Widow of Police Officer Who Committed Suicide Denied Workers’ Compensation

The widow of an East Hartford police officer who committed suicide on the job is not entitled to survivorship benefits under the state’s workers’ compensation law, a Connecticut appeals court has ruled.

The case involved Patricia Buchanan’s claim for survivorship benefits after the death of her husband Paul by a “self- inflicted gunshot wound” while at work at the police department, during office hours, and with the use of his service revolver.

An administrative law judge denied her workers’ compensation claim on his determination that her husband’s suicide was caused by a lifetime of depression unrelated to his job and not by job-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

But that ruling was reversed by the Workers Compensation Commission (WCC), which said the administrative law judge was wrong to acknowledge that the officer had the occupational disease PTSD but then conclude that it did not cause his suicide.

The officer’s employer, the town of East Hartford, appealed the ruling by the WCC, contending that the WCC board improperly substituted its judgment on causation for that of the administrative law judge. The appeals court agreed with East Hartford, stressing that it “was not the role of the board to retry the issue of causation.” It returned the case for a ruling consistent with the denial of benefits by the administrative law judge.

The late officer began working as a police officer for East Hartford in 1989. The stress of the work weighed on him. He had experienced a great deal of emotional trauma as a police officer from several incidents including responding to a murder/suicide in 2006, and comforting a teenager who had been stabbed and who subsequently died in his arms. After he had been working for the department for about 10 years, he began to experience restless sleep and he often woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare.

On January 15, 2013 on an overnight shift, Buchanan responded to an apartment complex fire. The officer later told his wife that residents were jumping from windows and children were being thrown to safety. A lieutenant at the scene described Buchanan as ”babbling.” His boss decided to send him to Hartford Hospital by ambulance. The emergency room records indicate that his doctor had increased his dosage of prescribed medications. A first report of injury noted he had been ”overcome by smoke.”

Buchanan returned to work on March 4, 2013, and was assigned administrative duties. On March 12, 2013, he died of a self- inflicted gunshot wound at work.

His wife argued that her husband suffered from PTSD, which was aggravated by his responding to the complex fire on January 15, 2013, at which time he inhaled smoke and was administered oxygen, taken from the scene via ambulance, and diagnosed with smoke inhalation. The aggravation of this condition caused his death on March 12, 2013, according to his wife.

East Hartford argued that the threshold issue was whether Buchanan had actually sustained PTSD versus a long-term depression. If the court ruled that he sustained a long-term depression, the claim was not compensable and should be dismissed, the town maintained.

Connecticut’s workers’ compensation law calls for compensation to dependents on account of death resulting from an accident arising out of and in the course of employment or from an occupational disease. It also holds that personal injury or injury shall not be construed to include a mental or emotional impairment, unless such impairment arises from a physical injury or occupational disease.

Testimony in the case was divided over whether officer Buchanan had job-related PTSD, whether he suffered from a lifetime of depression and anxiety unrelated to his job, and what caused him to commit suicide when he did.

One psychiatrist testified that Buchanan developed PTSD from his career as a police officer, which was exacerbated by the January 2013 fire and smoke inhalation and which directly caused the decedent to take his own life. Another psychiatrist also diagnosed Buchanan with PTSD and opined that he committed suicide because he was ”emotionally overwhelmed” from his PTSD developed as a result of working as a police officer for almost 25 years. He also opined that Buchanan’s smoke inhalation from the January 2013 fire aggravated his PTSD, which led to his suicide.

However, a psychiatrist testifying for East Hartford said she could not conclude that Buchanan suffered from PTSD. Rather, she believed that he suffered from ”lifetime” episodes of major depression and anxiety that were not related to his work. In her opinion, the January 2013 fire had coincided with recent changes to his psychiatric medicines from which he was having side effects at that time. She ultimately decided that his major depressive episode, combined with anxious distress, sleep disturbance, and the management of his medications, were substantial contributing factors in his suicide.

The administrative law judge found the town’s psychiatrist opinions on causation to be credible and persuasive. The administrative law judge noted that the officer’s depression had been an ongoing issue since his young adulthood and that his suicide coincided with changes in his medications.

In its appeal of the awarding of benefits, the town of East Hartford contended that the administrative law judge’s factual findings were supported in the record and it was not the role of the WCC to question them.

The appellate court agreed with the town, reminding the WCC that once the experts’ reports and testimony were admitted into evidence, the administrative law judge was “entitled to determine the weight to give that evidence.” The appellate judges said the administrative law judge’s conclusions cannot be reversed simply because the plaintiff’s own evaluations of the findings cause him to reach a contrary conclusion.

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