The Tennessee Supreme Court recently ruled that the widow of a millworker who was killed in an unsolved homicide at his place of work was not entitled to any death benefits. The court’s argument was based on the fact that “the injured employee always has the burden of proof in worker’s compensation cases.”
When the shop’s owner arrived one morning, he found his employee’s body lying near the back door with four gunshot wounds and a pipe across his body. After it was determined that nothing had been stolen, the homicide case went unsolved.
Meanwhile, the widow argued that her husband was clearly killed during a burglary gone wrong, and that his death was directly tied to his work. The court, however, rejected her argument, stating that there was no evidence of an effort to break into the business. The judge maintained that he must have been killed in a random assault.
Following that line of thinking, the widow further argued that “street risk” doctrine therefore applied to her husband’s case. Street risk doctrine states that if a person’s employment requires the employee’s use of the street, then “the risks of the street are the risks of employment.” Yet again, the court decided this doctrine did not apply, since the shop was secured with a burglar alarm and locks, and the business wasn’t frequented by the public.
Finally, the widow asserted that workers injured in neutral force assaults must be entitled to compensation unless the employer can prove the death arose from the employee’s personal activities. But the court would not budge from its position that the burden of proof rests with the injured employee – and since no evidence had arisen pointing to one cause of death over another, the unsolved case doomed the unfortunate widow to receive no compensation for her husband’s untimely death.
If your loved one has been the victim of a wrongful death due to an accident or assault at their Tennessee workplace, you owe it to them to uncover the truth, and you owe it to yourself and your family to obtain adequate compensation when going through one of the most difficult periods of your life.
Please contact experienced worker’s compensation attorney Herbert Thornbury today to discuss your case.
