Title: Houdek v. ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc.

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Houdek v. ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc., Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5685.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2012-OHIO-5685 
HOUDEK, APPELLEE, v. THYSSENKRUPP MATERIALS N.A., INC., APPELLANT, ET 
AL. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Houdek v. ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc.,  
Slip Opinion No. 2012-Ohio-5685.] 
(No. 2011-1076—Submitted June 20, 2012—Decided December 6, 2012.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 
No. 95399, 2011-Ohio-1694. 
_______________ 
O’DONNELL, J. 
{¶ 1} ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc., appeals from a judgment of the 
Eighth District Court of Appeals which reversed a grant of summary judgment in 
its favor on claims that one of its supervisors had directed Bruce R. Houdek to 
work in an aisle of a warehouse where he sustained injuries when a co-worker 
operating a sideloader struck him.  We are asked to consider the impact of a 
recently enacted statute on our prior case decisions which held employers liable 
for intentional tort occurring in the workplace when injuries were substantially 
certain to occur. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
{¶ 2} R.C. 2745.01(A), effective April 7, 2005, specifies that an employer 
is not liable for an intentional tort unless the employee proves that “the employer 
committed the tortious act with the intent to injure another or with the belief that 
the injury was substantially certain to occur,”  defined in Subdivision (B) as 
acting “with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a 
condition, or death.” 
{¶ 3} The Eighth District Court of Appeals ignored this statutory 
definition of “substantially certain,” concluding it resulted from a scrivener’s 
error, and held that ThyssenKrupp could be held liable for Houdek’s injuries if it 
“objectively believed the injury to Houdek was substantially certain to occur,” 
notwithstanding the lack of proof of a deliberate intent to injure.  Houdek v. 
ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc., 8th Dist. No. 95399, 2011-Ohio-1694, ¶ 46. 
{¶ 4} Based upon our review of this record, no evidence exists that 
ThyssenKrupp deliberately intended to injure Houdek by directing him to work in 
the warehouse aisle.  Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is 
reversed and the judgment of the trial court entered in favor of ThyssenKrupp is 
reinstated. 
Facts and Procedural History 
{¶ 5} On October 10, 2008, Houdek injured his back putting pieces of 
copper on a pallet while working at ThyssenKrupp’s Cleveland warehouse.  He 
returned to work on October 14, 2008, with light-duty restrictions, and Joseph 
Matras, the plant manager, asked him to assist in relabeling inventory on 
warehouse storage racks as part of a transition to a new inventory management 
system. 
{¶ 6} Replacing the labels on merchandise required Houdek to work in the 
same aisles where workers on sideloaders pulled goods from racks 25 feet high.  
A sideloader moves up and down the aisles with forks protruding toward the 
merchandise but has the operator facing the rack, rather than the direction of 
January Term, 2012 
3 
travel.  At a shift meeting informing employees about the relabeling process, a 
sideloader operator, George Krajacic, asked Matras, the plant manager, whether 
he should rearrange his invoices to avoid pulling merchandise in aisles where 
relabeling had started, but Matras indicated that this would not be necessary. 
{¶ 7} The record further reveals that ThyssenKrupp did not provide 
reflective vests to employees working in dimly lit aisles, did not require the 
placement of orange safety cones at the end of aisles in which employees were 
working, and did not provide expandable gates to prevent machinery from 
entering aisles where employees were working.  However, it did direct employees 
to alert sideloader operators before they began working in a specific aisle. 
{¶ 8} Houdek told Krajacic, the second-shift sideloader operator, that he 
would be working in the aisle between racks A and B.  After working there for 
approximately five hours, Houdek heard the whirring sound of an approaching 
sideloader.  Forgetting that Houdek had told him that he would be working in that 
aisle, Krajacic drove the sideloader down the aisle between racks A and B, a 
narrow aisle which dead ends at a wall; thus, Houdek had no means of escape, 
and the sideloader pinned him against a scissor lift he had been using, breaking 
his leg below the knee and shattering his ankle. 
{¶ 9} Houdek sued ThyssenKrupp, asserting the company had deliberately 
intended to injure him by directing him to work in the aisle with knowledge that 
injury would be certain or substantially certain to occur.  ThyssenKrupp moved 
for summary judgment.  The trial court granted the motion and entered summary 
judgment for ThyssenKrupp, concluding that Houdek failed to show that his 
employer had intended to injure him. 
{¶ 10} The Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed, stating that the 
terms used in R.C. 2745.01(A) are in “harmonic dissonance” with the definition 
of “substantially certain” in R.C. 2745.01(B) and that the court preferred to 
believe “paragraph (B) is a scrivener’s error.”  Houdek, 2011-Ohio-1694, ¶ 42.  
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
4 
As a result, the appellate court held that an injured employee may prove an 
