Case Title: Behurst v. Crown Cork & Seal USA, Inc.

Citation: 

Docket Number: S055500

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2009-03-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
FILED: March 5, 2009
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
MIA BEHURST,
as personal representative of the Estate of
Tara Lynne Hall, deceased,
Plaintiff,
v.
CROWN CORK & SEAL USA, INC.,
a Delaware corporation,
aka Crown Cork & Seal Company, Inc.;
and AMECO CORPORATION,
a Wisconsin corporation,
Defendants.
(US District Court No. 04-CV-1261-HA; SC S055500)
En Banc
On certified question of the United States
District Court for the District of Oregon; certification order dated November
23, 2007; certification accepted January 23, 2008; argued and submitted on
December 9, 2008.
Mark Morrell, Portland, argued the cause and
filed the brief for plaintiff.
Thomas W. Sondag, Lane Powell PC, Portland,
argued the cause and filed the brief for defendants.  With him on the brief were
Vicki L. Smith and Stephanie L.V. Hendricks.
DURHAM, J.
The certified question is answered.
DURHAM,
J.
This
case is before this court on a certified question of Oregon law from the United
States District Court for the District of Oregon.  Plaintiff is the personal
representative of the estate of Tara Lynne Hall, decedent.  After plaintiff's
decedent was killed in the course of her employment with defendant, plaintiff
filed an action for wrongful death, alleging that defendant had caused
decedent's death by deliberate intention.  Defendant responded that Oregon's
Workers' Compensation Law, ORS chapter 656, barred the action.  The federal
district court now asks this court to determine whether ORS 656.156(2) allows
the personal representative of a deceased worker to bring an action for intentional
wrongful death against the worker's employer, when the only beneficiaries of
the claim are the worker's nondependent parents.  For the following reasons, we
hold that ORS 656.156(2) removes the exclusive liability bar in ORS
656.018(1)(a) to plaintiff's action for wrongful death under ORS 30.020(1).
Before
addressing the facts of this case, we summarize the relevant provisions of the
Workers' Compensation Law and Oregon's wrongful death statute.  ORS 656.017
requires a subject employer to provide compensation for a workers' work-related
injuries, among other duties.  ORS 656.018(1)(a) provides that, if the employer
complies with those duties, it will not be liable for other claims brought by
workers for injuries incurred in the course of employment:
"The liability of every employer who
satisfies the duty required by ORS 656.017(1) is exclusive and in place of all
other liability arising out of injuries, diseases, symptom complexes or similar
conditions arising out of and in the course of employment that are sustained by
subject workers, the workers' beneficiaries and anyone otherwise entitled to
recover damages from the employer on account of such conditions or claims
resulting therefrom, specifically including claims for contribution or
indemnity asserted by third persons from whom damages are sought on account of
such conditions, except as specifically provided otherwise in this
chapter."
ORS
656.156(2) removes the exclusive liability bar set by ORS 656.018(1)(a), if the
employer injures or kills a worker by "deliberate intention":
"If injury or death results to a worker from
the deliberate intention of the employer of the worker to produce such injury
or death, the worker, the widow, widower, child or dependent of the worker may
take under this chapter, and also have cause for action against the employer,
as if such statutes had not been passed, for damages over the amount payable
under those statutes."
ORS
30.020 provides, in part, that a decedent's personal representative may
maintain an action against the person who caused the decedent's death, if the
decedent would have had the right to maintain such an action, for the benefit
of named persons, including surviving parents:
"(1) When the death of a person is caused by
the wrongful act or omission of another, the personal representative of the
decedent, for the benefit of the decedent's surviving spouse, surviving
children, surviving parents and other individuals, if any, who under the
law of intestate succession of the state of the decedent's domicile would be
entitled to inherit the personal property of the decedent, and for the benefit
of any stepchild or stepparent whether that stepchild or stepparent would be
entitled to inherit the personal property of the decedent or not, may
maintain an action against the wrongdoer, if the decedent might have maintained
an action, had the decedent lived, against the wrongdoer for an injury done by
the same act or omission. * * *
"* * * * *
"(2) In an action under this section damages
may be awarded in an amount which:
"(a) Includes reasonable charges necessarily
incurred for doctors' services, hospital services, nursing services, other
medical services, burial services and memorial services rendered for the
decedent;
"(b) Would justly, fairly and reasonably
have compensated the decedent for disability, pain, suffering and loss of
income during the period between injury to the decedent and the decedent's
death;
"(c) Justly, fairly and reasonably
compensates for pecuniary loss to the decedent's estate;
"(d) Justly, fairly and reasonably
compensates the decedent's spouse, children, stepchildren, stepparents and parents
for pecuniary loss and for loss of the society, companionship and services of
the decedent; and
"(e) Separately stated in finding or
verdict, the punitive damages, if any, which the decedent would have been
entitled to recover from the wrongdoer if the decedent had lived."
