Case Name: Louis S. Reich, as Assignee from John H. Thompson, Respondent, v. Manhattan Boiler & Equipment Corp., Appellant
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1998-07-01
Citations: 91 N.Y.2d 772
Docket Number: 
Parties: Louis S. Reich, as Assignee from John H. Thompson, Respondent, v Manhattan Boiler & Equipment Corp., Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 91
Pages: 772–781

Head Matter:
[698 NE2d 939, 676 NYS2d 110]
Louis S. Reich, as Assignee from John H. Thompson, Respondent, v Manhattan Boiler & Equipment Corp., Appellant.
Argued June 2, 1998;
decided July 1, 1998
POINTS OF COUNSEL
O’Brien & Mayr, Rockville Centre (James M. O’Brien and Nicholas P. Calabria of counsel), for appellant.
I. The Feldman rule is not available to plaintiff. (Gonzales v Armac Indus., 81 NY2d 1; Baca v HRH Constr. Corp., 200 AD2d 538; Billy v Consolidated Mach. Tool Corp., 51 NY2d 152.) II. Any payment herein is subject to a lien as provided by the Workers’ Compensation Law. (Matter of Kelly v State Ins. Fund, 60 NY2d 131; Matter of Theresa M. C. v Utilities Mut. Ins. Co., 207 AD2d 481; Matter of Granger v Urda, 44 NY2d 91; Becker v Huss Co., 43 NY2d 527; Palma v Ben Cal Assocs., 161 AD2d 567, 77 NY2d 834, 78 NY2d 1092.) III. Assuming Feldman applies, interest should be computed from April 1, 1992 and the lien should become enforceable on April 1, 1992. (McDermott v City of New York, 50 NY2d 211; Bay Ridge Air Rights v State of New York, 44 NY2d 49; Klinger v Dudley, 41 NY2d 362; Gunnarson v State of New York, 70 NY2d 923; Viscomi v S. S. Kresge Co., 159 AD2d 979; Gonzalez v City of New York, 148 AD2d 668; Juracka v Ferrara, 120 AD2d 822.)
Gordon, Goldberg & Juengst, P. C., New York City (Lawrence A. Goldberg of counsel), for respondent.
I. There are no triable issues of fact with respect to whether Reich, as assignee of a third-party judgment, has a meritorious cause of action to enforce the judgment. (Andre v Pomeroy, 35 NY2d 361; Millerton Agway Coop. v Briarcliff Farms, 17 NY2d 57; Elzer v Nassau County, 111 AD2d 212; City Univ. of N. Y. v Finalco, Inc., 93 AD2d 792; Staten Is. Hosp. v Home Ins. Co., 148 AD2d 522; 175 Check Cashing Corp. v Chubb Pac. Indem. Group, 95 AD2d 701; Sillman v Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 3 NY2d 395; Behar v Ordover, 92 AD2d 557; Lamberta v Long Is. R. R., 51 AD2d 730; Vermette v Kenworth Truck Co., 68 NY2d 714.) II. The Workers’ Compensation Law is no bar to the applicability of Feldman to the instant action. (Feldman v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 107 Misc 2d 145, 84 AD2d 166, 56 NY2d 1011; Gonzales v Armac Indus., 81 NY2d 1; Baca v HRH Constr. Corp., 200 AD2d 538, 84 NY2d 807; Dole v Dow Chem. Co., 30 NY2d 143; Klinger v Dudley, 41 NY2d 362; Lettiere v Martin El. Co., 62 AD2d 810, 48 NY2d 662; Rock v Reed-Prentice Div. of Package Mach. Co., 39 NY2d 34; Garrett v Holiday Inns, 58 NY2d 253; Lake Placid Club Attached Lodges v Elizabethtown Bldrs., 131 AD2d 159; Gramercy 222 Residents Corp. v Procida Constr. Corp., 201 AD2d 274.) III. The purported workers’ compensation lien claimed by defendant and its carrier, even if valid, attaches only to the proceeds collected by the Kabans, and does not constitute a defense to, or setoff from the recovery in, this action. (Dietrick v Kemper Ins. Co., 76 NY2d 248; Matter of Johnson v Buffalo & Erie County Private Indus. Council, 84 NY2d 13; Orth v Coffey, 70 AD2d 614; Becker v Huss Co., 43 NY2d 527; Commissioners of State Ins. Fund v Crown, 63 Misc 2d 552; Palma v Ben Cal Assocs., 161 AD2d 567, 77 NY2d 834, 78 NY2d 1092; United States Fid. & Guar. Co. v 38 E. 29 St., 60 NY2d 799; Matter of Kelly v State Ins. Fund, 110 Misc 2d 356, 94 AD2d 609, 60 NY2d 131; Ianielli v North Riv. Ins. Co., 119 AD2d 