Court Opinion

ID: 9740358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:33:11.158267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.617734
License: Public Domain

Kelly, Justice
(dissenting).
I join in the dissent of Mr. Justice MacLaughlin for the reasons stated therein and herein. Assuming arguendo that this state provided in a wrongful-death statute that all dependents might recover for the death of a husband or father, we would not find it difficult to conclude that a proviso in such a statute that would prohibit an employee’s dependents from recovering from an employer would be an unreasonable classification with*370out any legitimate state interest. However, if the state provided a reasonable substitute to an action for wrongful death by the employee’s dependents, the exception in the wrongful-death statute might then serve a legitimate state interest if considered together with the reasonable substitute. A statute permitting recovery of an assured amount for dependents of an employee from the employer for his work-related death under the Workmen’s Compensation Act could be a reasonable substitute as compared to the uncertainty of a wrongful-death action.
Under the workmen’s compensation law of this state, an employer may not be held liable for the death of an employee arising out of his employment to the employee’s dependents except under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The majority opinion concludes that an employee’s dependents cannot recover under that act for death by suicide though arising out of his employment. Thus, there is no reasonable substitute for the statutory right to an action for wrongful death by an employee’s dependents under the circumstances of this case — a fact which, in my opinion results in an unreasonable classification.1
This unreasonable classification smacks of unconstitutionality not only on the ground that it violates the constitutional provisions of equal protection of the law, but also on the ground that it violates the due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions. The mischief is caused by the workmen’s compensation statute which prohibits any action against the employer except under that act and the provision declaring that suicide is not compensable. Their combined effect is that under the Workmen’s Compensation Act there is no reasonable substitute for the statutory right to an action for wrongful death. The remedy could be that of declaring unconstitutional either the provision prohibiting actions by employees’ dependents against employers *371except as permitted under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, or the provision in that act prohibiting an employee’s dependents from any recovery for death by suicide.
My choice of remedies would be that of voiding the amendment to Minn. St. 176.021, subd. 1, which added that “suicides are not compensable,” not only because the act was constitutional before that amendment was added, but because of the problems that would otherwise follow. Here the employee sought and obtained compensation under the act for a period up to the date of his death, which occurred after the amendment was adopted. Fairness would dictate that a recovery under the Workmen’s Compensation Act should be exclusive and thus avoid the possible doubling effect of a partial recovery under that act and an additional recovery under the death-by-wrongful-act statute. I am aware that there is no evidence before us that a recovery might be had under the death-by-wrongful-act statute but, in my opinion, depriving a class of persons, namely employees’ dependents, of the right to sue should be a sufficient loss to bring into play the constitutional forces of due process and equal protection of the laws. Due process because dependents of employees are deprived of their right to sue for the wrongful death of the employee or in the alternative to the reasonable substitute provided by the Workmen’s Compensation Act but for the amendment.2 An employee’s dependents are denied the equal protection of the laws as they may not sue the employer for wrongful death as others might do and are deprived by the amendment from any reasonable substitute for such right.
1 perceive no rational purpose in distinguishing between rights under the common law and statutory rights under the facts of this case, nor any particular legislative purpose to be served. It might be argued that the difficulties in establishing the causal connection between the suicide and the work-connected injuries *372is a sufficient legislative purpose. Such an argument has little or no merit in the light of the same difficulties present in a number of other cases under the Workmen’s Compensation Act.

A recovery may be had under wrongful-death statutes for death by suicide under some circumstances. See, Annotation, 11 A. L. R. 2d 751, § 4. Compare, Sworski v. Coleman, 208 Minn. 43, 50, 293 N. W. 297, 300 (1940).

 For a discussion of due process in a different setting, see, Haney v. International Harvester Co. 294 Minn. 375, 201 N. W. 2d 140 (1972).