ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled the widow of a Washington County Sheriff's deputy was wrongly denied state death benefits after her husband died by suicide as a result of PTSD.
In a ruling published Monday, the court said an administrative law judge erred when ruling against Cynthia Lannon following deputy Jerome Lannon's death in 2018.
Minnesota law provides death benefits to surviving family members of officers who are "killed in the line of duty." However, the administrative law judge concluded that Lannon's death did not fit that definition.
In its order reversing the ruling, the Minnesota Court of Appeals said "the phrase 'killed in the line of duty,' as interpreted by the supreme court, is broad enough to encompass the death of a public safety officer who dies by suicide as a result of PTSD caused by performing duties peculiar to a public safety officer."
Jerome Lannon had a decades-long career in law enforcement, joining the Washington County Sheriff's Office in 1999. In its ruling, the Minnesota Court of Appeals noted that Deputy Lannon "responded to many disturbing incidents, including a double murder, multiple suicides, a child’s sexual assault, and fatal vehicle crashes" and had been seeking treatment for anxiety and depression that his previous therapists had said were tied to PTSD.
Following Lannon's death in November 2018, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety initially told Cynthia Lannon that she was not eligible for a full benefit because "it did not appear that Deputy Lannon was acting in the usual scope of duties as a public safety officer when he died." Cynthia Lannon challenged the DPS decision with the administrative law judge, who denied her claim.
The Court of Appeals said that decision was incorrect.
"We conclude that 'killed in the line of duty' ... includes a death by suicide resulting from PTSD caused by performing duties peculiar to a public safety officer. Accordingly, survivors of such an officer may qualify for the death benefit," the court wrote in its conclusion, adding that Cynthia Lannon had "presented sufficient evidence." The court remanded the case back to the Office of Administrative Hearings for "further proceedings consistent with this opinion."
Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington release the following statement:
We continue to share our sympathies with the family of Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerome Lannon. We take seriously the mental and emotional health of our state’s emergency responders and deaths resulting from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is for this reason that we have spent the better part of 2022 researching the issues, existing laws, and our federal partners’ responses, as we work to propose modifications to Minnesota’s statutes. Last legislative session, DPS proposed expanding the eligible circumstances for which families of first responders who die in the line of duty can receive death benefits to include cancer or post-traumatic stress disorder that is linked to their service. ... We have spent the better part of 2022 researching the issues, existing laws, and our federal partners’ responses, as we work to propose modifications to Minnesota’s statutes.
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