317.) IV. The lower court properly calculated the interest on Reich’s judgment. (Gonzalez v City of New York, 148 AD2d 668; Trimboli v Scarpaci Funeral Home, 37 AD2d 386, 30 NY2d 687; Matter of Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v Newman, 92 AD2d 613.) V. The courts below properly denied defendant’s motion to compel the joinder of Joseph Kaban as a party herein. (Vantage Petroleum v Board of Assessment Review, 61 NY2d 695; Osman v Sternberg, 168 AD2d 490; Kaczmarek v Shoffstall, 119 AD2d 1001; Sterling Natl. Bank & Trust Co. v Ambassador Factors Corp., 86 AD2d 547.) VI. Neither Manhattan Boiler nor its insurance carrier were entitled to prior notice of the loan/assignment arrangement. (Matter of Sigismondi v Sigismondi Excavators, 33 AD2d 625, 944; Matter of Gallagher v Carol Constr. Co., 272 NY 127; Matter of Kushner v Kingston Knitting Mills, 2 AD2d 934.)
Kwiatkowski & Ryan, L. L. P., Floral Park (John E. Ryan and John M. Donnelly of counsel), for State Insurance Fund, amicus curiae.
The lower courts erred in ruling that a Feldmantype payment scheme is permissible within the context of a third-party action against a plaintiffs employer. (Feldman v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 56 NY2d 1011; Gonzales v Armac Indus., 81 NY2d 1; Barrencotto v Cocker Saw Co., 266 NY 139; New York Cent. R. R. Co. v White, 243 US 188; Dole v Dow Chem. Co., 30 NY2d 143; Billy v Consolidated Mach. Tool Corp., 51 NY2d 152; Heritage v Van Patten, 59 NY2d 1017; Ross v Curtis-Palmer Hydro-Elec. Co., 81 NY2d 494; Pagano v Colonial Sand & Gravel Co., 75 AD2d 578; Sommer v Federal Signal Corp., 79 AD2d 540.)
Michael D. Hess, Corporation Counsel of New York City (Stuart D. Smith and Barry P. Schwartz of counsel), for City of New York, amicus curiae.
I. The Court below erred in expanding the Feldman doctrine to permit employees to indirectly recover tort damages from their employers in violation of the exclusivity provision of the Workers’ Compensation Law. The Court below thereby also erred by permitting an employee to recover both workers’ compensation and tort damages for the same injury. (Dole v Dow Chem. Co., 30 NY2d 143; O’Rourke v Long, 41 NY2d 219; Gonzales v Armac Indus., 81 NY2d 1; Raquet v Braun, 90 NY2d 177.) II. The Court below additionally erred in affirming summary judgment in favor of plaintiff Reich where the judgment he seeks to enforce only permits recovery against Manhattan Boiler for a percentage of the amount “actually paid” by adjudicated tortfeasor Thompson to the Kabans, and where Thompson has “actually paid” nothing.

Opinion:
OPINION OF THE COURT
Wesley, J.
Twenty-six years have elapsed since Joseph Kaban was injured in an automobile accident during the course of his employment with Manhattan Boiler & Equipment Corp. This action, commenced by attorney Louis S. Reich, the assignee of the satisfaction of judgment in Mr. and Mrs. Kaban's personal injury action, represents the Kabans' second attempt before this Court to recover indirectly a portion of a third-party judgment that the defendants in the personal injury action obtained against Manhattan. The issue on this appeal is whether the satisfaction-of-payment method approved by this Court in Feldman v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp. (56 NY2d 1011, revg 84 AD2d 166, for the reasons stated in 107 Misc 2d 145) permits a plaintiff to recover indirectly from a third-party defendant when the third-party defendant is the original plaintiff's employer. We conclude that the use of a Feldmantype loan agreement in a case where the third-party defendant is the original plaintiff's employer directly conflicts with the public policy considerations of the exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy and should be disallowed.
