Opinion ID: 2566260
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: exclusivity of workers' compensation act

Text: ¶ 5 The Workers' Compensation Act provides a complete, comprehensive, and exclusive method for administration of its provisions and for the enforcement of any and all awards made thereunder. May v. Covington, 1939 OK 429, ¶ 0, 95 P.2d 233. In the May case, the claimant's award was not paid. A general execution issued and was returned unsatisfied. The claimant then tried to collect against the stockholders of his employer, based on a statute in title 18, now repealed. The Court held that the Workers' Compensation Act, at that time the Workmen's Compensation Law, was not complementary to any prior existing legislation, but an independent and separate legislative expression that established rights and liabilities and created methods for their determination and for the enforcement of any awards. May, 1939 OK 429, ¶ 6, 95 P.2d at 234. The Workers' Compensation Act is exclusive as to both awards and remedies. That Act provides in pertinent part: The liability prescribed in Section 11 of this title shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability of the employer ... at common law or otherwise, for such injury, loss of services, or death, to the employee, or the spouse, personal representative, parents, or dependents of the employee, or any other person. 85 O.S.2001, § 12. ¶ 6 The plaintiff, Keir DeAnda, maintains that this provision relates only to the liability of the employer, not to that of the insurance carrier. This question was answered in United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. v. Theus, 1972 OK 9, ¶¶ 7, 12, 493 P.2d 433, 434, 435. In that case the Court observed that although the Workers Compensation Act does not specifically exclude the insurance carrier from suit in district court for its own negligence, nevertheless, the carrier is immune from suit in a common law action. After examining provisions in the Workers' Compensation Act, the Court held that the intent of the law was to make the insurance carrier one and the same as the employer as to liability and immunity. Theus, 1972 OK 9, ¶ 12, 493 P.2d at 435, Fehring v. State Ins. Fund, 2001 OK 11, ¶ 28, 19 P.3d 276, 285. ¶ 7 In Kuykendall we held that a common law remedy was not available against an employer for a post-judgment failure to pay an award ordered by the Workers' Compensation Court. Kuykendall, 2002 OK 96, ¶ 13, 66 P.3d at 378. DeAnda attempts to distinguish Kuykendall from the facts before us because one involves a self-insured employer and the other an insurance carrier for an employer. But the teaching of Theus is that they are treated the same; if a self-insured employer cannot be sued for a bad faith failure to pay, neither can an employer's insurance carrier.