Opinion ID: 2640942
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Maintaining the Distinction Between Intent and Motive or Desire

Text: ¶ 33 We first caution courts to maintain the distinction between motive and the legal concept of intent. Distinguishing between these concepts is difficult because intent and motive, as used in our everyday language, are often synonymous. For example, when we state, John intentionally injured Sheila, we assume that John's motivation was to injure Sheila. The legal concept of intent, however, is broader than motive or desire. Under the legal definition of intent, we would say that John intentionally injured Sheila if he took an action that he knew or expected would result in injury to Sheila, even if his motive for acting was not to injure Sheila. For example, if John intentionally shot a gun in Sheila's direction, Sheila's injury would be intentional, even if John's motivation was to joke rather than to injure. [49] Thus, the legal definition of intent encompasses more than simply motive. ¶ 34 The distinction between intent and motive is particularly important in applying the intent to injure standard because an intentional injury may arise in instances where the employer intentionally placed an employee in harms way, but the employer's motive was to increase profitsnot to inflict injury. A tragic case from New Mexico illustrates the danger of ignoring this distinction. ¶ 35 In Delgado v. Phelps Dodge Chino, Inc., the plaintiff-employee worked in a smelting plant that distilled copper ore from rock by superheating the unprocessed rock to over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. [50] On the night of his injury, Delgado's crew was shorthanded and was pressured by the supervisors to work harder in order to compensate for losses that the plant sustained during a recent ten-day shut down. [51] An emergency situation arose when the processing system malfunctioned, threatening an overflow of molten rock. The situation could have been safely resolved by shutting down the furnace. Instead, the supervisors directed Delgado, who had never addressed this type of emergency situation, to go into a tunnel below the furnace and stop the flow of molten rock. [52] Delgado entered the tunnel and saw that the molten rock was overflowing its container. He radioed his supervisor for help, explaining that he was neither qualified nor able to address the situation. His supervisor insisted that he proceed alone. Shortly after Delgado entered the tunnel, the lights shorted out and black smoke poured from the mouth of the tunnel. Delgado's co-workers watched as he emerged from the smoke-filled tunnel, fully engulfed in flames. [53] Delgado died three weeks later. ¶ 36 The New Mexico Supreme Court rejected the intent to injure standard, partially based on its conclusion that the intent to injure standard would allow an employer who knows his acts will cause certain harm or death to an employee [to] escape personal responsibility for an act by merely claiming that he/she hoped the employee would make it. [54] The court also concluded that under an intent to injure standard, [a]s long as the employer is motivated by greed, rather than intent to injure the worker, the employer may abuse workers in an unlimited variety of manners while still enjoying immunity from tort liability. [55] ¶ 37 We disagree with the New Mexico Supreme Court's approach to the intent to injure standard because we believe it conflates intent with desire or motive. `[Intent] is broader than a desire or purpose to bring about physical results . . . . The actor who fires a bullet into a dense crowd may fervently pray that the bullet will hit no one, but if the actor knows that it is unavoidable that the bullet will hit someone, the actor intends that consequence.' [56] Under the intent to injure standard, it does not matter whether Delgado's supervisors sent him into the tunnel because they wanted to maintain production quotas, or whether they sent him into the tunnel because they disliked him and hoped he would be injured. If the supervisors, expecting injury as a consequence, chose to send an inexperienced employee into a tunnel where molten rock was threatening to overflow instead of shutting down the furnace, the resulting injuries cannot be considered accidental. Thus, we believe that the facts in Delgado would have satisfied the intent to injure standard regardless of the supervisor's motivation. Delgado also illustrates the importance of distinguishing between intent and motive or desire when applying the intent to injure standard.