The widow of a man paralyzed following an injury that occurred in 1993 at the Western Sugar Co. plant in Lovell will receive workers’ compensation death benefits after the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled July 30 that her husband’s workplace injury led to his death by pneumonia and smoke inhalation sustained while inside of a burning house in 2005.


Wilma Fisher, the surviving widow of David Fisher, described her husband’s injuries at the sugar plant as they were described to her. She said an 8-inch by 10- or 15-foot pipe hit her husband on the head and knocked him back against an iron railing. The pipe crushed his spinal cord, cut off his fingers, tore his aorta and gave him a very severe head injury.


After the injuries, David was confined to a wheelchair and he and his wife moved to Pocatello, Idaho, to be near family members.


On June 22, 2005, David, 74, went into his bedroom where he had a wheelchair-accessible table where he built models. When he emerged a short time later, Wilma said she noticed thick smoke in the room.


“I ran out and got my fire extinguisher, which was just here close,” she told the court. “I grabbed it and went in and couldn’t see. I put a towel up to my face. I couldn’t work the fire extinguisher with one hand. I could tell that it was getting out of hand.”


Wilma said she told David he had to get out of the house, but he replied that he thought he could put the fire out.
“His mind was not clear and he wouldn’t come out with me and the chair was too heavy for me to force him to come out,” she said.


She then ran to the neighbor’s house and called the fire department. Firefighters responded quickly, she said, and brought David out of the house, unconscious. Firefighters gave him oxygen, which helped him come around, she said.


David died July 15, 2005, 19 days after he first suffered the effects of smoke inhalation. On Aug. 23, 2005, the Wyoming Workers’ Safety and Compensation Division denied Wilma’s claim for death benefits on the basis that David did not die as a result of the work related injury. Wilma also appealed to the district court, but was again denied death benefits.


The unanimous Supreme Court decision to reverse the lower courts’ decisions, authored by Justice William Hill, states that a certificate of death issued by the State of Idaho indicates David died of “Pneumonia and Respiratory Failure.” A second death notice issued by the State of Idaho indicated David died of pneumonia, secondary smoke inhalation and “other…conditions contributing to death: paraplegia and respiratory muscle weakness.”


Also on the record was a letter from David’s attending physician that states, in summary, “…his inability to recover from the smoke inhalation injury was directly related to his paraplegia.”


The Supreme Court’s opinion states that there was a direct link between Fisher’s work-related injury and his death.


“…it was the paraplegia that resulted in Mr. Fisher’s death and that but for the effects of his workplace injury, he most likely would have fully recovered from the effects and consequences of the smoke inhalation,” Hill wrote.
“Here, the evidence of record is unequivocal that Mr. Fisher died because his paraplegia severely reduced his ability to cough and to clear his bronchi of mucus,” Hill wrote. “…we conclude that…Mr. Fisher did die as a ‘result’ of his work-related injury.”


Hill wrote that the Supreme Court had not addressed an issue quite like the case at hand, but there was related case law in other past cases.