Following the accident in 1972, Kaban received workers' compensation benefits from his employer's insurance carrier. Kaban and his wife sued John H. Thompson and the Public Administrator of New York County, as representative of Ralph Mazza, deceased, the other parties involved in the motor vehicle accident. Thompson and Mazza's estate brought a third- party action against defendant Manhattan and Kaban's fellow employee, Andre Nosaniuk, the driver of the vehicle owned by Manhattan. The case went to trial and the jury apportioned liability between Manhattan and Nosaniuk (25%) and Thompson and Mazza (75%). Appeals ensued.
In 1977, this Court considered the Kaban case under the consolidated title of Klinger v Dudley (41 NY2d 362, modfg Valentino v Thompson, 52 AD2d 601). We modified the judgment for contribution from Manhattan to require that Thompson's third-party judgment against Manhattan be conditioned upon his payment of the primary judgment to the Kabans. Because both Thompson and Mazza were insolvent, the Kaban judgment went unenforced and uncollected.
In 1992, plaintiff Louis S. Reich, an attorney, decided to implement the Feldman formula to try to collect on the Kaban judgment. Using Feldman as their script, the Kabans, Thompson and plaintiff entered into a loan agreement, pursuant to which plaintiff agreed to loan Thompson the sum of $1,213,402.67, which plaintiff calculated to be the principal owed to the Kabans on their judgment, plus statutory interest from December 5, 1974 until April 1, 1992. In consideration for the loan, Thompson agreed (a) to use the entirety of the loan proceeds to satisfy the Kaban judgment; (b) to execute a promissory note in favor of plaintiff for the amount of the loan; (c) to assign his right, title and interest in his third-party judgment to plaintiff for the purposes of enforcement, and (d) to assign any satisfaction of the primary judgment received from the Kabans to plaintiff. The loan agreement required the Kabans to guarantee Thompson's note, in return for which plaintiff agreed to pay the Kabans 95% of any recovery plaintiff obtained in an action against defendant Manhattan to enforce the third-party judgment.
All the necessary documents were executed on April 1, 1992. Plaintiff drew a check on the account of his law firm payable to the order of Thompson in the sum of $1,213,402.67. The check was tendered to Thompson who endorsed it over to the Kabans, who in turn endorsed the check back to plaintiff's law firm to be held in escrow. The Kabans then tendered satisfactions of judgment and general releases in favor of Thompson. The escrow was ultimately released and the funds were repaid to plaintiff, thus discharging Thompson's debt and the Kabans' obligation.
Plaintiff commenced this action against Manhattan seeking to enforce the third-party judgment. Plaintiff thereafter moved for summary judgment seeking $303,353.13 (which represented Manhattan's proportionate share under the third-party judgment), plus statutory interest from April 1, 1992. Manhattan cross-moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, and also moved to compel joinder of Joseph Kaban as a necessary party plaintiff.
Supreme Court granted plaintiff's motion and entered judgment in favor of plaintiff with interest from April 1, 1992 and denied Manhattan's motion and cross motion. The court noted that the agreement in this case was "simply a loan arrangement similar to the one sanctioned in Feldman v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp." The court concluded that the exclusivity of workers' compensation was not a bar to plaintiff's claim "under the limited loophole sanctioned by the Court of Appeals in Feldman." The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that Feldman authorized the transaction (240 AD2d 262). We granted Manhattan's motion for leave to appeal, and now reverse.
The transaction upheld by this Court in Feldman v New York City Health & Hosps. Corp. (56 NY2d 1011, supra) involved a loan arrangement similar to that used by the parties in this case. The inspiration for the loan mechanism came from a law review article (Farrell, Civil Practice, 29 Syracuse L Rev 449, 488-489) which offered it as a solution to the problems plaintiffs faced as a result of this Court's decision in Klinger v Dudley (41 NY2d 362, supra). Plaintiff Reich contends that the Feldman mechanism is of general applicability and, thus, can be implemented in any situation involving a contribution claim against a third-party defendant — even a third-party defendant otherwise insulated from direct liability to a plaintiff because of the exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy. We disagree.
