Case Name: Lawrence TAYLOR, Petitioner, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF BREVARD COUNTY, Respondent
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2004-08-19
Citations: 888 So. 2d 1
Docket Number: No. SC01-1924
Parties: Lawrence TAYLOR, Petitioner, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF BREVARD COUNTY, Respondent.
Judges: WELLS, ANSTEAD, QUINCE, and CANTERO, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 888
Pages: 1–16

Head Matter:
Lawrence TAYLOR, Petitioner, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF BREVARD COUNTY, Respondent.
No. SC01-1924.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Aug. 19, 2004.
Joseph H. Williams of Troutman, Williams, Irvin, Green and Helms, P.A., Winter Park, FL, for Petitioner.
Tracy Raffles Gunn of Fowler, White, Boggs and Banker, P.A., Tampa, FL, for Florida Defense Lawyers Association, Amicus Curiae.
Michael H. Bowling of Bell, Leeper and Roper, P.A., Orlando, FL, for Respondent.
Kelley B. Gelb of Krupnick, Campbell, Malone, Roselli, Buser, Slama, Hancock, McNelis Liberman and McKee, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, Amicus Curiae.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
We have for review Taylor v. School Board of Brevard County, 790 So.2d 1156 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001), which expressly and directly conflicts with the decision in Lopez v. Vilches, 734 So.2d 1095 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. For the reasons set forth below, we approve the Fifth District's decision in Taylor holding that petitioners' claim against the school board based upon the negligence of a co-employee was statutorily barred under the exclusive remedy provisions of the Florida Workers' Compensation Law.
FACTS
While performing his duties as a school bus attendant, Taylor was injured when a school bus wheelchair lift fell on him because of a loose emergency release pin plate. See Taylor, 790 So.2d at 1156. The lift's lock assembly had been repaired four months prior to the lift falling on Taylor, and the lift was adjusted and re-positioned by a school mechanic one week before Taylor's injury. See id. at 1157.
Taylor brought suit against the school board based upon the alleged negligence of the school board bus maintenance personnel in its repairs to the lift. See id. Taylor filed a motion for partial summary judgment seeking an adjudication that he and the school board mechanics were involved in unrelated work and, hence, the school board was not entitled to immunity under the workers' compensation laws. See id. The school board filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, claiming that it was immune from suit according to the Florida's Workers' Compensation Law and that the unrelated works exception to the employer's immunity did not apply. See id. After a hearing on the motions, the trial court denied Taylor's motion and entered summary judgment in favor of the school board. See id.
On appeal, the Fifth District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's ruling, explaining that the employees involved were not engaged in unrelated works:
It is undisputed that both Taylor and the alleged negligent mechanics worked out of the same transportation facility and that Taylor, as a part of his job, was responsible for the operation of the wheelchair lift while the mechanics, as a part of their job, were responsible for the lift's maintenance and repair. Under these circumstances, we agree with the trial court's application of the statute.
Id. at 1157-58. This review proceeding followed based upon an assertion of conflict with the Second District's decision in Lopez.
WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW
The Florida Legislature has adopted a comprehensive scheme for workers' compensation that generally provides workers' benefits without proof of fault and employers immunity from tort actions based upon the same work place incident. The Legislature has also expressly declared the legislative intent behind the Workers' Compensation Law:
It is the intent of the Legislature that the Workers' Compensation Law be interpreted so as to assure the quick and efficient delivery of disability and medical benefits to an injured worker and to facilitate the worker's return to gainful reemployment at a reasonable cost to the employer. It is the specific intent of the Legislature that workers' compensation cases shall be decided on their merits. The workers' compensation system in Florida is based oh a mutual renunciation of common-law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike. In addition, it is the 'intent of the Legislature that the facts in a workers' compensation case are not to be interpreted liberally in favor of either the rights of the injured worker or the rights of the employer. Additionally, the Legislature hereby declares that disputes concerning the facts in workers' compensation cases are not to be given a broad liberal construction in favor of the employee on the one hand or of the employer on the other hand, and the laws pertaining to workers' compensation are to be construed in accordance with the basic principles of statutory construction and not liberally in favor of either employee or employer. It is the intent of the Legislature to ensure the prompt delivery of benefits to the injured worker. Therefore, an efficient and self-executing system must be created which is not an economic or administrative burden. The Division of Workers' Compensation shall administer the Workers' Compensation Law in a. manner which facilitates the self-execution of the system and the process of ensuring a prompt and cost-effective delivery of payments.
