Appeal of Pelmac Industries, Inc., 2019-0605

Decedent was an alarm installer who traveled from home to remote job sites in a company van; on June 5, 2018 he was injured in a single-vehicle crash while driving home from a Berlin assignment.
Injuries included neck fracture, concussion, multiple fractured ribs, head lacerations, and a severe left rotator cuff tear; he was hospitalized and wore a neck brace for months, delaying shoulder surgery.
Over the following weeks the decedent became increasingly withdrawn, anxious, kept a diary documenting despair about recovery, and on September 2, 2018 died by suicide after being told surgery would be further delayed.
Carrier initially paid workers’ compensation benefits for the accident but ceased benefits after the suicide, arguing the death was not causally related to the work injury and that the suicide was a willful, intervening act.
The CAB credited the respondent’s psychologist (Jamieson) over the Carrier’s psychiatrist (Drukteinis), awarded death benefits, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed—adopting a chain-of-causation test for suicide claims in the workers’ compensation context.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether June 5 crash was a compensable work-related injury	Decedent was a traveling employee; travel was integral to job and within Murphy scope-of-employment test	Going-and-coming rule/commute not work-related; no portal-to-portal coverage	Yes. Travel integral; Murphy test satisfied—injury arose out of and in course of employment
Whether suicide is compensable death under RSA 281-A:26	Suicide resulted from work-related injury causing disturbance of mind that overrode rational judgment (chain-of-causation)	Suicide was a volitional, independent intervening/willful act; experts inconclusive	Yes. Adopted chain-of-causation test; CAB reasonably found unbroken causal chain and awarded benefits
Whether the act of suicide is per se a bar to compensation as a "willful intention to injure himself"	Not if injury-produced mental disturbance removed rational control	Suicide volitional = willful bar to recovery	Not per se. If work-related injury produces disturbance overriding rational judgment, suicide may be compensable under chain-of-causation test
Whether CAB violated Carrier’s due process/right to impartial hearing	CAB followed procedures; credited evidence and experts	CAB showed bias, predetermined result, and omitted analysis	No due process violation; Carrier did not rebut presumption of CAB impartiality

Donnelly v. Kearsarge Tel. Co., 121 N.H. 237 (1981) (articulates going-and-coming rule for commute risks)
Murphy v. Town of Atkinson, 128 N.H. 641 (1986) (scope-of-employment test for peripheral activities)
Whittemore v. Sullivan Cty. Homemaker’s Aid Serv., 129 N.H. 432 (1987) (travel can place employee within scope of employment)
Appeal of Griffin, 140 N.H. 650 (1996) (traveling-employee doctrine; employment-created travel hazards)
Appeal of Margeson, 162 N.H. 273 (2011) (framework for classifying employment risks)
Appeal of Bergeron, 144 N.H. 681 (2000) (subsequent injury compensable if direct and natural result of prior work injury)
Whitehead v. Keene Roofing Co., 43 So.2d 464 (Fla. 1949) (formative chain-of-causation approach to suicide after work injury)
Kahle v. Plochman, Inc., 428 A.2d 913 (N.J. 1981) (endorses chain-of-causation test for suicide claims)
Bruzga v. PMR Architects, 141 N.H. 756 (1997) (discusses nonliability for suicide in tort; distinguished here)
Appeal of Lathrop, 122 N.H. 262 (1982) (due process/biased tribunal principles)