employer intentional tort by showing that the employer acted with an intent to 
injure the employee or with the belief that the injury was substantially certain to 
occur.  Id.  The court applied an objective test as to what a reasonably prudent 
employer would believe and determined that “there are genuine issues of material 
fact, particularly given the specific supervisory directives to both Houdek and the 
sideloader operator and the sideloader operator’s warning to the warehouse 
manager, that [ThyssenKrupp] objectively believed the injury to Houdek was 
substantially certain to occur.”  Houdek at  ¶ 45-46. 
Arguments on Appeal 
{¶ 11} ThyssenKrupp relies on this court’s recent decisions in Kaminski v. 
Metal & Wire Prods. Co., 125 Ohio St.3d 250, 2010-Ohio-1027, 927 N.E.2d 
1066, and Stetter v. R.J. Corman Derailment Servs., L.L.C., 125 Ohio St.3d 280, 
2010-Ohio-1029, 927 N.E.2d 1092, for the proposition that R.C. 2745.01 permits 
recovery for an employer intentional tort only when the employer acts with the 
specific intent to cause injury.  It maintains that recognizing a scrivener’s error in 
R.C. 2745.01 conflicts with our caselaw and ignores the intent of the General 
Assembly to curtail the common law cause of action.  Although ThyssenKrupp 
concedes that intent may be proven by circumstantial evidence, it argues that the 
court of appeals deviated from the intent-to-injure standard by applying an 
objective test—what a reasonably prudent employer would believe—rather than a 
subjective test—what the employer actually believed.  ThyssenKrupp maintains 
that there is no evidence of a specific intent to injure Houdek. 
{¶ 12} Houdek notes that R.C. 2745.01(C) establishes a presumption that 
the employer intended to injure the worker if the employer deliberately removes a 
safety guard, and he asserts that this presumption should apply in this case, 
because ThyssenKrupp failed to install better lighting, to require the use of safety 
cones to alert sideloader operators that Houdek would be working in the aisle, or 
January Term, 2012 
5 
to provide other protective gear such as reflective vests or expandable gates.  
Houdek argues that because the subjective mental state is impossible to prove 
absent a confession, intent to injure may be established through the employer’s 
conduct.  Thus, he maintains that there is sufficient evidence that ThyssenKrupp 
intended to injure him: the company had been warned of the danger posed to 
workers in the aisles only days before the accident, yet it took no action to 
safeguard Houdek before directing him to work there. 
{¶ 13} Accordingly, we confront the question whether a claimant bringing 
an employer intentional tort claim is required to prove that the employer acted 
with a deliberate intent to injure. 
Employer Intentional Tort 
{¶ 14} In Blankenship v. Cincinnati Milacron Chems., Inc., 69 Ohio St.2d 
608, 433 N.E.2d 572 (1982), this court recognized a cause of action for an 
employer’s intentional tort against its employee, holding that because intentional 
tort claims do not arise out of the employment relationship, the workers’ 
compensation laws do not provide immunity from suit.  The court concluded that 
“R.C. 4123.74 does not bestow upon employers immunity from civil liability for 
their intentional torts and an employee may resort to a civil suit for damages.”  Id. 
at 613. 
{¶ 15} Further, in Jones v. VIP Dev. Co., 15 Ohio St.3d 90, 95, 472 
N.E.2d 1046 (1984), the court rejected the proposition that an employer's 
“specific intent to injure is necessary to a finding of intentional misconduct.”  
Relying on Prosser & Keeton, Law of Torts Section 8, at 35-36 (5th Ed.1984)  and 
1 Restatement of the Law 2d, Torts Section 8A, at 15 (1965), the court defined 
“intent” to include not only the specific consequences that an actor desires, but 
also those consequences that an actor believes are substantially certain to result 
from the conduct.  Id. at 94-95.  The court therefore held, at paragraph one of the 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
6 
syllabus: “An intentional tort is an act committed with the intent to injure another, 
or committed with the belief that such injury is substantially certain to occur.” 
{¶ 16} In response to the court’s holdings in Blankenship and Jones, the 
General Assembly enacted former R.C. 4121.80 in Am.Sub.S.B. No. 307, 141 
Ohio Laws, Part I, 718, 733-737, effective Aug. 22, 1986. Although former R.C. 
4121.80(G)(1) defined “intentional tort” as an act committed with the intent to 
injure another or committed with the belief that the injury was substantially 
certain to occur, the statute defined “substantially certain” to mean that the 
employer had acted “with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer injury, 
disease, condition, or death.” 141 Ohio Laws, Part I, at 736.  Thus, the legislature 
attempted to limit the common law employer intentional tort by eliminating 
liability for injuries that were substantially certain to occur but were not intended 
by the employer. 
{¶ 17} In Brady v. Safety–Kleen Corp., 61 Ohio St.3d 624, 576 N.E.2d 
722 (1991), however, we held: “R.C. 4121.80 exceeds and conflicts with the 
legislative authority granted to the General Assembly pursuant to Sections 34 and 
35, Article II of the Ohio Constitution, and is unconstitutional in toto.” Id. at 
paragraph two of the syllabus.  The common law cause of action therefore 
remained intact. 
{¶ 18} We then further clarified the elements of the employer intentional 
tort in Fyffe v. Jeno's, Inc. , 59 Ohio St.3d 115, 570 N.E.2d 1108 (1991):  
 
