Opinion ID: 1128230
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Did Befus Belong to the Class of Employees Contemplated by the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act?

Text: Having answered the first issue in the affirmative  i.e., that the legislature did have the authority to obligate the State to indemnify Befus  we turn to the second issue which asks whether Befus belonged to the class of employee that is covered by the indemnity provisions of the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act. This issue calls up the argument which urges that even though employer worker's compensation immunity is restricted to tort actions, and even though the legislature retained the authority to enact the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act with its indemnity and holdharmless provisions, nevertheless, the Act does not contemplate indemnity for a worker such as Befus who was receiving benefits from the worker's compensation fund. As a predicate to the question at hand, it is to be remembered that we are not dealing with an injured employee whose estate, having received worker's compensation benefits, is now seeking additional third-party recovery which would, under the appropriate provisions of the worker's compensation law, be required to be utilized to reimburse the fund. Befus only seeks to be indemnified against the payment of a judgment and therefore is not a litigant seeking a double recovery. We assume that it would, without the risk of extensive discussion, be conceded that, in the absence of the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act, the estate of Befus would not be liable to the estate of Hamlin, because Befus would have been protected by common-law sovereign immunity. Oroz v. Board of County Commissioners, supra. Indeed, even the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act grants Befus sovereign immunity under § 1-39-104(a) (see n. 6). However, the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act goes on to strip the Befus estate of its immunity protection by exempting the State and its employees who are exposed to liability    while acting within the scope of their duties in the operation of any vehicle   . Section 1-39-105. According to this condition of things, Befus was, then, a State employee who, insofar as the common law and the worker's compensation law are concerned [18] and, for the reason that his sovereign immunity had been removed, § 1-39-105 (see n. 1), was exposed to liability from Hamlin's wrongful-death action. It seems clear to this court that any governmental-entity employee whose sovereign immunity the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act undertook to abrogate and against whom liability had been alleged (§ 1-39-104(b) (see n. 3)) was such an employee as the legislature intended would receive the protection of § 1-39-104(b), which provides that when liability is alleged against any public employee acting within the scope of employment, whether or not he was alleged to have been acting maliciously or fraudulently, the governmental entity shall provide a defense to the public employee and save him or her harmless and indemnify the employee against  any tort claim or judgment (emphasis added). Surely the legislature did not intend to withdraw the Befus estate's sovereign immunity under § 1-39-105 in order to leave the Befus heirs exposed to third-party damage suits where, had there been no Wyoming Governmental Claims Act, the Befus estate, under the protection of the doctrine of state sovereign immunity, would have had no such exposure. The proclaimed purpose of the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act was, through its indemnity and hold-harmless provisions (§ 1-39-104(a)), to furnish relief in various restricted situations to those members of the public who are injured or killed by government employees (see § 1-39-102(a), n. 12). It was not, of course, the intention of the legislature to abrogate common-law and statutory immunity, § 1-39-104(a), in order to expose public employees to tort liability in circumstances where there had been no exposure prior to the passage of the Act.