(Emphasis added.)
In
Kilminster v. Day Management Corp., 323 Or 618, 919 P2d 474 (1996), this
court held that ORS 656.156(2) removes the bar in ORS 656.018 to an action by
the personal representative of a deceased worker against an employer for the
worker's wrongful death, if the personal representative claims that the death
resulted from the employer's deliberate intention.  Id. at 629.  The
interpretive problem that this case poses, and which Kilminster did not
resolve, arises from the legislature's use of distinctive terminology in ORS
656.156(2).  ORS 656.156(2) lists several persons who have an action against an
employer for deliberately killing a worker, but that list omits a
"parent" of the worker.(1) 
By contrast, ORS 30.020(1) expressly mentions "surviving parents" as
persons for whose benefit a personal representative may bring a wrongful death
action.  We must determine whether the omission of nondependent
"parents" from ORS 656.156(2) undermines plaintiff's right to bring
this action under ORS 30.020(1) on behalf of decedent's surviving parents.
We
turn to the facts of this case, which are not in dispute.  Plaintiff Behurst is
the mother of decedent and, as noted, is the personal representative of
decedent's estate.  Decedent was killed while working at a can-making plant
owned and operated by defendant Crown.  At the time of her death, decedent did
not have a spouse, child, or dependents as those terms are defined under the
Workers' Compensation Law.  In the certification order, the district court
noted that "[i]t is undisputed that decedent's non-dependent parents are
the only potential beneficiaries of any recovery in the subject lawsuit."
Plaintiff
filed this action for wrongful death, alleging that defendant had caused
decedent's death by deliberate intention.(2) 
The case subsequently was removed to the federal district court.  Defendant
moved for summary judgment, arguing that ORS 656.018 barred the action, because
plaintiff was not a spouse, child, or dependent of decedent.
The
district court initially denied defendant's motion for summary judgment,
holding that, under Kilminster, plaintiff was authorized to bring
the action as decedent's personal representative.  After further argument,
however, the district court certified the following question to this court:
"Does ORS 656.156(2) provide a cause for
action to non-dependent parents, or to a personal representative seeking
compensation for those parents as beneficiaries, of someone who died
on-the-job?"
We
accepted the certified question.
The
answer to the certified question depends on the legislative intent behind ORS
656.156(2) and ORS 30.020.  ORS 656.156(2) does not provide a cause of action
to nondependent parents or, for that matter, to any person.  Rather, that
statute states that a worker, spouse, child, or dependent may "take under
this chapter" and also may "have cause for action against the
employer, as if such statutes had not been passed * * *." 
(Emphasis added.)  The phrase, "have cause for action," if read in
isolation, might signify a grant of a substantive right to bring an action. 
But the phrase, "as if such statutes had not been passed," clarifies
that matter.  The legislature intended to remove a statutory obstacle to the
initiation of an action, not to authorize a new basis for civil liability that
the law does not already recognize.  The phrase "such statutes" can
only refer back to the phrase "this chapter," meaning the Workers'
Compensation Law.  Accordingly, ORS 656.156(2) necessarily assumes that the
designated persons -- workers, spouses, children, and dependents -- may pursue
an action against an employer based on some other source of law, as if the
exclusive liability bar in ORS 656.018(1)(a) did not exist, as long as they
allege that the employer caused a worker's injury or death by deliberate
intention.  This court implicitly recognized as much in Kilminster when it
stated that ORS 656.156(2) "removes the bar that otherwise would
prevent a worker from maintaining an action for damages against the employer *
* *."  323 Or at 629 (emphasis added).