(1) knowledge by the employer of the existence of a dangerous 
process, procedure, instrumentality or condition within its business 
operation; (2) knowledge by the employer that if the employee is 
subjected by his employment to such dangerous process, 
procedure, instrumentality or condition, then harm to the employee 
will be a substantial certainty; and (3) that the employer, under 
January Term, 2012 
7 
such circumstances, and with such knowledge, did act to require 
the employee to continue to perform the dangerous task. 
 
Id., at paragraph one of the syllabus. 
{¶ 19} In response, the General Assembly enacted former R.C. 2745.01, in 
Am.H.B. No. 103, 146 Ohio Laws, Part I, 756, 760, effective Nov. 1, 1995, and 
declared in uncodified Section 3 of the act its intent to supersede the common law 
employer intentional tort with a more limited statutory cause of action. In the 
1995 version of R.C. 2745.01, the legislature defined “employment intentional 
tort” to mean “ ‘an act committed by an employer in which the employer 
deliberately and intentionally injures, causes an occupational disease of, or causes 
the death of an employee.’ ”   (Emphasis sic.)  Johnson v. BP Chems., Inc., 85 
Ohio St.3d 298, 306, 707 N.E.2d 1107 (1999), quoting former R.C. 
2745.01(D)(1). 
{¶ 20} In Johnson, this court held the 1995 version of R.C. 2745.01 
“unconstitutional in its entirety,” id. at the syllabus, and stated that “any statute 
created to provide employers with immunity from liability for their intentional 
tortious conduct cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny,”  id. 
R.C. 2745.01 
{¶ 21} Following that history, the General Assembly enacted the current 
version of R.C. 2745.01, which provides: 
 
(A) In an action brought against an employer by an 
employee, or by the dependent survivors of a deceased employee, 
for damages resulting from an intentional tort committed by the 
employer during the course of employment, the employer shall not 
be liable unless the plaintiff proves that the employer committed 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
8 
the tortious act with the intent to injure another or with the belief 
that the injury was substantially certain to occur. 
(B) As used in this section, “substantially certain” means 
that an employer acts with deliberate intent to cause an employee 
to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death. 
(C) Deliberate removal by an employer of an equipment 
safety guard or deliberate misrepresentation of a toxic or hazardous 
substance creates a rebuttable presumption that the removal or 
misrepresentation was committed with intent to injure another if an 
injury or an occupational disease or condition occurs as a direct 
result. 
(D) This section does not apply to claims arising during the 
course of employment involving discrimination, civil rights, 
retaliation, harassment in violation of Chapter 4112. of the Revised 
Code, intentional infliction of emotional distress not compensable 
under Chapters 4121. and 4123. of the Revised Code, contract, 
promissory estoppel, or defamation. 
 
