Court Opinion

ID: 9675023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:39:30.131526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.944117
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from that portion of the opinion which overrules Hannon v. J. L. Brandeis & Sons, Inc., 186 Neb. 122, 181 N.W.2d 253 (1970), and affirms the compensation court’s award of benefits to the widower and next of kin on account of the decedent’s death by her own hand. In doing so I acknowledge that the majority’s rationale is well reasoned and is supported by respectable authority. My problem arises from the fact that the question presented is not one of first impression.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-101 (Reissue 1978) provides, as it did at the time of Hannon, that one who is “willfully negligent” may not recover benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Whether observed “almost in passing” or otherwise, the fact remains that this court ruled, with three members dissenting on the question of what presumptions should arise from an unexplained death, that an employee who commits suicide is “willfully negligent.” With that ruling, suicide became a bar to the recovery of workmen’s compensation benefits. During the intervening dozen years, our Legislature has elected to let its language remain unchanged and has *424thereby acquiesced in this court’s determination of its intent. Erspamer Advertising Co. v. Dept. of Labor, 214 Neb. 68, 333 N.W.2d 646 (1983).
With all due respect to the learned Professor Larson, he is not the Legislature of Nebraska. Nor, no matter how sound and persuasive their reasoning, are the courts of our sister states empowered to construe Nebraska’s legislative enactments.
The nature of suicide has not changed in the past 12 years and, at least so far as the majority demonstrates, mankind’s understanding of the phenomenon has not markedly improved. The only thing that has changed is the composition of this court. That circumstance alone, I respectfully submit, does not justify the abandonment of precedent.
Hastings, J., joins in this dissent.