The
question, then, is whether ORS 656.156(2) lifts the procedural bar set out in
ORS 656.018(1)(a) for a personal representative seeking compensation for
parents as beneficiaries.  Kilminster answers that question, at least in
part.  In that case, the parents of a deceased worker brought claims for
intentional wrongful death against the worker's employer.  The decedent's
father also joined as a plaintiff in his capacity as the personal
representative of the decedent's estate.  The employer argued that ORS
656.156(2) did not permit the father to bring a wrongful death action as a
personal representative because a "personal representative" was not
listed among the parties to which ORS 656.156(2) permits an action.  This court
rejected that argument, noting that ORS 656.156(2) authorizes the personal
representative to vindicate the statutory rights of the "worker"
under that statute by commencing an action against the employer:
"That statute thus removes the bar that
otherwise would prevent a worker from maintaining an action for damages against
the employer, even though the worker is dead.  Logically, the only party who can
pursue that action, and thereby effectuate the substantive right afforded the
deceased worker by ORS 656.156(2), is the worker's personal representative. 
Plaintiff is a person who may bring a claim, the bar to which has been removed
by ORS 656.156(2), in the circumstances."
Id. Accordingly, this court held that ORS 656.156(2),
by removing the liability bar, clears the way for the filing of an action by the
personal representative on behalf of the deceased worker against the worker's
employer for intentional wrongful death.
Defendant,
however, presents two arguments as to why Kilminster should not control
the outcome of this case.  First, defendant asserts that, although ORS
656.156(2) permits a personal representative to bring an action, the representative
may do so only for the benefit of the persons named in that provision. 
Defendant asserts that, because the only possible beneficiaries of plaintiff's
wrongful death action are decedent's nondependent parents, ORS 656.156(2) does
not eliminate the bar to plaintiff's action.  Defendant stresses that that
statute does not provide that nondependent parents may "take under this
chapter" or "have cause for action."  Second, defendant contends
that, under the wrongful death statute, the cause of action belongs to the
beneficiaries of the action -- in this case, decedent's parents -- and, thus,
is not the cause of action of a "worker" under ORS 656.156(2).
We
reject defendant's first argument.  Defendant gives insufficient interpretive
weight to a key term in ORS 656.156(2):  "worker."  The legislature
did not qualify that statutory term or otherwise indicate in text that the
deceased worker's cause of action against the employer is limited, as long as
the claim satisfies the "deliberate intention" criterion.  It is that
right of the worker that the personal representative enforces in bringing a
wrongful death action against the employer under ORS 30.020(1).  As this court
stated in Storm v. McClung, 334 Or 210, 223, 47 P3d 476 (2002),
"the wrongful death statute places a decedent's personal representative in
the decedent's shoes, imputing to the personal representative whatever rights,
and limitations to those rights, that the decedent possessed."
The
proper question, therefore, is not whether ORS 656.156(2) lists
"parents" as potential claimants under that statute.  Rather, the
question is whether parents are among those persons on whose behalf a personal
representative may institute an action for the deliberate wrongful death of a
worker under ORS 30.020.  The answer is yes.  ORS 30.020(1) authorizes an
action for wrongful death on behalf of "surviving parents" if the
decedent might have maintained an action against the wrongdoer for the same
injurious act or omission.  ORS 30.020(2)(d) authorizes an award of damages in
a wrongful death action to compensate "decedent's  * * * parents for
pecuniary loss and for loss of the society, companionship and services of the
decedent; * * *."  If the personal representative's wrongful death claim
satisfies the deliberate intention criterion, the claim is one that "the
decedent might have maintained * * * [,] had the decedent lived, against the
wrongdoer * * *."  ORS 30.020(1).  Accordingly, the personal
representative's claim for wrongful death for the benefit of decedent's parents
properly vindicates the worker's right to an action under ORS 656.156(2).
Defendant
raises other contextual arguments, but they do not persuade us to a different
conclusion.  For example, defendant notes that ORS 656.005(2) defines a
"beneficiary" as "an injured worker, and the husband, wife,
child or dependent of a worker, who is entitled to receive payments under this
chapter."(3) 
Defendant treats that provision as evidence of a legislative intent to permit
actions for the benefit of only persons expressly named in ORS 656.156(2). 