{¶ 22} The constitutionality of this statute is not questioned in this case.  
We upheld R.C. 2745.01 against various constitutional challenges in Kaminski v. 
Metal & Wire Prods. Co., 125 Ohio St.3d 250, 2010-Ohio-1027, 927 N.E.2d 
1066, and its companion case, Stetter v. R.J. Corman Derailment Servs., L.L.C., 
125 Ohio St.3d 280, 2010-Ohio-1029, 927 N.E.2d 1092, explaining that “the 
General Assembly responded to this court's previous decisions by eliminating 
many of the features identified by this court as unreasonable, onerous, and 
excessive. Thus, in reviewing R.C. 2745.01, we find a more limited statute than 
those previously held to be unconstitutional.”  Stetter at ¶ 50. 
January Term, 2012 
9 
{¶ 23} Nor is there any question as to the intent of the General Assembly 
when it enacted this statute.  In Kaminski, we emphasized that “the General 
Assembly’s intent in enacting R.C. 2745.01, as expressed particularly in 
2745.01(B), is to permit recovery for employer intentional torts only when an 
employer acts with specific intent to cause an injury, subject to subsections (C) 
and (D).”  (Emphasis added.)  Id. at ¶ 56.  We further indicated: 
 
R.C. 2745.01 appears to harmonize the law of this state with the 
law that governs a clear majority of jurisdictions. 
“[T]he 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 a conscious and 
deliberate intent directed to the purpose of inflicting an injury.” 
(Footnote omitted.) 6 Larson's Workers' Compensation Law 
(2008), Section 103.03. 
 
(Footnote omitted.)  Kaminski at ¶ 99-100.  Moreover, in Stetter, we observed that 
“R.C. 2745.01 embodies the General Assembly's intent to significantly curtail an 
employee's access to common-law damages for what we will call a ‘substantially 
certain’ employer intentional tort.”  Stetter at ¶ 27. 
{¶ 24} It is therefore manifest that R.C. 2745.01(B) is not the result of a 
scrivener’s error.  As we stated in both Kaminski and Stetter, the General 
Assembly intended to limit claims for employer intentional torts to situations in 
which an employer acts with the “specific intent” to cause an injury to another.  
Kaminski at ¶ 56; Stetter at ¶ 26.  See also 6 Larson's Workers' Compensation 
Law, Section 103.03, 103-7 to 103-8 (2001) (explaining that an employer’s 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
10 
“knowingly permitting a hazardous work condition to exist [and] knowingly 
ordering employees to perform an extremely dangerous job * * * falls short of the 
kind of actual intention to injure that robs the injury of accidental character” 
(footnotes omitted)). 
{¶ 25} In accord with this authority, absent a deliberate intent to injure 
another, an employer is not liable for a claim alleging an employer intentional 
tort, and the injured employee’s exclusive remedy is within the workers’ 
compensation system. 
{¶ 26} Here, there is no evidence that ThyssenKrupp deliberately intended 
to injure Houdek when its management directed him to work in the aisle.  In his 
deposition, Krajacic asserted that Matras had disregarded his suggestion that he 
not pull goods in an aisle while employees worked there and that after the 
accident, Matras had said he had known that “something like this could happen 
and * * * didn’t do anything about it.”  However, Matras denied making this 
statement, and Krajacic further testified that neither he nor management at 
ThyssenKrupp intended to injure Houdek; rather, Krajacic explained that he had 
forgotten that Houdek was working in the aisle.  Thus, although the evidence 
shows that ThyssenKrupp may have placed Houdek in a potentially dangerous 
situation, it does not demonstrate that either management or Krajacic deliberately 
intended to injure him. 
{¶ 27} Further, R.C. 2745.01(C) is not applicable here.  That subdivision 
provides,  
 
“Deliberate removal by an employer of an equipment safety guard 
* * * creates a rebuttable presumption that the removal * * * was 
committed with intent to injure another if an injury or an 
occupational disease or condition occurs as a direct result.” 
 
