This UK supreme Court case was reviewed for our NI updates and might be of particular value to those readers with business interests in the UK:

Mr Braganza was a chief engineer on an oil tanker and he disappeared whilst in the middle of the North Atlantic ocean. No-one knows what happened to him but the employer concluded that he had committed suicide, and denied his widow contractual death benefits. Had the investigation been extensive enough? More importantly, does evidence have to be of a higher magnitude when behaviour, like suicide, is inherently improbable?

The UK Supreme Court (by a 3:2 majority) has overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal that had denied Mr Braganza's widow the contractual entitlements. It found suicide to be 'inherently improbable' and that many reasons, other than suicide, might have accounted for Mr Braganza's disappearance.

Mr Sullivan, General Manager of BP Maritime Services (Singapore) Pte Ltd, who received the fact-finder's report, should have made further inquiries, rather than just accepting the report. He should have asked himself whether the evidence was sufficiently cogent to overcome the inherent improbability of such a thing. The Supreme Court concluded, by majority:

"In this case, there were no positive indications of suicide. There was no suicide note, no evidence of suicidal thoughts (apart perhaps from his wife's reference six weeks earlier to his seeming "so afraid of life"), no evidence of over-whelming personal or financial pressures of the sort which would be likely to lead a mature professional man to take his own life, no evidence of psychiatric problems or a depressive personality. The "bullet points" are at most straws in the wind. The two most significant are the emails and the record-keeping deficiencies. The cogency of the emails from Mrs Braganza is much diminished by the failure to ask her about them. The team's failure to do so is completely understandable, given the task which had been set for them. But the employer's failure to do so is much less understandable. Nor do the record-keeping deficiencies appear to have been explored in any depth.

"Against those straws in the wind is the evidence that Mr Braganza's behaviour had appeared entirely normal to the Master and the other officers with whom he was in contact the night before. There was also a good deal of evidence of his concern about the weather, which would have constituted a good work-related reason for him to go on deck that morning. A further relevant factor which ought to have been in the mind of this employer is that Mr Braganza was a Roman Catholic. There are cultures in which suicide is an acceptable, even an honourable, solution to certain problems or dilemmas. But his was not one of them. For him, suicide was a mortal sin. This increases its inherent improbability in his case and the corresponding need for cogent evidence to support a positive finding."
http://bit.ly/1I1jaKF

As ever, a short video summarising the UK Supreme Court judgement is available online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7StjICeRZYg