§ 440.015, Fla. Stat. (1999). This Court has also described the basic purpose behind workers' compensation law as twofold:
.,(1) [T]o see that workers in fact were rewarded for their industry by not being deprived of reasonably adequate and certain payment for workplace accidents!; and (2) to replace an unwieldy tort system that made it virtually impossible for businesses to predict or insure for the cost of industrial accidents. See McLean v. Mundy, 81 So.2d 501, 503 (Fla.1955).
De Ayala v. Florida Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co., 543 So.2d 204, 206. (Fla.1989).
THE "UNRELATED WORKS" EXCEPTION
Notwithstanding its provision for a general immunity scheme for employers and employees and the exclusive remedy provided under the Workers' Compensation Law, the Legislature created an exception as to the immunity of fellow employees for cases involving "employees of the same employer when - each is operating in the furtherance of the employer's business but they are assigned primarily to unrelated works, within private or public employment." § 440.11(1), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied).
Lopez
In Lopez, a case involving facts similar to those in Taylor, Lopez was injured when the work van he was operating for a funeral home business malfunctioned. See Lopez, 734 So.2d at 1096. Lopez brought suit against fellow employees, alleging that they negligently maintained the van. See id. The trial court entered final summary judgment in favor of the employee-defendants, but the Second District reversed, advancing the theory that "these cases might be reconciled by applying a test based on the physical location where the employees were primarily assigned and the unity of their business purpose." Id. at 1097. The Lopez court found that "[t]he physical location of [the co-employees'] work appears to be separate and their specific purpose, general funeral home duties versus vehicle maintenance, appear distinct." Id. But see Lopez, 734 So.2d at 1098 (Quince, Associate Judge, dissenting) ("All of [the employees] have some duties related to the van in question.").
ANALYSIS
Here we are faced with different outcomes on similar facts in the conflicting district court decisions. On the one hand, in Taylor, the school bus attendant and the school bus mechanic were both employed by the school board and both had jobs that dealt with the bus: the attendant interacted with students who rode the bus, and the mechanic maintained and repaired the bus. The Fifth District found that the key elements of the two employees' jobs were the facts that they worked "out of the same transportation facility" and that their jobs both involved the wheelchair lift, resulting in their both being involved in the "same project" of providing transportation services to Brevard County school children. See Taylor, 790 So.2d at 1157. On the other hand, in Lopez, the court determined that the funeral home employee and the mechanic responsible for maintaining the work vehicles had different work locations and that their "specific purpose[s]" were different. See Lopez, 734 So.2d at 1097.
The resolution of the issue before us turns largely upon the question of whether the Legislature intended that the unrelated works exception be construed liberally or narrowly. Our task is not made easier by the Legislature's admonition that the worker's compensation law not be construed liberally in favor of the employee or the employer. Rather, the Legislature has cautioned that the system is based upon "a mutual renunciation of common-law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike." See § 440.015, Fla. Stat. (1999). The Legislature has also mandated that the ordinary rules of statutory construction be invoked. Id.
Hence, we are bound to apply these principles in our analysis. We initially note that, in one sense, all employees of the same employer could always be considered engaged in related works since they are all charged to carry out the mission of the employer. At the same time, however, some distinction could always be drawn between the work of most employees so as to make their work unrelated. Because the unrelated works exception set out in section 440.11(1) represents an exception to the broad exclusive remedy provisions of the Florida's Workers' Compensation Law, we conclude that under the ordinary rules of statutory construction we must interpret it narrowly. See Samara Dev. Corp. v. Marlow, 556 So.2d 1097, 1100 (Fla.1990) ("[I]t is a well-recognized rule of statutory construction that exceptions or provisos should be narrowly and strictly construed.").
Since virtually all workplace injuries are caused by the actions of fellow workers, applying the unrelated works exception liberally would substantially handicap the underlying purpose of the compensation . scheme to compensate employees for workplace injuries regardless of fault. Workers' compensation law and its unique relationship with the concept of liability has been summarized by one commentator in the following manner:
The right to compensation benefits depends on one simple test: Was there a work-connected injury? Negligence, and, for the most part, fault, are not in issue and cannot affect the result. Let the employer's conduct be flawless in its perfection, and let the employee's be abysmal in its clumsiness, rashness and ineptitude; if the accident arises out of and in the course of the employment, the employee receives an award. Reverse the positions, with a careless and stupid employer and a wholly innocent employee and the same award issues.
Thus, the test is not the relation of an individual's personal quality (fault) to an event, but the relationship of an event to an employment. The essence of applying the test is not a matter of assessing blame, but of marking out boundaries.
