Fifth Circuit Overturns $575K Wrongful Death Award: Insurer Dodges Liability in Workplace Overdose Case
New Orleans, November 18, 2025 – A federal appeals court has delivered a sharp rebuke to expansive workers’ compensation claims, reversing a $575,000 award to the family of a Louisiana welder who died from a fentanyl overdose months after a workplace accident. The ruling sharply limits insurer liability, deeming the fatal drug use a “superseding cause” unrelated to the original injury.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision last week in Bommarito v. Belle Chasse Marine Transportation marks a pivotal moment in maritime and longshore workers’ injury litigation. It underscores that employers and their insurers aren’t on the hook for every tragic turn a worker’s life takes post-injury – especially when illegal street drugs enter the equation.
The saga began in August 2022 aboard the M/V Miss Megan, a vessel owned by Belle Chasse Marine Transportation and operated by Belle Chasse Land Transportation. Veteran welder Ronald Bommarito, 52, was repairing a tank when a co-worker accidentally struck a valve, unleashing a blast of compressed air that hurled him into a bulkhead. Bommarito suffered severe injuries, including a fractured vertebra and spinal cord trauma, landing him in the hospital for weeks.
Discharged in September 2022, he was prescribed opioids – standard protocol for such pain – but his condition deteriorated. By December, he’d lost his job, his marriage crumbled under the strain, and he spiraled into depression. Testimony revealed his mother, a retired nurse, desperately sought an earlier doctor’s appointment to wean him off the meds, but the clinic’s backlog stonewalled her. Tragically, the very next day, on December 20, Bommarito was found dead in his trailer from an overdose of street fentanyl laced with xylazine – a veterinary sedative not approved for humans, often dubbed “tranq” for its gruesome effects on users.
Bommarito’s estate, represented by his two adult children and his mother, sued under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), a federal law safeguarding maritime workers injured on navigable waters. They argued the companies’ negligence in the accident triggered a chain of events leading to his addiction and death, holding Talisman Casualty Insurance Co. – the firms’ workers’ comp carrier – liable for wrongful death damages.
In a 2024 bench trial in the Eastern District of Louisiana, U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan sided with the family. She pinpointed vessel negligence, like inadequate safety barriers around the valve, and awarded $575,668.09 – covering funeral costs, lost future earnings, and emotional suffering. The payout came from the LHWCA’s third-party liability provisions, which allow suits against negligent employers beyond standard comp benefits.
But the defendants appealed, and a three-judge Fifth Circuit panel – including Judges Kurt Engelhardt, James Graves, and Dana Sabraw – wasted no time dismantling the verdict. In an unsigned opinion penned by Engelhardt, the court ruled 2-1 that Bommarito’s voluntary ingestion of illicit drugs broke the causal chain. “The overdose was not a foreseeable result of the workplace accident,” the majority wrote, emphasizing that his medical treatment had concluded months earlier, with no evidence linking prescribed opioids directly to the street fentanyl binge.
The judges leaned on LHWCA precedents, noting that while work injuries can foreseeably lead to complications like addiction during active treatment, liability evaporates once care ends and personal choices intervene. “An intervening criminal act, such as the use of illegal narcotics, constitutes a superseding cause that absolves the original tortfeasor,” they stated, citing similar cases where off-duty recklessness shielded defendants.
Dissenting Judge Graves fired back, arguing the majority downplayed the opioid crisis’s grip on injured workers. “The workplace trauma set the dominoes falling – depression, isolation, desperation,” he wrote, urging a broader view of foreseeability in America’s fentanyl-ravaged landscape.
Legal experts hailed the ruling as a bulwark for insurers. “This draws a bright line: No crystal ball required for every post-injury tragedy,” said maritime attorney Elena Vasquez of New Orleans firm Phelps Dunbar, who wasn’t involved but reviewed the case. “It protects businesses from endless liability chains, especially amid the overdose epidemic claiming 100,000 American lives yearly.” Vasquez pointed to CDC data showing workplace injuries as a known gateway to prescription opioid misuse, yet stressed the court’s focus on illegal escalation.
On the flip side, workers’ advocates decried it as callous. “This isn’t just legalese – it’s a death sentence for blue-collar families,” tweeted National Employment Law Project director Rebecca Dixon, whose post garnered 5,000 likes overnight. Online forums buzzed with welder stories of painkiller pitfalls, one Reddit thread in r/LegalAdvice exploding to 2,000 comments: “My back injury from the yard led to oxys, then worse. Who’s liable if I OD?”
The decision ripples beyond Louisiana’s bayous. With the LHWCA governing 500,000 maritime workers nationwide, it could chill similar suits in Texas ports and Gulf Coast shipyards, where overdose rates have surged 30% since 2020 per Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Insurers like Talisman may see premium dips, but at what cost to vulnerable claimants?
For Bommarito’s kin, the reversal stings deepest. “Ronnie was a fighter – that accident broke him, and the system let him fall,” his sister told local outlet NOLA.com post-ruling. No appeal is planned, but the family eyes state comp benefits, a fraction of the lost award.
This Fifth Circuit pivot signals a tougher road for proving extended causation in injury cases, blending tort law with public health woes. As fentanyl floods U.S. streets – with seizures up 50% in 2025 per DEA reports – courts may increasingly parse where work ends and willful risk begins. For insurers, it’s a green light to contest outlier claims; for workers, a stark reminder that the safety net frays fast.
By Satish Mehra
Satish Mehra reports on federal courts and labor law for Global Wire News.
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