Case Title: Coleman v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1996-04-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
Coleman v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div1996 WY 59915 P.2d 595Case Number: 95-124Decided: 04/18/1996Supreme Court of Wyoming

In 
the Matter of the Workers' Compensation Claim of:

RENEE COLEMAN, Surviving Spouse of James Coleman, 
individually and on behalf of 

MATTHEW COLEMAN and HEATHER COLEMAN, minor 
children,  

Appellants (Petitioners), 

 

v. 

 

STATE OF WYOMING, ex rel. WYOMING WORKERS' 
COMPENSATION DIVISION,  

Appellee (Respondent).

 

On 
certification from the District Court of Campbell County 

The 
Honorable Terrence L. O'Brien, Judge

 

Representing 
Appellants: 

C. John Cotton of Wolfe & Cotton, LLC, 
Gillette. 

Representing 
Appellee: 

William U. Hill, Attorney General; John W. Renneisen, 
Deputy Attorney General; and Jennifer A. Evans, Assistant Attorney General, 
Cheyenne.

 

Before THOMAS, MACY, 
TAYLOR, and LEHMAN, JJ, and ROGERS, District Judge.

TAYLOR, Justice. 

[¶1]      Worker's 
compensation death benefits were denied to the surviving spouse and children of 
James Coleman based upon intoxication as a cause of death. The district court 
certified the appeal to us pursuant to W.R.A.P. 12.09(b). The denial is 
supported by substantial evidence and the law which makes such important 
benefits payable in appropriate circumstances. We affirm.

 

I. 
ISSUES

 

[¶2]      Appellants make a 
concise and direct statement of the issues:

 

A. Can the Division meet its burden of proof 
regarding intoxication through evidence which fails to establish, as a matter of 
law, either that Mr. Coleman was intoxicated or that intoxication was the 
proximate cause of the accident?

B. Was blood sample evidence admitted and relied upon 
in violation of statutory and constitutional requirements?

 

[¶3]      Appellee adopts 
much the same queries, changing only their order while labeling the question of 
substantial evidence as one of fact rather than law:

 

A. Whether blood samples taken by the county coroner, 
without the knowledge and consent of the deceased's family, were properly 
admitted as evidence in the contested case proceeding.

B. Whether the record contains substantial evidence 
to support the hearing examiner's determination that [the] employee was 
intoxicated at the time of his accident and that employee's intoxication caused 
his accident and death.

 

II. 
FACTS

 

[¶4]      Prior to any 
detailed discussion of this matter, we recognize, as appellants acknowledge, 
that the issues of fact and questions of law before us bear an uncanny 
resemblance to those presented in Johnson 
v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Compensation Div., 911 P.2d 1054 (Wyo. 
1996). Appellants are not due short shrift because of the striking similarities 
of the two cases, but it must be understood that the firm legal principles set 
out in Johnson are scarcely amenable to change on a case-by-case 
basis.

 

[¶5]      At the time of 
his accident and subsequent death, James Coleman (Coleman) was a rig 
superintendent for Exeter Drilling Company with a degree of supervisory 
authority over drilling crews. On the morning of August 7, 1994, arrangements 
were made to move the drilling rig to a new location. Coleman followed the 
tractor-trailer trucks in his pickup truck. After traveling several miles, 
Coleman stopped Bob Lee Donner (Donner), who was driving one of the 
tractor-trailer trucks, and asked to drive Donner's tractor-trailer truck. 
Coleman and Donner switched vehicles. Coleman had, on prior occasions, driven 
the tractor-trailer truck, although he had no commercial driver's 
license.

 

[¶6]      Coleman almost 
immediately stalled Donner's tractor-trailer truck, requiring Donner to reassume 
control of the tractor-trailer long enough to get Coleman "rolling again." About 
an hour later, Coleman drove out of sight while Donner stopped to call his wife 
on a cellular phone. Donner caught up with Coleman, only to find the 
tractor-trailer on its top at the bottom of a hill and Coleman pinned in the cab 
of the tractor-trailer.

 

[¶7]      Deputy sheriffs 
from Sweetwater County, Wyoming responded to the accident scene along with 
members of the Wyoming Highway Patrol and the Sweetwater County Coroner. They 
found the road upon which Coleman had been traveling to be gravel, while 
conditions at the time of the accident were clear and dry. Based upon his 
training in accident reconstruction, Deputy Sheriff F.J. Moczulski estimated 
that Coleman had approached the fatal curve at a speed of approximately 
forty-five miles per hour. Highway Patrol Officer L.J. Leuis agreed, based 
primarily upon the particular gear engaged, that Coleman's speed had to have 
been around forty-five to fifty miles per hour. Officer Leuis testified that no 
vehicle should take the fatal curve faster than ten or fifteen miles per 
hour.

 

[¶8]      Later that same 
afternoon, the Sweetwater County Coroner withdrew a blood sample from Coleman's 
femoral artery, using a kit supplied by the Wyoming Chemical Testing Program. 
That sample was taken as a matter of the County Coroner's routine, neither at 
the direction of a peace officer nor with the permission of Coleman's wife or 
children. Two samples of Coleman's blood demonstrated blood alcohol content 
(BAC) levels of 0.117 and 0.120, for an average of 0.118. Rather than rounding 
off such figures, the chemical testing program simply eliminates the final 
digit, thereby giving the benefit of the doubt to those tested and 
conservatively placing Coleman's BAC at 0.11.

 

[¶9]      Coleman's widow, 
son and daughter (appellants) sought death benefits from the Wyoming Workers' 
Compensation Division (appellee). Denial of that application was affirmed 
following an administrative hearing. A timely appeal to the district court was 
certified directly to this court pursuant to W.R.A.P. 
12.09(b).