January Term, 2012 
11 
The plain meaning of the word “remove” is “to move by lifting, pushing aside, or 
taking away or off.”   Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1921 (1986).  
There is no evidence that adequate lighting conditions and safety devices such as 
orange cones, reflective vests, and retractable gates can be considered “an 
equipment safety guard” as that term is used in the statute.  And even if such 
evidence existed, there is no evidence in the record that ThyssenKrupp 
deliberately removed any of these items. 
{¶ 28} Here, Houdek’s injuries are the result of a tragic accident, and at 
most, the evidence shows that this accident may have been avoided had certain 
precautions been taken.  However, because this evidence does not show that 
ThyssenKrupp deliberately intended to injure Houdek, pursuant to R.C. 2745.01, 
ThyssenKrupp is not liable for damages resulting from an intentional tort. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 29} The Ohio Constitution vests the General Assembly, not the courts, 
with the legislative powers of government. Our role, in exercise of the judicial 
power granted to us by the Constitution, is to interpret and apply the law enacted 
by the General Assembly, not to rewrite it.  R.C. 2745.01 limits claims against 
employers for intentional torts to circumstances demonstrating a deliberate intent 
to cause injury to an employee,  and because there is no evidence in this record of 
a tortious act committed by the employer with a deliberate intent to cause Houdek 
to suffer an injury, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and reinstate 
the judgment of the trial court. 
Judgment reversed. 
 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and LUNDBERG STRATTON, LANZINGER, CUPP, and 
MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissents. 
_________________ 
 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
12 
PFEIFER, J., dissenting. 
I 
{¶ 30} The majority opinion is wrong.  The majority states that “R.C. 
2745.01 limits claims against employers for intentional torts to circumstances 
demonstrating a deliberate intent to cause injury to an employee,” majority 
opinion at ¶ 29, and frames the issue in this case as whether ThyssenKrupp 
Materials N.A., Inc., (“ThyssenKrupp”) deliberately intended to injure Bruce 
Houdek.  But R.C. 2745.01 does not limit intentional-tort claims against 
employers to “circumstances demonstrating a deliberate intent to cause injury to 
an employee.”  Pursuant to R.C. 2745.01(C), “[d]eliberate removal by an 
employer of an equipment safety guard * * * creates  a rebuttable presumption 
that the removal * * * was committed with intent to injure another if an injury * * 
* occurs as a direct result.”  Only the removal of the safety equipment needs to be 
deliberate under the statute; if the injury flows from the removal of safety 
equipment, an injured worker needs to prove nothing further as to the employer’s 
intent to successfully prosecute an intentional tort claim against the employer.  
The worker need not prove that the employer was trying to hurt him—intent is 
presumed by the removal of safety equipment.  That is, the safety equipment must 
be deliberately removed but the injury need not be deliberately caused for an 
injured worker to recover pursuant to R.C. 2745.01(C).  The majority thus 
overstates the ruthlessness of R.C. 2745.01. 
{¶ 31} R.C. 2745.01(A) presents two ways for an injured worker to 
successfully prosecute a workplace intentional-tort claim.  An employer can be 
held liable for damages if (1) “the plaintiff proves that the employer committed 
the tortious act with the intent to injure another” or (2) “the plaintiff proves that 
the employer committed the tortious act * * * with the belief that the injury was 
substantially certain to occur.”  R.C. 2745.01(B) applies only to the “substantially 
certain” portion of R.C. 2745.01(A); it uses the term “deliberate intent” as part  of 
January Term, 2012 
13 
the definition of “substantially certain.”  It reads: “As used in this section, 
‘substantially certain’ means that an employer acts with deliberate intent to cause 
an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death.” R.C. 
2745.01(B). 
{¶ 32} Thus, when adding the definition of “substantially certain” to the 
mix, R.C. 2745.01(A) states that an employer can be held liable for an intentional 
tort if the employer acted with an “intent to injure” or with a “deliberate intent to 
cause *  * * an injury.” 
{¶ 33} An intent to injure can be inferred from the facts and circumstances 
of a particular case; otherwise, an injured worker would be dependent on an 
employer’s confession to make his case.  Again, R.C. 2745.01(C) states that an 
intent to injure can be inferred from the “[d]eliberate removal * * * of an 
equipment safety guard.”  In this case, the employer’s intent to injure could also 
be inferred from its behavior in sending an already-injured Houdek into a dimly 
lit, narrow, dead-end aisle where a sideloader would be likely to enter, knowing 
that it was a dangerous situation.  Houdek presented enough evidence that a trier 
of fact could determine that ThyssenKrupp intended to injure him. 
{¶ 34} Also, the “[d]eliberate removal * * *of an equipment safety guard” 
in R.C. 2745.01(C) should include the failure to deploy safety equipment that the 
employer has on site.  For example,  in this case the employer’s failure to place a 
safety cone at the entrance to the aisle in which Houdek was working should 
satisfy R.C. 2745.01(C).  “ ‘[E]quipment safety guard’ has a simple meaning: 
equipment that is used as a safety guard.”  Hewitt v. L.E. Myers Co., ___ Ohio 
St.3d ___, 2012-Ohio-5317, ___ N.E.2d ___, ¶ 36 (Pfeifer, J., dissenting).  Safety 
cones fit within that definition. 
II 
{¶ 35} Houdek raised several arguments that, if adopted by the majority, 
would go a long way toward demonstrating that injured workers still have a right 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
14 
to remedy for workplace intentional torts.  The majority does not, and workers, 
for the most part, do not.  The appellate court below quoted at length from my 
dissent in  Stetter v. R.J. Corman Derailment Servs., L.L.C., 125 Ohio St.3d 280, 
2010-Ohio-1029, 927 N.E.2d 1092, in which I lamented the extinguishment of 
injured workers’ right to a remedy for workplace intentional torts.  The court 
wrote, “The appellant * * * lost his leg, lost his job, and will lose his right to fair 
recompense, if Justice [Pfeifer’s] prediction about the most recent version of R.C. 
2745.01 is the correct one.”  Houdek v. ThyssenKrupp Materials N.A., Inc., 8th 
Dist. No. 95399, 2011-Ohio-1694, ¶ 1.  The court below chose to believe that 
recovery could still exist for an injured worker like Houdek: 
 
