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The plain language of S.C. Code Ann. § 42-9-60 barred death benefits where the cause of death was suicide and the suicide was not the result of spontaneous, impulsive, or instinctive conduct, without deliberate or formed intention, or without conscious volition to produce death, negating a willful intent to kill oneself.
Harvey worked for Cisson and injured his right knee and back in an admitted work accident on January 12, 2000. Harvey alleged that this injury aggravated his pre-existing psychiatric condition. Cisson denied that the injury aggravated Harvey’s psychiatric condition. Just over two years later on March 4, 2002, Harvey overdosed on his medication and his death was ruled a suicide. The single Commissioner and the Appellate Panel awarded death benefits to Thompson, Harvey’s mother, because the death resulted from and was directly linked to his emotional condition brought on by his work injury. The Circuit Court reversed because the plain language of § 42-9-60 barred a recovery due to Harvey’s willful intent to kill himself.
In a lengthy opinion, the Court of Appeals determined that South Carolina subscribes to the “willful intent” test to determine if a suicide case is compensable, rejecting the “chain of causation” test. The “willful intent” test examines the distinction between whether the employee’s death was the result of conscious volition or delirious impulse. In this case, the Court found that there was substantial evidence in the record that Harvey’s death was a result of his willful intention. The Court further found that Harvey’s suicide was not a “natural consequence” flowing from his injury, noting that while suicide from depression is foreseeable, it is not a natural consequence of depression because the notion of natural consequence connotes the inevitability of a result beyond the employee’s control. Here, there was substantial evidence in the record that Harvey’s death was a result of his willful intent, not an inevitable result of his injury or aggravated psychiatric condition.
