Opinion ID: 1436440
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Implied Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing

Text: Whitson claims that OFU had a duty of good faith toward him tantamount to that owed by an insurance company to its insured. We disagree. Whitson relies on Goodwin v. Old Republic Ins. Co., 828 P.2d 431 (Okla. 1992). There we held that a workers' compensation insurance carrier owed a duty of good faith and fair dealing to the injured workers' compensation claimant. We so held because 85 O.S. 1991 § 65.3 provides that workers are third-party beneficiaries of their employers' workers' compensation liability insurance policies. We also held that an injured worker has a cause of action for bad faith against his employer's insurance carrier for refusing to timely pay the injured worker's compensation award. [1] But we noted that 85 O.S. 1991 § 12 applies expressly to employers, although not to workers' compensation insurance carriers. Thus, an employer's liability to an injured worker is limited to that created by § 12 of the Workers' Compensation Act. We also held in Goodwin that a bad faith claim is separate and apart from the work relationship, and it arises against the insurer only after there has been an award against the employer.  [Emphasis added.] Id. at 434. The same limitation applies where the employer's bad faith in the handling of the claim is concerned. Whitson's claim that OFU and Spears are liable for Spears's conduct involves Spears's activities before the Workers' compensation Court entered any award against OFU. Thus, Spears's acts were not actionable and could not have been so. Whitson left his employment with OFU nine months before he filed his workers' compensation claim. His injury had occurred nearly a year before he filed his claim. That Spears reacted aggressively, perhaps over-aggressively, to Whitson's claim is hardly surprising. Our Workers' Compensation Court is a court of record. Unlike the workers's compensation schemes of many other states, our Workers' Compensation Court is not an administrative agency. There is no reason to allow a tort cause of action for a too aggressive defense of a workers' compensation claim  especially where the claimant is no longer in the defendant's employ. A successful plaintiff in a personal injury action certainly has no cause of action against the defendant for the defendant's unsuccessful attempts to defeat of action against the defendant for the defendant's unsuccessful attempts to defeat the suit. Similarly, Whitson has no cause of action against OFU and Spears for bad faith arising from Spears's activities in defending Whitson's workers' compensation claim. CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED; COURT OF APPEALS OPINION VACATED; TRIAL COURT'S JUDGMENT AFFIRMED. KAUGER, V.C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER and HARGRAVE, JJ., concur. SIMMS, OPALA and SUMMERS, JJ., concur in judgment. ALMA WILSON, C.J., dissents.