Does [R.C. 2745.01] constrain common law employer tort 
as the Kaminski [v. Metal & Wire Prods. Co., 125 Ohio St.3d 250, 
2010-Ohio-1027, 927 N.E.2d 1066,] majority holds, or does it, as 
Justice Pfeifer predicts, abolish it? Taking the majority at its 
written word, we find merit to Houdek’s appeal and reverse the 
trial court's judgment granting summary judgment in favor of 
Krupp and against both Houdek and the BWC.  If the facts and 
circumstances of this case do not present genuine issues of material 
fact as to the existence of an employer tort, then none shall. 
 
Id. at ¶ 38. 
{¶ 36} I suppose that “none shall.”  The court below also wrote what the 
consequences would be if my dire evaluation of the law was indeed correct: 
 
As a cautionary note, if Justice Pfeifer is correct, Ohio 
employees who are sent in harm's way and conduct themselves in 
accordance with the specific directives of their employers, if 
January Term, 2012 
15 
injured, may be discarded as if they were broken machinery to then 
become wards of the Workers' Compensation Fund.  Such a policy 
would spread the risk of such employer conduct to all of Ohio's 
employers, those for whom worker safety is a paramount concern 
and those for whom it is not.  So much for “personal 
responsibility” in the brave, new world of corporations are real 
persons. 
 
Id. at ¶ 39. 
{¶ 37} More’s the pity. 
____________________________ 
 
Friedman, Domiano & Smith Co., L.P.A., Stephen S. Vanek, David R. 
Grant, and Jeffrey H. Friedman; Smith & Condeni, L.L.P., Joseph A. Condeni, 
and Stacey Walley, for appellee. 
 
Reminger Co., L.P.A., Gregory G. Guice, Clifford C. Masch, and Brian D. 
Sullivan, for appellant. 
 
Tucker Ellis L.L.P., and Benjamin C. Sassé, urging reversal for amicus 
curiae Ohio Association of Civil Trial Attorneys. 
 
Stewart Jaffy & Associates Co., L.P.A., Steward R. Jaffy, and Marc J. 
Jaffy, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio AFL-CIO. 
 
Gallon, Takacs, Boissoneault & Schaffer Co., L.P.A., Theodore A. 
Bowman, and Jonathan M. Ashton, urging affirmance for amici curiae Ohio 
Conference of Teamsters and Teamsters Local 20.  
Paul W. Flowers Co., L.P.A., and Paul W. Flowers, urging affirmance for amicus 
curiae Ohio Association for Justice.