## Facts

- Raleigh Richards worked for St. Bernard Parish Government as a firefighter before retiring.
- After retiring, Richards became ill and later died.
- Richards was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Richards.
- In February 2009, Elizabeth Richards filed a Disputed Claim for Compensation in the Louisiana Office of Workers’ Compensation seeking workers’ compensation death benefits.
- Elizabeth alleged that her husband’s illness and death were related to his firefighting employment and sought benefits under Louisiana workers’ compensation law, including weekly death benefits.
- St. Bernard Parish Government filed a partial motion for summary judgment arguing that, even if work-related causation were proven, Elizabeth could not recover wage-related (indemnity) death benefits because Raleigh Richards was retired and not earning wages at the time of death.
- St. Bernard contended that the only potential obligation would be reasonable burial/funeral expenses.
- The workers’ compensation judge granted the partial motion for summary judgment and ruled that Elizabeth Richards was limited to funeral expenses and could not recover wage-related death benefits.
- Elizabeth Richards sought supervisory review in the Louisiana Fourth Circuit, requesting that the appellate court set aside the partial summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether a workers’ compensation claimant may be denied, as a matter of law, indemnity death benefits solely because the deceased employee was retired and earning no wages at the time of death.
2. Whether the workers’ compensation judge erred in granting partial summary judgment that limited the widow’s recovery to funeral expenses based only on the retiree/no-wages theory.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Fourth Circuit granted the writ application.
- The court reversed the workers’ compensation judge’s partial summary judgment that limited Elizabeth Richards’s recovery to funeral expenses.
- The matter was remanded for further proceedings, allowing Elizabeth Richards to pursue statutory death benefits, including potential weekly indemnity benefits, if she could prove the requirements for entitlement.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment may be granted only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; a partial summary judgment cannot rest on an incorrect categorical legal bar.
- Louisiana workers’ compensation death benefits are governed by La. R.S. 23:1231, which provides weekly benefits to qualifying dependents when an injury or occupational disease results in death, along with allowable funeral expenses.
- The Heart and Lung Act, La. R.S. 33:2581, addresses certain heart and lung conditions affecting firefighters and provides that firefighters and their survivors are entitled to rights and benefits granted by Louisiana law for such work-related conditions, subject to statutory requirements.
- A deceased worker’s retirement status and lack of wages at death do not, by themselves, eliminate a survivor’s ability to seek indemnity death benefits under the workers’ compensation statutes.
- Questions of entitlement to death benefits commonly depend on statutory dependency requirements and proof of a compensable work-related condition; those matters generally cannot be foreclosed at an early stage by a blanket rule tied only to retirement.

## Conclusion

The Louisiana Fourth Circuit granted supervisory relief and reversed a partial summary judgment that restricted a retired firefighter’s widow to funeral expenses, holding that retirement and the absence of wages at the time of death do not, as a matter of law, bar pursuit of workers’ compensation indemnity death benefits, and remanded for further proceedings on the merits of the death-benefits claim.


Richards v. St. Bernard Parish Government, 25 So. 3d 867 (2009)