Opinion ID: 1762990
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Employee's Claims Against Employer

Text: Although we are impressed with the professional skills of counsel for Plaintiff, we perceive no purpose in burdening the opinion with a lengthy discussion of this issue. We hold that the exclusive remedy sections of the Workmen's Compensation Act stand as an impenetrable barrier to the claims here sought to be asserted by the employee against his employer. §§ 25-5-52 and -53, and 25-5-3 and -4; see De Arman v. Ingalls Iron Works Co., Inc., 258 Ala. 205, 61 So.2d 764 (1952). Counsel's argument, particularly with reference to Plaintiff's nonphysical injuries, is commendably ingenious and highly persuasive; but it is in the nature of a policy argument which is more properly addressed to the legislature. However inclined we may be to accept Plaintiff's contention, we have no authority, constitutionally, statutorily, or otherwise, to judicially engraft an exception into the immunity provisions applicable to the employer. Clark v. Chrysler Corp., 342 So.2d 902 (Ala. 1977); see, also, Adair v. Moretti-Harrah Marble Co., Inc., 381 So.2d 181 (Ala. 1980). By the explicit terms of the Workmen's Compensation Act, a compensable injury (and, in the case of pneumoconiosis, its aggravation) has its exclusive remedy against the employer under the act and not otherwise. Breimhorst v. Beckman, 227 Minn. 409, 35 N.W.2d 719 (1949). The trial court did not err in dismissing Plaintiff's claim against West Point-Pepperell.