review. In addition to Annotation, supra, 15 A.L.R.3d 616, law journal consideration is found in Suicide Under Workmen's Compensation Laws, 12 Clev-Mar L.Rev. 26 (1963); Henry E. Sheldon II, Recent Case, Workmen's Compensation--Suicide Compensable Where Causal Connection to Injury, 31 U.Cin.L.Rev. 187 (1962); and Arising Out of--Suicide Held Compensable Though Insane Employee Knew the Physical Consequences of his Suicidal Act--Liberal Construction, 8 NACCA L.J. 46 (1951).

The courts have chosen one of four rules, the first and determinably the harshest is the Sponatski rule, In re Sponatski, 220 Mass. 526, 108 N.E. 466 (1915), which states:

"[W]here 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 consequences of the act,' then there is a direct and unbroken causal connection between the physical injury and the death. But where the resulting insanity is such as to cause suicide through a voluntary wilful choice determined by a moderately intelligent mental power which knows the purpose and the physical effect of the suicidal act even though choice is dominated and ruled by a disordered mind, then there is a new and independent agency which breaks the chain of causation arising from the injury."

Annotation, supra, 15 A.L.R.3d at 628-29. At least in A.L.R. review, it is considered that In re Sponatski was followed at one time by eleven states. Today, it is firmly established in only six (actually five). The annotation lists as present states that follow the Sponatski rule:...