That argument ignores the difference between recovery "under this
chapter" -- i.e., receipt of statutory benefits under ORS chapter
656 -- and recovery through an action brought by a personal representative of a
deceased worker under ORS 30.020(1).  ORS 656.156(2) clearly addresses the
former when it identifies the parties who may "take under this
chapter."  It says nothing regarding the latter.(4)
Defendant
also accuses the plaintiff of attempting to "supersede" the list of
parties who may file an action under ORS 656.156(2) with the list of
beneficiaries provided in ORS 30.020(1).  Defendant notes correctly that, in
1913, when ORS 656.156(2) was enacted,(5)
Oregon's wrongful death statute did not operate for the benefit of the
decedent's family or dependents.  Instead, the statute allowed a decedent's
personal representative to bring a claim on behalf of the decedent's estate and
to administer any damages recovered as personal property of the decedent.(6)  See
Carlson v. Short Line Ry. Co., 21 Or 450, 458-59, 28 P 497 (1892)
(describing claims brought under wrongful death act).  Defendant asserts that,
when the 1913 Legislative Assembly enacted the Workers' Compensation Law, it understood
that a personal representative would bring a wrongful death action on behalf of
a worker's estate, not on behalf of the parties named in the present version of
ORS 30.020(1).
Whether
or not that assertion is true, it misses the larger point.  Nothing in the
statutory text of ORS 656.156(2) supports defendant's contention that the 1913 Legislative
Assembly intended to limit the parties who may benefit from a legal
action, as opposed to the parties who may bring the action.  The persons
who were most likely to benefit from a decedent's estate in 1913 -- and thus,
to benefit from a wrongful death action -- are the same persons who are named
as beneficiaries under the present wrongful death statute:(7)  the decedent's surviving
spouse, children, stepchildren, parents, stepparents, "and other
individuals, if any, who under the law of intestate succession * * * would be
entitled to inherit the personal property of the decedent[.]"  ORS
30.020(1).  If the 1913 Legislative Assembly intended somehow to prevent those
persons from recovering the proceeds of a decedent's estate, as opposed to
filing an action based on the decedent's death, it could have done so
expressly.  It did not do so.  The text and context of ORS 656.156(2) are not
ambiguous.  They simply fail to support defendant's first argument.
We answer
defendant's second argument -- that a wrongful death action belongs to the
beneficiaries, not to the worker -- by pointing to the statutory construction
of ORS 656.156(2) that this court adopted in Kilminster.  There, the
court recognized the practical problem that arises from authorizing a worker
who has died to pursue an action against an employer for causing the worker's
death by deliberate intention.  The legislature's solution to that conundrum
was to effectuate the deceased worker's right by authorizing a personal
representative to maintain an action for damages, "the bar to which has
been removed by ORS 656.156(2) * * *."  323 Or at 629  But, as Kilminster
also makes clear, the right of action that the personal representative
vindicates in this context is "the substantive right afforded the deceased
worker by ORS 656.156(2) * * *."  Id.
It
is true that a wrongful death action is not brought on behalf of the worker,
but on behalf of the beneficiaries named in ORS 30.020(1) and that any recovery
goes to those beneficiaries, not to the worker's estate.  Also, ORS
30.020(2)(d) allows an award of damages to compensate the decedent's
"spouse, children, stepchildren, stepparents and parents" for
"pecuniary loss and for loss of the society, companionship and services of
the decedent."  In other words, ORS 30.020(2)(d) allows a court to provide
recovery to beneficiaries for their injuries resulting from the decedent's
death.  Those parts of the statutory text explain why this court has stated in
some of its past decisions that the beneficiaries of a wrongful death action
are the "real parties in interest."  Christiansen v. Epley,
287 Or 539, 545-46, 601 P2d 1216 (1979); accord Neher v. Chartier, 319
Or 417, 426, 879 P2d 156 (1994) ("Under the wrongful death statute, the
personal representative of a decedent's estate does not bring a wrongful death
action solely on behalf of the estate, but also for the benefit of the
decedent's surviving parents.").  (Internal quotation marks and
punctuation omitted.)
Those
provisions identify the real parties in interest in a wrongful death action,
but do not alter our previous conclusion regarding the nature of the underlying
claim in a wrongful death action.  It is the worker's claim that the
personal representative vindicates.  Only the worker's personal representative
may maintain an action under ORS 30.020.  The personal representative may
maintain only one action for each decedent, "no matter how many
beneficiaries there be."  Greist v. Phillips, 322 Or 281, 289, 906
P2d 789 (1995).  And, as Kilminster confirms, the personal
representative's right to bring a wrongful death action is derivative of the
decedent's own right to do so.  Kilminster, 323 Or at 626.  Accordingly,
we reject defendant's argument that plaintiff's action is not an action of the
"worker" under ORS 656.156(2).
