Opinion ID: 1133623
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: fisher and lawton

Text: In 1986 the two cases cited by the court in Eller came before this Court as certified questions. The certified question in each of those cases was: Does the Florida Workers' Compensation Law preclude actions by employees against their corporate employers for intentional torts even though the injuries were incurred within the scope of their employment? Fisher v. Shenandoah Gen. Constr. Co., 498 So.2d 882, 882-83 (Fla.1986); Lawton v. Alpine Engineered Products, Inc., 498 So.2d 879, 880 (Fla.1986). In both of these cases, we declined to explicitly answer the certified question of whether an intentional tort was a valid exception to the workers' compensation immunity. Instead, in both cases, we found that the complaint filed on behalf of the employees only spoke in terms of probable injury, and because a strong probability is different than a substantial certainty, we held that the complaints failed to allege a prima facie case of intentional tort. Therefore, we upheld the judgments rendered for the employers in both cases by a four-to-three vote, with Justice Adkins dissenting in an opinion concurred in by Justices Shaw and Barkett. See Fisher, 498 So.2d at 884; Lawton, 498 So.2d at 881. In each case, a minority of the justices, three, dissented, and indicated they would have answered the certified question in the affirmative and would also have held that both cases presented jury issues as to whether an intentional tort could be proven. The minority agreed, however, with the majority's requirement of a substantial certainty of injury as a necessary component of proving an intentional tort. Notwithstanding our determination that the employees in Fisher and Lawton had not properly alleged the heightened degree of certainty to constitute an intentional tort, we held in those cases that in order to prove an intentional tort, the employer must be shown to have either exhibite[d] a deliberate intent to injure or engage[d] in conduct which is substantially certain to result in injury or death. Fisher at 883 (emphasis added). Hence, we recognized the existence of two alternative bases for an employee to prove an intentional tort action against an employer. Subsequently, in Eller, we acknowledged that an employer enjoyed no immunity from an employee's action based upon an intentional tort as defined in Fisher and Lawton. We reaffirm that holding today. [4]