Claim of Epstein v. City of New York

Appeal from a decision and award of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, awarding benefits to the claimant widow. The City of New York, self-insured employer, claims that the decedent committed suicide. He was found dead on April 19, 1949, on a stairway landing between the fourth and fifth floors of the Municipal Building. The decedent, a civil engineer, was employed by the city comptroller to inspect work done for the city and to determine the propriety of bills submitted for payment. His office was on the sixth floor. The cafeteria was on the twenty-sixth floor but one bank of elevators ran…