In response to an argument put forth by the Kabans in Klinger in 1977 (Klinger v Dudley, supra, at 370), we noted that although this Court's decision in Dole v Dow Chem. Co. (30 NY2d 143) allowed a defendant to seek indemnification/ contribution from the injured plaintiffs employer, Dole did not create a new direct right of recovery for a plaintiff/employee against the third-party defendant employer. "[T]he wrong that Dole remedied was one to tort-feasors, and not to plaintiffs" (Klinger v Dudley, supra, at 370). Thus, Klinger prohibited the Kabans from recovering directly against Manhattan.
The Feldman loan agreement was sanctioned for the limited purpose of alleviating the burdens created by Klinger in the specific factual circumstances of Feldman (see, 107 Misc 2d, at 150-152). In Feldman, the plaintiff in the underlying personal injury action brought claims against the driver and owner of the vehicle involved in the automobile accident in which plaintiff was injured and against the doctor who treated (and aggravated) his injuries. The defendants brought third-party claims against the hospital where plaintiff was treated. For some unknown reason, plaintiff never raised a direct claim against the hospital. The jury apportioned liability as follows: driver/owner 10%; doctor 36%; hospital 54% (id., at 147). The trial court noted that as a result of Klinger, a plaintiff who failed to assert a direct claim against a third-party defendant "[m]ust sit idly by with a large uncollectible judgment without recourse to anyone except perhaps [his or her] attorney" (id., at 152). In that situation, the third-party defendant/tortfeasor "[irrespective of its degree of fault and the jury's finding of culpability and liability, and notwithstanding its ability to pay may escape without having to pay a single dollar of the judgment against it" (id., at 151). Thus, the equitable solution fashioned and allowed in Feldman was to permit that particular plaintiff to recover through the use of a loan arrangement between the parties that would, on a superficial level, satisfy Klinger.
Even Feldman recognized, however, that there were instances under Klinger where a plaintiff would not have a direct claim against a third-party defendant (id., at 150). This case is distinguishable from Feldman for that very reason. In this case, the Kabans were prevented from asserting a claim against Manhattan by the Workers' Compensation Law (see, Workers' Compensation Law § 11). As we stated in Klinger:
"That the workings of fate result in plaintiffs Kaban being limited to a recovery under [workers'] compensation and a relatively small amount of insurance proceeds from main defendants should not be a basis for allowing an indirect recovery by plaintiffs against the employer and co-employee in this case To some, this result may seem unfair, but in fact it is in keeping with the events as they have unfolded. Plaintiffs Kaban were entitled to recovery against the employer and the estate of their coemployee under [workers'] compensation" (Klinger v Dudley, supra, 41 NY2d, at 370-371 [emphasis added]).
The public policy considerations behind the workers' compensation system trigger the application of the exclusive workers' compensation remedy, and prevent Reich (and the Kabans) from recovering from Manhattan. The Feldman arrangement is inapplicable to this particular case.
The scheme sanctioned in Feldman, if applied to a situation where the third-party defendant is the plaintiffs employer, would blatantly undermine the exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy. This Court has strictly adhered to the basic proposition that when an employee is injured in the course of employment, the sole remedy for the employee lies in the Workers' Compensation Law (see, Billy v Consolidated Mach. Tool Corp., 51 NY2d 152, 156; Workers' Compensation Law § 11, 29 [6]). The Workers' Compensation Law was enacted to guarantee an injured employee scheduled compensation regardless of fault in exchange for reduced costs and risks of litigation (see, Gonzales v Armac Indus., 81 NY2d 1, 8).
Only one indirect "exception" to the exclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation Law has been recognized by this Court. In Dole v Dow Chem. Co. (30 NY2d 143, supra), we permitted defendants to assert a claim for indemnification/ contribution against a plaintiffs employer for damages arising from work-related injuries "to avoid inequity to a defendant left with the total bill for a plaintiffs injuries because of the mere happenstance that the other tortfeasor was the plaintiffs employer and therefore immune from direct suit" (see, Gonzales, supra, 81 NY2d, at 8, citing Sommer v Federal Signal Corp., 79 NY2d 540, 558).
