Court Opinion

ID: 9686211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:33:47.719951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:16.058634
License: Public Domain

McCown, Spencer, and Smith, JJ.,
dissenting.
The thrust of the majority opinion here places the burden on the plaintiff in a workmen’s compensation case to prove that a deceased employee did not commit suicide rather than placing the burden on the employer to establish the affirmative defense of willful negligence.
Section 48-102, R. R. S. 1943, provides that willful negligence (which includes suicide) is an affirmative defense available to the employer in a workmen’s compensation case. Under such circumstances, the burden of proof rests on the employer to prove suicide rather than on the employee to prove the negative of that issue.
We cannot agree with the rejection of the rule followed by the great majority of states: “When an employee is found dead under circumstances indicating that death took place within the time and space limits of the employment, in the absence of any evidence of what caused the death, most courts will indulge a presumption or inference that the death arose out of the employment.” See 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 10.32, p. 108.
The underlying justification for that rule is stated by Larson at page 111: “The theoretical justification is similar to that for unexplained falls and other neutral *131harms: The occurrence of the death within the course of employment at least indicates that the employment brought deceased within range of the harm, and the cause of harm, being unknown, is neutral and not personal. The practical justification lies in the realization that, when the death itself has removed the only possible witness who could prove causal connection, fairness to the defendants suggest some softening of the rule requiring claimant to provide affirmative proof of each requisite element of compensability.” (Emphasis supplied.) Section 48-151, R. R. S. 1943, does not prevent the adoption of the rule.
In this case, no one saw how Hannon’s fall occurred, and no one knows how it occurred. Any conclusion as to whether it was intentional or accidental must rest on inference and speculation. The presumptions are all against suicide. When an employee is killed within the time and space limits of his employment by a fall which could only be accidental or suicidal, evidence that he might have had some plausible reason to commit suicide is not sufficient to overcome the presumption against suicide, much less carry the burden of proof that suicide was committed.
Three courts have previously reached that conclusion on the facts here. Their action should be affirmed.