Opinion ID: 2158073
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Workers' Compensation Background

Text: To provide the necessary context to our analysis, we begin with a brief summary of Minnesota's workers' compensation system. This system is based on a compromise between employees and employers and involves a mutual renunciation of common law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike. Minn. Stat. § 176.001 (2004); see also Foley v. Honeywell, Inc., 488 N.W.2d 268, 271 (Minn.1992). Under the workers' compensation statutory scheme, the employer is liable to pay compensation in every case of personal injury or death of an employee arising out of and in the course of employment without regard to the question of negligence. Minn.Stat. § 176.021, subd. 1 (2004). The employer's liability to pay compensation is exclusive and in the place of any other liability. Minn.Stat. § 176.031 (2004). Under this scheme, an employee is precluded from bringing a tort action for damages against the employer. [12] But an injured employee or the employee's personal representative may, under certain limited circumstances, bring an action in tort against a coemployee for the latter's gross negligence. Wicken v. Morris, 527 N.W.2d 95, 98 (Minn.1995). Minnesota Statutes § 176.061, subd. 5(c) (2004), specifically provides: A coemployee working for the same employer is not liable for a personal injury incurred by another employee unless the injury resulted from the gross negligence of the coemployee or was intentionally inflicted by the coemployee. The term coemployee includes a corporate officer, general supervisor, or foreman. Dawley v. Thisius, 304 Minn. 453, 455, 231 N.W.2d 555, 557 (1975). In Wicken, we stated that, to establish a gross negligence claim against a coemployee, the injured employee must show: 1. the coemployee had a personal duty toward the employee, the breach of which resulted in the employee's injury, and that the activity causing the injury was not part of the coemployee's general administrative responsibilities; and 2. the injury arose from gross negligence on the part of the coemployee. Wicken, 527 N.W.2d at 98. The first prong of the test we adopted in Wicken was first articulated in Dawley, a 1975 case that involved a wrongful death action against a company's general manager. 304 Minn. at 455, 231 N.W.2d at 557. The second prong of the test is based on a 1979 amendment to the workers' compensation statute. The 1979 amendment added language to Minn.Stat. § 176.061, subd. 5(c), and bars coemployee liability except where the coemployee has been grossly negligent or has committed an intentional tort. Act of June 7, 1979, ch. 3, § 31, 1979 Minn. Laws 1256, 1272. Before the 1979 amendment, the Workers' Compensation Act did not specifically include a provision for coemployee immunity. See Minn.Stat. § 176.061 (1978). In enacting coemployee immunity in 1979, the legislature adopted the rationale of the Minnesota Workers' Compensation Study Commission, which was concerned that allowing an employee to sue a coemployee for simple negligence tends to shift tort liability from employer to fellow employee in a manner never intended by the workers' compensation system. Jay Y. BenAnav, Workers' Compensation Amendments of the 1979 Minnesota Legislature, 6 Wm. Mitchell L.Rev. 743, 764 (1980) (quoting Minnesota Workers' Compensation Study Commission, A Report to the Minnesota Legislature and Governor, 41 (1979)). As the Study Commission language demonstrates, the purpose of the 1979 amendment was to allow only a narrow window for coemployee liability. [13]