1 Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation, Desk Edition § 1.03, at 1-4 to 1-5 (2003). In the ordinary case, when we are faced with a situation where an employee is injured on the job there exists a natural inference that the injury is covered by the Legislature's workers' compensation scheme. That is the fundamental purpose of the law, to provide benefits for work place injuries in place of common law remedies. Correspondingly, we conclude that the exception to this scheme for unrelated works should be applied only when it can clearly be demonstrated that a fellow employee whose actions caused the injury was engaged in works unrelated to the duties of the injured employee. While we would like to be more precise in providing guidance to those initially charged with deciding disputes based upon this exception, we are limited by our lack of precise knowledge of the legislative intent behind the exception and the reality that we could not hope to contemplate the myriad of factual circumstances that may give rise to the issue.
THIS CASE
In the instant case, because we agree with the trial court's reasoning that Taylor and the school board mechanics had in common the "provision of transportation services to Brevard County school children," we cannot say that the work of the employees who maintained the school bus was unrelated to the work of the injured employee who was responsible for the safety of the students in using the bus. Indeed, all of these employees shared a common goal of providing safe transportation to the students. We also agree with the observations of Justice Quince in her dissent in Lopez:
I disagree and would affirm the trial court's determination that the unrelated works exception to the exclusivity of workers' compensation benefits is not applicable to this situation. Lopez, Vilches, Brito and Kelly work for the same employer. All of them have some duties related to the van in question. Lopez drives the van to facilitate the moving of flowers from the chapel to the cemetery. The other employees use the van in their duties of maintaining and repairing the vehicles owned or leased by the employer. Under these circumstances, it cannot be said that the co-employees are engaged in unrelated works. See Abraham v. Dzafic, 666 So.2d 232 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995).
734 So.2d at 1098 (Quince, Associate Judge, dissenting). Further, we find that the Taylor holding comports with the overall legislative intent of the Florida Workers' Compensation Law, because the law was meant to systematically resolve nearly every workplace injury case on behalf of both the employee and the employer.
A contrary holding giving wide breadth to the rare exceptions to workers' compensation immunity would merely erode the purpose and function of the Workers' Compensation Law as established by the Legislature. We agree with the observations of the Fourth District in its recent decision in Fitzgerald v. South Broward Hospital District, 840 So.2d 460, 463 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), that the unrelated works exception should be narrowly construed because "[a]n expansive construction would obliterate the legislative intent that the system operate at 'a reasonable cost' to the employer" and that to decide otherwise would "erode the immunity provided under the worker's compensation law . leading to a profusion of suits and a proliferation of costs."
Accordingly, we disapprove of the Second District's holding in Lopez, and approve the Fifth District's decision in Taylor.
It is so ordered.
WELLS, ANSTEAD, QUINCE, and CANTERO, JJ., concur.
LEWIS, J., concurs in result only with an opinion, in which PARIENTE, C.J., concurs.
. Section 440.11, Florida Statutes, entitled "Exclusiveness of liability," provides in pertinent part:
The liability of an employer prescribed in s. 440.10 shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability of such employer to any third-party tortfeasor and to the employee, the legal representative thereof, husband or wife, parents, dependents, next of kin, and anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages from such employer at law or in admiralty on account of such injury or death, except that if an employer fails to secure payment of compensation as required by this chapter; an injured employee, or the legal • representative thereof in case death .results from the injury, may elect to claim compensation under this chapter or to maintain an action at law or in admiralty for damages on account of such.injury or death. In such action the defendant may not plead as a defense that the injury was caused by negligence of a fellow employee, that the employee assumed the risk of the employment, or that the injury was due to the comparative negligence of the employee. The same immunities from liability enjoyed by an employer shall extend as well to each employee of the employer when such employee is acting in furtherance of the employer's business and the injured employee is entitled to receive benefits under this chapter. Such fellow-employee immunities shall not be applicable to an employee who acts, with respect to a fellow employee, with willful and wanton disregard or unprovoked physical aggression or with gross negligence when such acts result in injury or death or such acts proximately cause such injury or death, nor shall such immunities be applicable to employees of the same employer when each is operating in the furtherance of the employer's business but they are assigned primarily to unrelated works within private or public employment. The same immunity provisions enjoyed by an employer shall also apply to any sole proprietor, partner, corporate officer or director, supervisor, or other person who in the course and scope of his or her duties acts in a managerial or policymaking capacity and the conduct which caused the alleged injury arose within the course and scope of said managerial or policymaking duties and was not a violation of a law, whether or not a violation was charged, for which the maximum penalty which may be imposed does not exceed 60 days' imprisonment as set forth in s. 775.082.
§ 440.11(1), Fla. Stat. (1999).