Opinion ID: 1789025
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Stanlick

Text: Stanlick, a truck driver for Kaplan Industries, was injured when he fell asleep while driving Kaplan's truck. Stanlick brought an action against Kaplan Industries, and Donald and John Kaplan, individually. Stanlick alleged that the Kaplans required him to work excessively long hours in violation of federal law and that the Kaplans required Stanlick to falsify his driving records in order to evade detection by federal authorities. He thus alleged that the Kaplans were guilty of willful and wanton misconduct resulting in foreseeable injury to Stanlick. The trial court granted Kaplan Industries' motion to dismiss, but denied the Kaplan brothers' similar motion. The Kaplans petitioned the Second District for a writ of prohibition on the ground that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear Stanlick's complaint. The court granted the writ, holding that corporate officers are not employees; rather they are employers entitled to the immunity under section 440.11(1). The court certified that its decision was in express conflict with Sullivan. [1] The liability or immunity of all defendants rests upon our interpretation of section 440.11(1), Florida Statutes (1981). [2] That statute grants immunity to employers and employees for simple negligence but imposes liability on employees who act with gross negligence with respect to their fellow employees. The statute reads: The same immunities from liability enjoyed by an employer shall extend as well to each employee of the employer when such employee is acting in furtherance of the employer's business and the injured employee is entitled to receive benefits under this chapter. Such fellow employee immunities shall not be applicable to an employee who acts, with respect to a fellow employee, with willful and wanton disregard or unprovoked physical aggression or with gross negligence when such acts result in injury or death or such acts proximately cause such injury or death, nor shall such immunities be applicable to employees of the same employer when each is operating in the furtherance of the employer's business but they are assigned primarily to unrelated works within private or public employment (emphasis added). We believe the emphasized portion of the statute to be an unambiguous statement of the legislature's desire to impose liability on all employees who act with gross negligence with respect to their fellow employees, regardless of the grossly negligent employee's corporate status. The defendants request this Court to define the term employee, for the purposes of this statute, to exclude corporate officers who are performing the employer's nondelegable duty to maintain a safe work-place. In defining the term employee, as used in section 440.11(1), we turn to the definitional section of the Worker's Compensation Act, section 440.02. That statute reads, in pertinent part: When used in this chapter, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, the following terms shall have the following meanings: ... . (2)(b) The term employee includes any person who is an officer of a corporation and who performs services for renumeration for such corporation within this state, whether or not such services are continuous. We believe that the plain language of this statute definitively brings corporate officers within the scope of the term employee. The defendants argue that a distinction be drawn between classes of employees. In support of their arguments, defendants rely primarily on their interpretation of the legislative intent behind the statute, as well as case law having roots that extend to a period before the statute was significantly amended. [3] The first argument espoused by the defendants is that in order to be liable to a fellow employee, a corporate officer must have committed some affirmative act going beyond the scope of the employer's nondelegable duty to provide a safe workplace. Kaplan v. Tenth Judicial Circuit, 495 So.2d 231 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986), West v. Jessop, 339 So.2d 1136 (Fla. 2d DCA 1976). Defendants argue that if any affirmative acts were committed in either of these cases they did not go beyond the employer's nondelegable duty to provide a safe place to work. On this basis, the defendants contend that for purposes of providing a safe workplace, the corporate officer is not an employee, but rather an alter-ego of the employer, deserving the benefits of the employer's immunity. See Zurich Insurance Co. v. Scofi, 366 So.2d 1193 (Fla. 2d DCA), cert. denied, 378 So.2d 348 (Fla. 1979). To support these contentions, defendants rely on what they perceive is the legislative intent behind the statute. Inquiry into legislative intent may begin only where the statute is ambiguous on its face. See State v. Egan, 287 So.2d 1, 4 (Fla. 1973). Were these provisions even slightly ambiguous, an examination of legislative history and statutory construction principles would be necessary. We believe, however, that the plain language of sections 440.01 and 440.11(1) precludes any further explanation of legislative intent. These statutes unambiguously impose liability on all employees for their gross negligence resulting in death or injury to their fellow employees. This imposition of liability is blind to corporate status. Nowhere does section 440.11(1) impose upon injured employees a requirement to show that the fellow employee has committed some affirmative act going beyond the scope of the employer's nondelegable duty to provide a safe place to work. We are not inclined to read such a requirement into the statute when it is plainly not there. The affirmative act doctrine has its roots in cases interpreting section 440.11(1) before it was amended in 1978. [4] Those cases [5] did not have the benefit of the legislature's statement expressly imposing liability on grossly negligent employees who injure other employees. The basis of those opinions was legislatively abrogated by section 440.11(1). Thus, to the extent that those cases conflict with this opinion (as well as section 440.11(1), as amended), we disapprove of them. Because of the unambiguous language used in the statute we will not here attempt to define any further legislative intent. The first rule of statutory interpretation is that [w]hen the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous and conveys a clear and definite meaning, there is no occasion for resorting to the rules of statutory interpretation and construction; the statute must be given its plain and obvious meaning. A.R. Douglass, Inc. v. McRainey, 102 Fla. 1141, 1144, 137 So. 157, 159 (Fla. 1973). Accord, State v. Egan, 287 So.2d 1 (Fla. 1973). To attempt to discern the legislative intent when the language is so plain would be both unnecessary and futile. The statute herein serves as ample evidence of what the legislature intended. [6] The 1978 amendment to section 440.11(1) authorizes actions against all fellow employees for acts of gross negligence resulting in injury to other employees. To separate corporate officers from this rule requires a highly convoluted and logistically suspect construction of the statute. The defendants, at oral argument, contended that the term fellow employee is a term of art, applying solely to employees with whom the injured person work on an every day basis. Therefore, the defendants contend, the term fellow employee could only refer to nonsupervisory employees. We are equally disinclined to follow this line of reasoning. Again, we must stress that the plain language of section 440.11(1) fully precludes any such interpretation. By fellow employees, the statute clearly is intended to include all employees, not just nonsupervisory employees. The legislature has expressed the policy of this state to impose liability upon those employees who injure a co-employee by their grossly negligent behavior. This policy was plainly and unambiguously stated in section 440.11(1), and we are bound by it. We are further bound by the statutory definition of the term employee, which includes with equal clarity corporate officers and supervisors. The context of section 440.11(1) does not clearly require any other definition of employee. As such, the statutory definition is controlling. It would be inappropriate for this Court to read any more into section 440.11(1) than what is plainly there. Accordingly, we answer the certified question in the affirmative and approve the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal. Furthermore, we quash the decision of the Second District Court of Appeal, and remand that case back to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. EHRLICH and SHAW, JJ., and ADKINS, J. (Ret.), concur. OVERTON, J., dissents with an opinion, in which McDONALD, C.J., concurs.