 

III. SCOPE 
OF REVIEW

 

[¶10]   W.R.A.P. 12.09(a) limits judicial 
review in such cases "to a determination of the matters specified in W.S. 
16-3-114(c)." As applied to the issues of this case, Wyo. Stat. § 16-3-114(c) 
(1990) may be encapsulated as follows:

 

The reviewing court shall:

* * * * * *

(ii) Hold unlawful and set aside agency action, 
findings and conclusions found to be: 

(A) Arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or 
otherwise not in accordance with law;

* * * * * *

(E) Unsupported by substantial 
evidence[.]

 

[¶11]   We do, however, afford respect and 
deference to an administrative agency's findings of fact if they are supported 
by substantial evidence. Aanenson v. 
State ex rel. Wyoming Worker's Compensation Div., 842 P.2d 1077, 1079 (Wyo. 
1992) (quoting State ex rel. Wyoming 
Worker's Compensation Div. v. White, 837 P.2d 1095, 1098 (Wyo. 1992)). 
"Substantial evidence" is a term of art, best described as "relevant evidence 
that a reasonable mind can accept as adequate to support an agency's 
conclusion." Casper Oil Co. v. 
Evenson, 888 P.2d 221, 224 (Wyo. 1995). Further, we consider only that 
evidence favoring the party prevailing below, leaving out of consideration 
conflicting evidence. Wyoming Steel and 
Fab, Inc. v. Robles, 882 P.2d 873, 876 (Wyo. 1994) (quoting Matter of Injury to Carpenter, 
736 P.2d 311, 312 (Wyo. 1987)). The burden is on the claimant "to demonstrate 
that the agency's findings and conclusions are not supported by substantial 
evidence." Robles, 882 P.2d  at 876. 
Unlike its findings of fact, however, an administrative agency's conclusions of 
law are afforded no special deference, and will be affirmed only if truly in 
accord with the law. Matter of 
Cordova, 882 P.2d 880, 882 (Wyo. 1994). See also Wyo. Stat. § 
16-3-114(c).

 

[¶12]   Finally, the burden is on the 
claimant to establish every essential element of his claim by a preponderance of 
the evidence. Hohnholt v. Basin Elec. 
Power Co-op, 784 P.2d 233, 235 (Wyo. 1989). As the hearing examiner noted, 
however, intoxication is an affirmative defense upon which appellee bears the 
burden of proof. Hotelling v. 
Fargo-Western Oil Co., 33 Wyo. 240, 248, 238 P. 542, 544 (1925). "Once the 
Division met its burden by producing evidence of intoxication, the burden of 
producing evidence to the contrary shifted to Appellants." Johnson, 911 P.2d  at 
1062.

 

IV. 
DISCUSSION

 

[¶13]   Blocking appellants' entitlement to 
death benefits is that portion of the Wyoming Worker's Compensation Act which 
excludes compensation for injury "caused by * * * [t]he fact the employee is 
intoxicated * * *." Wyo. Stat. § 27-14-102(a)(xi)(B)(I) (1991 & Cum.Supp. 
1995). The hearing examiner found that Coleman was intoxicated and "that Mr. 
Coleman's intoxication was a proximate cause of his motor vehicle accident and 
therefore his death."

 

[¶14]   Appellants maintain that the BAC 
result of 0.11 might be inaccurate because the blood was drawn from the femoral 
artery and may not have reached equilibrium in the bloodstream. They thus 
conclude that Coleman's venous BAC could have been as much as forty percent 
lower than his arterial BAC. This argument is a distinction without a 
difference. Either BAC result would support the conclusion that Coleman's 
intoxication was a substantial contributing factor to the 
accident.

 

[¶15]   Next, appellants argue they have 
standing to assert Fourth Amendment protections against a non-permissive search 
and seizure of Coleman's blood. Vindication of such standing, they argue, would 
lead to exclusion of the blood alcohol evidence as fruit of the poisonous tree 
of the county coroner's alleged illegal blood sample. This argument must fail 
because appellants lack standing to challenge the seizure of the 
blood.

 

[¶16]   "`Fourth Amendment rights are 
personal rights which, like some other constitutional rights, may not be 
vicariously asserted.'" Rakas v. 
Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133-34, 99 S. Ct. 421, 425, 58 L. Ed. 2d 387 (1978) (quoting Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174, 89 S. Ct. 961, 966-67, 22 L. Ed. 2d 176 (1969)). Appellants do not 
claim that their Fourth Amendment 
rights were violated. As close as they may have been to Coleman, appellants have 
no standing to assert his Fourth 
Amendment rights. The county coroner not only acted lawfully and properly in 
taking the sample of Coleman's blood, but would have been remiss had he not so 
acted. Johnson, 911 P.2d  at 1060. 

 

[¶17]   Finally, appellants highlight the 
hearing examiner's finding that Officer Leuis "attributed the accident to lack 
of experience of an unqualified driver, who had failed to downshift prior to 
starting down the hill." If error by an inexperienced, unqualified driver was 
the proximate cause of Coleman's death, appellants argue that appellee 
necessarily failed to meet its burden of proof on the issue of driver 
intoxication as the cause of 
death.

 

[¶18]   A refusal to reweigh the evidence 
constrains this court, upon location of substantial evidence in the record as a 
whole, to affirm the hearing examiner's conclusion that Coleman's intoxication 
was a cause of death. Regardless of how many other "substantial factor[s]" 
apparently combine to bring about the injuries identified, Coleman's 
intoxication was established by substantial evidence as a cause of death, 
bringing Wyo. Stat. § 27-14-102(a)(xi)(B)(I) to bear, excluding 
recovery.

 

V. 
CONCLUSION

 

[¶19]   Worker intoxication clearly 
operates to exclude resultant injury from compensation. We affirm the hearing 
examiner's denial of death benefits to 
appellants.