The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a worker’s widow was not entitled to death benefits for his suicide after he was terminated for insubordination.
The worker had been employed by Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC for 28 years when in August 2016, he reportedly disobeyed supervisory directives and got caught lying about it. The man was suspended due to his insubordination and later fired, according to documents in No. 21-0017, filed in Des Moines.
Shortly after he was informed of his termination, his wife found he had committed suicide.
According to court records, the man had a well-documented history of substance abuse and mental disorders.
His widow filed a claim for death benefits, supported by an opinion from a doctor who opined that the worker “was suffering psychologically and that work provided a considerable amount of structure for him and helped with mood self-regulation” and that his suicide was “an impulsive act designed to relieve extreme fear and psychological pain, which he apparently found unmanageable by any other means.” The doctor called his termination a “catastrophic stressor.”
A deputy workers’ compensation commissioner found that the man’s mental conditions were “rooted in personal issues” outside of his employment and that “work was his place of solace.” The deputy determined that his “fear of termination and psychological pain resulting therefrom were not injuries arising in the course of employment, the punishment fit the insubordinate acts and, as such, his mental condition and suicide were not causally related to his termination.” A district court affirmed the ruling.
The appeals court also affirmed, writing in part that the doctor’s opinion that there appeared to be a causative link between the termination and the man’s suicide is based on incomplete information. The opinion did not contemplate the man’s repeated and blatant insubordination, the fact that company policy mandated termination for such an infraction.
Since the evidence showed termination was a reasonable and mandated adverse employment action based on the circumstances, the court said the widow failed to show that the job caused his mental injury.
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