Opinion ID: 2158073
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Personal Duty Requirement

Text: With the foregoing background, the next step in our analysis is to determine whether the district court erred when it granted summary judgment for the respondents on the issue of whether the respondents owed Korey Stringer a personal duty. The presence of a duty is a question of law that we review de novo. Wong v. American Fam. Mut. Ins. Co., 576 N.W.2d 742, 745 (Minn.1998). In Dawley, we adopted the requirement of a personal duty to overcome coemployee immunity in the context of a wrongful death action against the company's general manager. Dawley was a worker at a sheet metal company who died after he fell into a tank filled with a caustic detergent solution. 304 Minn. at 454, 231 N.W.2d at 556. The plaintiff in Dawley, the deceased worker's estate, sued the company's general manager asserting that the manager had general overall responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the company. Id. at 454, 231 N.W.2d at 556-57. We determined that the plaintiff's allegation that the supervisor had a general duty to provide a safe place to work was insufficient to show that the supervisor owed a personal duty to the deceased worker. Id. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 558. We then stated that a coemployee will have no personal liability because of his general administrative responsibility for some function of his employment without more. Id. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 557. A critical concept underlying our holding in Dawley was the preservation of the compromise struck in the workers' compensation statute balancing certain, but limited, benefits provided to employees injured in the course of their employment with the limitations on the ability of workers to recover damages in tort actions. See id. at 455-56, 231 N.W.2d at 557. We explained that the duty to provide employees with a safe workplace is a nondelegable duty held by the employer. Id. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 558. Therefore, we concluded that the manager was immune from being sued personally for failing to provide a safe workplace because providing a safe workplace was the employer's duty and the workers' compensation statute precludes an action against the employer for an alleged breach of its duty. Id. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 558. In other words, when the alleged breach of duty falls within the workers' compensation compromise between employers and employees, the coemployee should not be held liable. To create personal liability for the coemployee, we require that [t]he acts of negligence for which a co-employee may be held liable must be acts constituting direct negligence toward the plaintiff, tortious acts in which he participated, or which he specifically directed others to do. Id. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 557. In Wicken, we applied Dawley and required that for a coemployee to be liable for his or her acts of negligence to a coemployee, he or she must breach a duty based on personal fault, which is something different from the coemployee's general administrative responsibility for some function of his employment. Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 98. Like Dawley, Wicken also involved an action against a company manager for acts that had not been directed at any specific employee. We concluded that a manager, who made false statements in applying for a DNR permit in order to burn explosive material, did not owe a personal duty to the workers who were killed by a resulting explosion. We said that the permit application did not create a personal duty because it was not directed toward the injured employees, but was an administrative activity required as an integral part of [the coemployee manager's] employment obligations. Id. at 99. We also stated, [t]o hold otherwise, permitting co-employee liability when harm results however indirectly from the carrying out of administrative obligations incident to work responsibilities would eviscerate the fundamental purpose of the workers' compensation laws. Id. The Dawley and Wicken holdings are a bit difficult to apply to the facts before us because the two earlier cases do not address the situation where the coemployee's responsibilities involve direct contact with a coemployee, as is the situation here. In both Dawley and Wicken, the defendants held managerial positions and their acts had broad impact within the company. Because the facts of Dawley and Wicken involved duties not directed toward a specific person, we did not discuss whether general administrative responsibility meant only duties of general impact on all employees or whether it also includes carrying out work duties, regardless of whether the work duties involve direct contact with a coemployee, as the respondents contend. Nor did we discuss specifically whether the personal duty requirement applied only to managers, supervisors, or officers. Here, the parties do not dispute that coemployeesOsterman and Zamberlettitook direct action toward Korey Stringer; but they disagree on whether the coemployees' direct action was sufficient to create a personal duty. Kelci Stringer contends that Osterman's and Zamberletti's direct actions toward Korey Stringer created a personal duty owed to him. She argues that Dawley and Wicken distinguish between actions taken by an employee that have broad and general impact on all fellow employees (general administrative responsibilities) and direct, personal actions that a particular employee takes with respect to a particular co-employee. According to Kelci Stringer, the latter are personal duties and the former are not. In this case, Kelci Stringer asserts that general administrative responsibilities would have included procuring enough fluids for the team, staying