Finally,
defendant asserts that this court erred in deciding Kilminster and that
ORS 656.156(2) does not allow a worker's personal representative to bring an
action for wrongful death because the statutory text does not mention personal
representatives.  Defendant asserts that, logically, the cause of action
granted to the worker "must be limited to one a worker can bring -- an
action for injury, not death."
We
adhere to Kilminster:  ORS 656.156(2) provides that, if an employer
causes "injury or death" to a worker by deliberate intention,
"the worker * * * may * * * have cause for action against the employer, as
if such statutes had not been passed * * *."  The statute does not
distinguish between a cause of action for injury and a cause of action for
death, and it does not distinguish between the worker and the other parties who
may "have cause for action."  Defendant's argument would require this
court to read into the statute a limitation on the term "worker" that
the text, considered in context, does not justify.  We decline to do so.
The
certified question is answered.
1. We
recognize that a worker's parent may qualify as a "dependent of the
worker" under ORS 656.156(2), but this case does not present that
circumstance.  Decedent's surviving parents were not her dependents.
2. Plaintiff
also asserted claims of wrongful death by negligence and product liability
against Ameco Corporation, which had installed the machine that killed
decedent.  The district court granted summary judgment to Ameco on those
claims.  Ameco does not appear before this court, and we do not consider those
claims.
3. ORS
656.005 provides, in part:
"(2) 'Beneficiary' means an injured worker,
and the husband, wife, child or dependent of a worker, who is entitled to
receive payments under this chapter.  'Beneficiary' does not include:
"(a) A spouse of an injured worker living
in a state of abandonment for more than one year at the time of the injury or
subsequently.  A spouse who has lived separate and apart from the worker for a
period of two years and who has not during that time received or attempted by
process of law to collect funds for support or maintenance is considered living
in a state of abandonment.
"(b)
A person who intentionally causes the compensable injury to or death of an
injured worker."
4. Defendant
also points to ORS 656.204, which governs the distribution of compensation
payments and medical benefits upon a worker's death.  Defendant asserts that
that statute allocates all such benefits "to the spouse, child, or
dependent of the worker, and to no one else."  Assuming without
deciding that defendant's construction of ORS 656.204 is correct, it does not
persuade us that ORS 656.204 has any bearing on who may benefit from an action
that is based on laws outside the scope of the Workers' Compensation Law, such
as ORS 30.020(1).
5. General
Laws of Oregon, ch 112, § 22, p 204 (1913).  As this court has noted, the
operative wording of ORS 656.156(2) "has remained unchanged since adoption
of the [Workers' Compensation Law]."  Kilminster v. Day Management
Corp., 323 Or 618, 919 P2d 474 (1996).
6. Lord's
Oregon Laws, title V, ch VI, § 380 (1910), provided:
"When the death of a person is caused by
the wrongful act or omission of another, the personal representatives of the
former may maintain an action at law therefor against the latter, if the former
might have maintained an action, had he lived, against the latter, for an
injury done by the same act or omission.  Such action shall be commenced within
two years after the death, and damages therein shall not exceed $7,500, and the
amount recovered, if any, shall be administered as other personal property of
the deceased person." 
7. In
1910, if a decedent died intestate, his or her personal property would have
been divided as follows.  First, an allowance would have been made to a widow
"for the use and support of herself and minor children * * *."  Then,
the decedent's debts and administration expenses would have been paid.  The
residue would have been left to the decedent's widow or husband, if they had no
children.  If there were children, the widow or husband would have received
half of the residue.  Any remaining personal property would have been divided
according to the law of intestate succession for real property.  Lord's Oregon
Laws, title XLVIII, ch VI, § 7349 (1910).  Under the real property statute,
children took first, then the spouse, then the father of the decedent, then the
brothers and sisters, and so on through the decedent's lineal descendants or
kindred.  In the absence of lineal descendants or kindred, the property
escheated to the state.  Lord's Oregon Laws, title XLVIII, ch VI, § 7348
(1910).