PHOENIX (Legal Newsline) – The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled for a Gila County deputy sheriff who watched a man who pointed a shotgun in his face be shot dead by colleagues, then developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
John France did not find a sympathetic ear when he took his claim for disability benefits to an administrative law judge for the Industrial Commission of Arizona. That judge erred by limiting her analysis to whether France’s job duties included the possibility of using lethal force and failed to consider when there shooting was “unexpected, unusual or extraordinary,” Justice Andrew Gould wrote March 2.
“We emphasize that our holding today is limited to mental injuries arising from a specific work-related incident and does not encompass gradual injuries resulting from ordinary stresses and strains of the work regimen,” Gould wrote.
“However, unlike gradual injuries, when a work-related event is (like the Shooting Incident here) objectively unexpected, unusual, or extraordinary, it is more likely to produce objectively unexpected, unusual, or extraordinary stress, and, therefore, give rise to a compensable injury.”
France was called to a welfare check on June 18, 2017, regarding a man he had tussled with two nights prior. On the earlier night, the man had threatened to kill officers, but on June 18 he was threatening to kill himself with a shotgun.
Deputies were positioned on each side of a security gate at the base of a stairway when the man burst through a doorway and ran down stairs holding a shotgun.
The man pointed the shotgun three feet away from France’s chest and face.
“Knowing that his light-weight vest would not stop a shotgun blast at point-blank range, France feared he would be killed. The deputies told the man to drop his weapon, but he ignored them,” the decision says.
Though at first the man was in a position that prevented deputies from firing without fear of hurting each other, he eventually backed around a corner of the building until he had no further room to retreat. Deputies then opened fire, and the man fell dead to the ground near France.
France never returned to work. He filed a Workers’ Compensation claim for the PTSD he was diagnosed as developing, but Gila County and its insurer, Arizona Counties Insurance Pool, denied the claim.
They said his PTSD did not arise from unexpected, unusual or extraordinary stress. The ALJ agreed, finding the stress of using deadly force is a usual, expected and ordinary part of a deputy’s duties.
The state Court of Appeals set aside that ruling, and the Supreme Court followed. The incident was not usual, as France testified he had only been involved in one other gunfight in his 36 years as a law enforcement officer, Gould wrote.
“And although the estimates varied, the evidence showed that officer-involved shootings in Gila County were extremely rare, with fewer than ten such incidents occurring over the past forty years,” Gould wrote.
“In short, the Shooting Incident is not the type of incident that is part of a law enforcement officer’s daily routine, nor is it expected that a deputy will face such a dramatic brush with death in responding to a welfare check.”