477 A.2d 1035 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1984
Before the court is the named defendant's motion to strike the complaint on the ground that the plaintiff's exclusive remedy is under the Workers' Compensation Act, General Statutes, c. 568, §
A function of the motion to strike is to test the legal sufficiency of a complaint. Practice Book § 152. In testing the motion to strike, the court "must take the facts to be those alleged in the plaintiff's complaint ... and *251
must construe the complaint in the manner most favorable to the pleader." Sheets v. Teddy's Frosted Foods,Inc.,
Clinton M. Hatcher, the plaintiff's decedent, was employed as a laborer by the defendants from 1967. On December 3, 1982, Hatcher, in the performance of his employment duties, was assisting in the transportation, by crane, of a stack of iron casings known as flasks. The operator of the crane attempted to turn the flasks on the crane by striking them against a flask which was located on top of an adjacent stationary stack of flasks. At the time, Hatcher was standing next to this stationary stack of flasks and, as a result of the striking of the flask by the crane operator, it fell upon him causing serious injuries which resulted in his death.
The complaint is in three counts. In the first count the plaintiff alleges that the striking of the stack of flasks in order to manipulate the load on the crane was a wilful and wanton act, regularly practiced and condoned by the defendants, and that this practice was a violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act,
The core issue raised by the motion to strike is whether an intentional, wilful or wanton violation of OSHA safety regulations takes the matter out of the *252 scope of the Workers' Compensation Act in order to enable an injured employee to pursue common law remedies?
It is clear that the exclusive remedy for injuries sustained by an employee "arising out of and in the course of his employment" is under the Workers' Compensation Act. General Statutes §
It is important to put this case in its proper perspective. This plaintiff seeks to recover on the claim that the employer intentionally, wilfully or wantonly violated OSHA regulations, which resulted in the death of her decedent. She does not allege that the employer intended to injure the decedent, Clinton M. Hatcher.
Surely, when the employer commits or authorizes a tort which is intended to injure an employee, such as an assault by the employer, the injury does not "arise out of the employment." "An injury is said to arise out of the employment when (a) it occurs in the course of the employment and (b) is the result of a risk involved in the employment or incident to it or to the conditions under which it is required to be performed." Dombachv. Olkon Corporation,
When there is no intent to injure, however, the injury comes within the jurisdiction of the Workers' Compensation Act and the employee's exclusive remedy is compensation provided by the act. "Since the legal justification for the common-law action is the nonaccidental character of the injury from the defendant employer's standpoint, the common-law liability of the employer cannot, under the almost unanimous rule, be stretched to include accidental injuries caused by the gross, wanton, wilful, deliberate, intentional, reckless, culpable, or malicious negligence, breach of statute, or other misconduct of the employer short of genuine intentional injury.... Even if the alleged conduct goes beyond aggravated negligence, and includes such elements as knowingly permitting a hazardous work condition to exist, knowingly ordering claimant to perform an extremely dangerous job, wilfully failing to furnish a safe place to work, or even wilfully and unlawfully violating a safety statute, this still falls short of the kind of actual intention to injure that robs the injury of accidental character." 2A Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law (1982) § 68.13, pp. 13-8 — 13-26. (See the numerous supportive cases cited by Professor Larson in his treatise on workers' compensation.)
Mere knowledge and appreciation of the risk does not supply the necessary intent to injure. "The defendant who acts in the belief or consciousness that he is causing an appreciable risk of harm to another may be negligent, and if the risk is great his conduct may be characterized as reckless or wanton, but it is not classed as an intentional wrong." Prosser, Torts (4th Ed.) § 8, p. 32. "Neither knowingly permitting a hazardous work *254
condition to exist, nor willfully failing to furnish a safe place to work, nor even willfully violating a safety statute, constitutes the requisite intent." (Citations omitted.) Houston v. Bechtel Associates ProfessionalCorporation,
The plaintiff seeks to circumvent the jurisdiction of the Workers' Compensation Act under the authority of Jett v. Dunlap,
The plaintiff's reliance on Jett is misplaced. The only sentence of the dicta which would lend credence to the plaintiff's argument is as follows: "Where such wilful *255 or serious misconduct is engaged in by an employer, as identified by the standard we set forth today, then a plaintiff may pursue common-law remedies." Jett v.Dunlap, supra, 221. "[S]uch wilful or serious misconduct," however, has reference to conduct which is calculated to harm the employee. The court pointed out in Jett that there was no allegation that the employer engaged in wilful or serious misconduct by authorizing the fellow employee to strike the injured employee. Furthermore, Jett must be read in the context of its factual setting which involved an intentional assault on the injured employee by the employer's supervisor.
Finally, any trimming of the exclusivity of the Workers' Compensation Act would violate well settled principles of statutory construction. The Supreme Court of Connecticut has repeatedly held that the act is to be liberally construed "and it is to be interpreted with sufficient liberality to carry into effect the beneficent purpose contemplated in that act and not to defeat that purpose by narrow and technical definition." Bahre v.Hogbloom,
Only two jurisdictions have come to a different conclusion. In Mandolidis v. Elkins Industries, Inc.,
Any narrowing of the jurisdiction of the Workers' Compensation Act must be accomplished by the legislature. The consequences of limiting the exclusive jurisdiction of the act by allowing an employee to pursue common law remedies against an employer for injuries resulting from the employer's intentional, wilful or wanton violation of safety regulations are very significant; it would undermine the balance of interests struck by the act. Those employees would be stripped of the protection of the Workers' Compensation Act. Injured employees would be denied the swift and certain compensation and inexpensive procedure provided under the act. Under the common law tort remedy, fault would become an issue, including the employee's contributory negligence, which could deny him or her compensation. These injured employees would be denied *257
the benefit of the Second Injury and Compensation Assurance Fund; General Statutes §
Accordingly, this action is barred by the Workers' Compensation Act and the court is without jurisdiction. The named defendant's motion to strike the complaint is granted.