Case Name: Mrs. Patricia FONTENOT, Individally, etc. v. INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH AMERICA et al.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1973-09-24
Citations: 283 So. 2d 733
Docket Number: No. 53270
Parties: Mrs. Patricia FONTENOT, Individally, etc. v. INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH AMERICA et al.
Judges: SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 283
Pages: 733–734

Head Matter:
Mrs. Patricia FONTENOT, Individally, etc. v. INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH AMERICA et al.
No. 53270.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Sept. 24, 1973.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 26, 1973.
William B. Baggett, Baggett, Hawsey, McClain & Morgan, Lake Charles, for plaintiff-applicant.
Thomas M. Bergstedt, Scofield, Berg-stedt & Gerard, Lake Charles, for defendants-respondents.
M. Truman Woodward, Jr., James K. Irvin, Milling, Benson, Woodward, Hillyer & Pierson, New Orleans, for amici curiae.

Opinion:
BARHAM, Justice.
This is a wrongful death action under Civil Code Article 2315 brought by the widow and three children of Victor L. Fon-tenot, who was killed in an industrial accident on July 6, 1971. At the time Fontenot was employed as a conveyor operator for Olin Corporation near Lake Charles, Louisiana. He was cleaning a sodium nitrate tank where it entered a bagging machine, when a co-employee, Dwight D. Hazell, engaged the bagging machine. The machine soon became clogged. Upon investigation Hazell felt the shoe and .foot of Fontenot.
The defendants are the bagging machine operator, decedent's immediate supervisor the front line foreman, the superintendent of the sodium nitrate division, the assistant plant manager, the plant manager, the company's safety director, and their liability insurer, Insurance Company of North America. The plaintiffs alleged that these executive officers and employees commenced the death-causing bagging operations when they knew or should have known that the decedent employee was in a position of danger.
The defendants admitted they owed Fon-tenot a duty to provide him a safe place to work, to inspect, supervise and instruct him on how to avoid injuring himself; they admitted that the corporation had delegated these functions to its officers and employees; they further admitted Fonte-not's death was due to unsafe working conditions, improper or inadequate supervision and failure to instruct him to avoid injuring himself. However, they contended the exclusive remedy was under the workmen's compensation statute.
The defendants filed a motion for a summary judgment, motion to strike, and exception of no cause of action. The motions were denied, but the exception of no cause of action was sustained by the trial judge in favor of all the defendants save Hazell, the bagging machine operator, on the basis of Maxey v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 255 So.2d 120 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1971). The Third Circuit Court of Appeal, one judge dissenting, affirmed the dismissal as to these defendants relying on Maxey, supra, and Dulaney v. Fruge, 257 So.2d 827 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972), 271 So.2d 323 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972). We granted cert. 273 So.2d 295 (1973).
We have this day overruled the Maxey and Dulaney line of decisions in the case of Canter v. Koehring Co., La., 283 So.2d 716, insofar as they hold that the duties im posed under an employment or agency relationship are exclusively owed to the employer or principal and are irrelevant in determining whether a legal duty is owed to a third person (which in this sense includes a co-employee) by the officer, agent, or employee. We have instead adopted the opposing line of jurisprudence represented by Johnson v. Schneider, 271 So.2d 579 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1972) and Adams v. Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York, 107 So.2d 496 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1958).
Accordingly, for the reasons set forth in our decision in Canter v. Koehring Co., the decisions of the trial and intermediate courts dismissing the present suit are reversed, and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the views expressed in said decision of this court. The defendants-ap-pellees are to pay all costs of appeal and of the review in this court; all other costs to await final determination of these proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.
SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.