Lopez v. Intercept Youth Services, Inc., 861 S.E.2d 392

Lizeth Lopez was an evening support counselor at Intercept Youth Services’ YouthQuest program; duties included administering prescription medications, reviewing resident charts, and answering residents who came to the locked office at night.
Resident Ronald Dorsey, referred from psychiatric care, had prior violent/sexual offending history and was in the program’s most restrictive phase with a 10:00 p.m. curfew.
On April 17, 2016, after 10:00 p.m. Dorsey came to Lopez’s locked office seeking medication; Lopez unlocked the door, and Dorsey strangled her to death. He later killed a second counselor and pleaded guilty.
Lopez’s Estate sued Intercept for negligence and wrongful death, alleging failures to screen/monitor residents, enforce curfew, warn staff, limit contact, provide surveillance/security, and train staff.
Intercept filed a plea in bar invoking the exclusivity provision of the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act (Code § 65.2-307(A)); the circuit court found Lopez’s death arose out of her employment and dismissed the tort claim.
The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed, holding the fatal assault was connected to employment conditions and therefore barred by the Act’s exclusivity.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Lopez’s death "arose out of" her employment so that workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy	Intercept’s failures in screening, monitoring, security, policies, and training were the proximate cause of Lopez’s murder and thus the death did not fall outside the Act	The death was compensable under the Act because Dorsey targeted Lopez in her role and at her workplace, so the Act’s exclusivity bars the tort suit	Court held the death arose out of employment; exclusivity of the Workers’ Compensation Act applies and the civil action is barred
Whether the risk was a peculiarly employment-related (actual-risk) hazard rather than a purely personal/random assault	The complained-of workplace conditions created a peculiar, employment-related probability of assault (actual-risk) — e.g., duties required answering residents at night and administering meds	The circumstances (assailant’s selection of Lopez while she was at work asking for meds) fit precedents recognizing compensable assaults when probability of assault is augmented by job/setting	Court applied the actual-risk doctrine and analogized to Plummer; probability of assault was augmented by employment, so compensable

Jeffreys v. Uninsured Emp.’s Fund, 297 Va. 82 (2019) (explains the quid pro quo and the need to balance compensation coverage and tort exclusivity)
R & T Invs., Ltd. v. Johns, 228 Va. 249 (1984) (defines "arising out of" as causal connection to employment conditions)
Plummer v. Landmark Commc’ns, Inc., 235 Va. 78 (1988) (assault at an employer-designated, known-dangerous location can arise out of employment)
Hopson v. Hungerford Coal Co., 187 Va. 299 (1948) (even murder may qualify as an "accident" under the Act)
Baggett Transp. Co. of Birmingham v. Dillon, 219 Va. 633 (1978) (distinguishes positional risk and random/unknown-assailant violence from compensable employment risks)
Continental Life Ins. v. Gough, 161 Va. 755 (1934) (handling cash created peculiar risk of robbery/assault tied to employment)
Lynchburg Steam Bakery, Inc. v. Garrett, 161 Va. 517 (1933) (employer must remove known hazards or provide protection)
Butler v. Southern States Coop., Inc., 270 Va. 459 (2005) (personal-attraction-based assaults are not compensable when unrelated to employment)