abreast of weather forecasts, or making sure that trainers and interns had the proper equipment. The respondents argue that an administrative responsibility is any task performed in the scope of one's employment and that performance of such a task cannot create a personal duty. They assert that administrative responsibilities are those duties carried out by employeesand Osterman and Zamberletti were only carrying out their required work duties when they attempted to help Korey Stringer. Respondents assert that Kelci Stringer's argument that direct contact with the injured employee creates a personal duty would serve to protect those who devise policy, but would leave defenseless those who carry it out. They further claim that the standard of personal duty asserted by Kelci Stringer would thwart the goals of the workers' compensation system and significantly expand coemployee liability. They contend that a personal duty arises only when the coemployee departs from his or her employment responsibilities and voluntarily assumes additional duties that put another employee at risk. We conclude that neither Kelci Stringer nor the respondents have articulated the correct test for overcoming coemployee immunity. Rather, each has articulated only a portion of the test. Our holdings in Dawley and Wicken are clear that direct action toward the injured employee is required before a personal duty is created. Dawley, 304 Minn. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 557 ([t]he acts of negligence for which a co-employee may be held liable must be acts constituting direct negligence toward the plaintiff, tortious acts in which he participated, or which he specifically directed others to do); Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 98-99. But direct contact alone is insufficient; the employee whose job involves direct contact with others should not bear inordinate risk for coemployee liability for the simple fact of his chosen employment or assigned duties. Therefore, we also stated personal liability    will not be imposed on a co-employee because of his general administrative responsibility for some function of his employment without more. Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 98. Our holdings in Dawley and Wicken have in essence created a two-prong test which must be met before a coemployee has undertaken a personal duty to a coemployee. To have a personal duty to the injured employee, the coemployee must have (1) taken direct action toward or have directed another to have taken direct action toward the injured employee, Dawley, 304 Minn. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 557, and (2) acted outside the course and scope of employment, see Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 98. This personal duty applies to all coemployees and we do not distinguish between managers, supervisors, or officers and other coemployees in the requirement of a personal duty. We see no reason to treat them separately. [14] See Gunnett v. Girardier Bldg. and Realty Co., 70 S.W.3d 632, 638 (Mo.Ct.App.2002). We did not use the specific phrase course and scope of employment in either Dawley or Wicken; therefore, it is important at this point in our analysis that we elaborate on why we conclude that a personal duty necessarily contemplates that the coemployee must have acted outside of his or her course and scope of employment. In Wicken, we said a coemployee does not owe a personal duty based on a general administrative responsibility for some function of his employment without more. Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 98. We also stated that the DNR permit application in Wicken was an administrative activity required as an integral part of [the manager's] employment obligations. Id. at 99. Scope of employment is defined as the field of action in which a servant is authorized to act in the master-servant relationship. Black's Law Dictionary 1374 (8th ed.2004). Course of employment refers to [e]vents that occur or circumstances that exist as a part of one's employment; esp., the time during which an employee furthers an employer's goals through employer-mandated directives. Id. at 378. Under the workers' compensation system, we have said that course of employment refers to the time, place, and circumstances of the incident causing the injury. Gibberd by Gibberd v. Control Data Corp., 424 N.W.2d 776, 780 (Minn. 1988). We conclude that, while we did not use the specific phrase, course and scope of employment under the facts of either Dawley or Wicken, we articulated essentially the same concept when we spoke of the coemployee's administrative activity required as an integral part of    employment obligations or administrative obligations incident to work responsibilities, Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 99, and the general administrative responsibility for some function of    employment, Dawley, 304 Minn. at 456, 231 N.W.2d at 557. We discussed the specific term administrative in Dawley and Wicken because the facts of both of those cases involved administrative responsibilities of coemployee managers. But our stated concerns in Wicken included that the coemployee not be held personally liable for decisions he was required and authorized to make as part of his job and that we [maintain] the integrity of the compromise between employers and employees under workers' compensation. Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 99. Thus, the relevant issue is not whether the personal duty requires us to explain the meaning of the term administrative, but rather whether any articulation of what constitutes a personal duty would upset the purposes of the workers' compensation system to fairly and fully compensate the meritorious injury claim. See Dawley, 304 Minn. at 455-56, 231 N.W.2d at 557; Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 99; see also Franke v. Fabcon, Inc., 509 N.W.2d 373, 376 (Minn.1993). Acting within the course and scope of employment is what brings the coemployee within the protection of the workers' compensation system. We acknowledge the concerns raised by the dissent. We share some of these concerns and have considered them carefully; but we conclude that the dissent's analysis ultimately fails because it does not sufficiently answer the question on personal duty that is before us in light of our case law and the purposes of the workers' compensation scheme. When the dissent asserts that a course and scope of employment test is an incorrect reading of personal duty, it relies significantly on Behr v. Soth, 170 Minn. 278, 212 N.W. 461 (1927), a pre-1979 legislative amendment case that does not discuss personal duty. In Behr, we held that coemployees are included among third parties for purposes of tort liability under the workers' compensation scheme. Id. at 283, 212 N.W. at 463. And we determined that the fire chief defendant was acting within the course and scope of his employment when he drove his personal vehicle to a fire rather than going to the fire in a city-owned vehicle. Id. at 281-82, 212 N.W. at 462-63. The issue in Behr, however, was whether the plaintiff, a coemployee/common enterpriser, was precluded from seeking damages from the defendant because he had already elected to receive workers' compensation benefits. Id. at 286-87, 212 N.W. at 463. Under the statute then in effect, the plaintiff could either seek compensation from his employer or pursue the coemployee/common enterpriser in tort. Id. at 284, 212 N.W. at 463. The dissent's assertion that Behr rejected a course and scope of employment test for personal duty is far too broad a reading for a case that discusses neither personal duty nor whether the defendant could have been liable under the facts of that case. Reliance by the dissent on the tangential analysis in Behr cannot overcome the fact that we adopted the concept of a personal duty in a subsequent case, Dawley, and then rearticulated that concept in Wicken, and those two cases are the cases on which our analysis must be based. [15] Moreover, when the legislature passed the 1979 amendments to add a gross negligence requirement, it was silent as to Dawley's requirement that a coemployee have a personal duty to an injured coemployee to be liable for tort damages. The dissent concedes that the legislature was silent and acknowledges that the personal duty requirement is applicable here. Given that the legislature took no action to alter the standard we set forth in Dawley and rearticulated in Wicken, our case law provides that the legislature's silence expressed its concurrence in Dawley's and Wicken's holdings. See Robinson v. Lamott, 289 N.W.2d 60, 63 (Minn.1979); Minn.Stat. § 645.17(4) (2004) (stating that [w]hen a court of last resort has construed the language of a law, the legislature in subsequent laws on the same subject matter intends the same construction to be placed upon such language). In our analysis, we are striving to be true to our precedent and to our rules of construction when we apply Dawley and Wicken to the facts of this case. The dissent's analysis strays from this objective. For example, the dissent asserts that key language in Dawley and Wicken that a coemployee is not liable for a general administrative responsibility for some function of his employmentis not relevant here; but when it adopts this approach, it overlooks key concerns from these two cases that a coemployee not be held personally liable for required and authorized decisions and that we maintain the workers' compensation compromise. See Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 99. Finally, the dissent's test, which only requires a direct act toward the injured employee for coemployee liability, fails because it would serve to protect coemployee managers with duties of general impact on a company while increasing the vulnerability of employees whose duties include direct contact with their coemployees. We conclude that adopting a course and scope of employment prong is compatible with the purposes of the workers' compensation system. See Minn.Stat. §§ 176.001; 176.021, subd. 1; see also Franke, 509 N.W.2d at 376 (stating that [w]orkers' compensation    is social legislation, providing a measure of security to workers injured on the job, with the burden of that expense considered a proportionate part of the expense of production.). While other jurisdictions have not framed coemployee immunity in terms of a personal duty, we conclude that requiring a showing that the coemployee has acted outside of the course and scope of employment before liability will be imposed is the better approach. Moreover, our approach aligns with holdings on coemployee immunity from certain other jurisdictions that have specifically addressed this issue. See, e.g., Meade v. Ries, 642 N.W.2d 237 (Iowa 2002); Brooks v. Carter, 102 Ill.App.3d 635, 58 Ill.Dec. 534, 430 N.E.2d 566 (1981); Jackson v. Hutchinson, 453 S.W.2d 269 (Ky.Ct.App. 1970); Daus v. Marble, 270 N.J.Super. 241, 636 A.2d 1091 (App.Div.1994). When determining coemployee immunity, we conclude that course and scope of employment should have the same meaning as the course and scope of employment test used to determine whether an employee qualifies for workers' compensation benefits. We note that applying the same test to both the determination of qualification for benefits and coemployee immunity allows for greater uniformity in the application of the workers' compensation statute. Larson refers to using the workers' compensation benefit test as more satisfactory than using the scope of employment test used to determine vicarious liability under respondeat superior. 6 Arthur Larson and Lex K. Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation Law, § 111.03(3), at 111-15 (2003).