We have maintained a tight rein on the scope of the "exception," and have resisted many attempts to breach the wall of exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy. As noted above, in Klinger we rejected the notion that the Dole concept of apportionment should be implemented on the basis of " 'indemnification' against liability rather than 'indemnification' against loss by the main defendants" (supra, 41 NY2d, at 370 [emphasis in original]). In Billy v Consolidated Mach. Tool Corp., we repudiated the "dual capacity" doctrine which would have allowed employees to sue employers directly in their capacity as property owners or manufacturers, stating that to do so would seriously undermine "the salutary social purposes underlying the existing workers' compensation scheme if we were to permit common-law recovery outside of that scheme on the basis of such illusory distinctions" (see, Billy v Consolidated Mach. Tool Corp., supra, 51 NY2d, at 160). In Heritage v Van Patten (59 NY2d 1017, 1019), we disallowed suit against a coemployee/property owner under Labor Law § 241 because of the exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy against a coemployee, stating that the workers' compensation statute, " 'having deprived the injured employee of a right to maintain an action against a negligent coemployee, bars a derivative action which necessarily is dependent upon the same claim of negligence for which the exclusive remedy has been provided' " (quoting Rauch v Jones, 4 NY2d 592, 596).
Finally, in Gonzales v Armac Indus. (81 NY2d 1, supra), plaintiff and defendant entered into a pretrial agreement that apportioned a small percentage of liability to defendant but left the issue of damages to the jury. Plaintiff agreed not to enforce any judgment against defendant in excess of defendant's proportionate liability. In addition, the agreement provided for a loan from defendant to plaintiff " 'to permit the plaintiff to collect any monies from the third-party defendant [employer] in the event that there [was] an apportionment of liability against the third-party defendant by the jury' " (id., at 5). We concluded that the agreement was a release under General Obligations Law § 15-108 (which prevented defendant from pursuing its third-party claim against plaintiffs employer) and was distinguishable from a Feldman agreement. We also noted that the agreement was, in effect, an attempt to sell defendant's contribution claim against plaintiff's employer to plaintiff and thereby avoid the exclusivity of the Workers' Compensation Law. As we indicated in Gonzales,
"Approval of the practice would jeopardize the workers' compensation system, violating the balance embodied in the law, by holding employers subject to the no-fault liability envisioned by the statute but denying them the protection from tort actions and large damage verdicts which the statute was intended to foreclose The rationale for the rule in Dole v Dow Chem. Co. (supra) was to achieve an equitable result between defendants. It did not signal a move to expose employers to tort liability so that an employee could obtain a recovery from an employer in excess of workers' compensation benefits. Agreements such as the one presented here do just that, enabling an employee to do indirectly that which cannot be done directly, to reach beyond impecunious or insolvent defendants and into an employer's deep pockets" (id., at 9 [citations omitted] [emphasis added]).
To expand Feldman to third-party judgments against employers/coemployees as in this case would seriously jeopardize the exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy, undercut the policy considerations on which that remedy is based and revive thousands of judgments long since written off. The Kabans' attempt to create direct liability against Mr. Kaban's employer through an intricate loan/assignment transaction cannot be allowed to circumvent the limitations of an employer's liability for contribution defined by Klinger over 21 years ago. Absent a direction from the Legislature, which is far better equipped to assess the risk, we will not further extend Feldman.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, with costs, and the complaint dismissed.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Titone, Bellacosa, Smith, Levine and Ciparick concur.
Order reversed, with costs, and defendant's cross motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint granted.
. Kaban's coemployee, Joseph Valentino, was also injured as a result of the accident. The Kaban and the Valentino cases were tried under the consolidated title of Valentino v Thompson (see, 52 AD2d 601). The Valenti-nos then settled and, thereafter, withdrew their appeal to the Appellate Division (see, Klinger v Dudley, 41 NY2d 362, 367, n 2).
. Prior to their appeal to the Appellate Division, the Kabans had recovered $20,000 in insurance proceeds from Thompson and the Mazza estate (see, Klinger v Dudley, supra, 41 NY2d, at 367).
. The Appellate Division also resolved two additional issues — the scope of the workers' compensation lien and the calculation of interest on the judgment — that were decided by Supreme Court. We need not address either issue in light of our determination.
. The Legislature has chosen to restrict the application of Dole v Dow with the enactment of the Omnibus Workers' Compensation Reform Act of 1996, limiting claims for contribution and indemnification against an employer only to those involving "grave injuries" as defined by the Act (see, Workers' Compensation Law § 11, as amended by the Omnibus Workers' Compensation Reform Act of 1996, L 1996, ch 635, § 2).