Opinion ID: 755640
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Comparative Fault of Robertson's Employer.

Text: 18 Norton and Williams contended at trial that the negligence of Robertson's employer was an intervening sole proximate cause of his damages. The district court instructed the jury on intervening cause. However, the court refused defendants' request to include Robertson's employer in its comparative fault interrogatory to the jury. On appeal, Norton and Williams argue the court erred in refusing to instruct the jury to apportion fault to Robertson's employer as a so-called phantom party, an instruction we encouraged in dicta in Chaney v. Falling Creek Metal Products, Inc., 906 F.2d 1304, 1308 n. 7 (8th Cir.1990). 19 There are two distinct aspects to this problem. First is the question we squarely addressed in Chaney, whether the district court properly submitted the issue of intervening cause. We reversed in Chaney because the jury's interrogatory answers suggested that plaintiff's negligence was the intervening cause (rather than her employer's negligence), and the trial court had not instructed on the foreseeability of that negligence to the defendant product manufacturer. There is no such problem in this case. Although Norton and Williams mention the intervening cause instruction in passing, they do not raise an intervening cause issue on appeal. Thus, our holding in Chaney is not at issue in this case. 20 The second question concerns the suggestion in Chaney 's footnote 7 that an allegedly negligent employer should be included as a phantom party in the Arkansas comparative fault instruction to clarify the legal effect of [the employer's] conduct. The district court concluded this footnote was implicitly overruled by Hiatt v. Mazda Motor Corp., 75 F.3d 1252, 1258 (8th Cir.1996). However, Hiatt did not involve a workers' compensation situation, so it does not squarely answer the question presented by this case. The relevance of an employer's negligence to an employee's tort claim against a third party is a contentious segment of workers' compensation law, with the varying answers often turning on differences in the workers' compensation statutes enacted by the several States. 2 21 Under the Arkansas statutory workers' compensation regime, employees injured on the job give up tort remedies against their employers in exchange for guaranteed benefits without regard to fault. See Ark.Code Ann. § 11-9-105. Employees recover statutorily defined benefits, and employers avoid the risk of large tort verdicts. See Hood & Hardy, Workers' Compensation & Employee Protection Laws in a Nutshell 26-27 (1984). However, the injured employee retains fault-based causes of action against responsible third parties such as Norton and Williams, regardless of the employee's eligibility for workers' compensation benefits. Moreover, the employer or its workers' compensation insurer may recover benefits paid to the injured employee from a third party tortfeasor. See Ark.Code Ann. § 11-9-410. At the same time, the employer's immunity from direct action by the injured employee bars the third party tortfeasor from asserting a contribution claim based upon the employer's negligence. See W.M. Bashlin Co. v. Smith, 277 Ark. 406, 643 S.W.2d 526, 534 (1982); C & L Rural Elec. Co-op. Corp. v. Kincaid, 221 Ark. 450, 256 S.W.2d 337, 340-41 (1953). 22 We conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to include Robertson's employer as a phantom party in the comparative fault instruction. The comparative fault statute provides that liability shall be determined by comparing the fault chargeable to a claiming party with the fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom the claiming party seeks to recover damages. Ark.Code Ann. § 16-64-122(a) (emphasis added). As Robertson is not seeking damages from his employer, the plain meaning of this statute excludes his employer from the comparative fault inquiry. See Freislinger v. Emro Propane Co., 99 F.3d 1412, 1419 (7th Cir.1996). 23 Moreover, even if Robertson's prior claim for workers' compensation benefits were considered a claim for damages for purposes of § 16-64-122(a), as the court concluded in construing a similar statute in Inland/Riggle Oil Co. v. Painter, 925 P.2d 1083, 1086 (Colo.1996), we fail to see how including Robertson's employer in the comparative fault instruction serves any useful purpose under Arkansas law. Neither Robertson nor defendants may recover from the employer in tort because workers' compensation benefits are an exclusive remedy. See Elk Corp. of Ark. v. Builders Transp., Inc., 862 F.2d 663, 666 (8th Cir.1988); Dulin v. Circle F Indus., Inc., 558 F.2d 456, 464 (8th Cir.1977). Adding a phantom defendant's fault to the equation cannot increase Robertson's comparative fault percentage. Finally, because Arkansas, unlike many other States, did not abolish or limit joint and several liability when it enacted comparative fault, see Ark.Code Ann. §§ 16-61-201 et seq., and because the workers' compensation statute does not limit a third party's liability to the employee on account of the employer's negligence, a jury finding of comparative fault by the employer would not reduce or otherwise affect defendants' liability to Robertson, unless of course the employer's negligence amounted to an intervening cause. 24 The judgment of the district court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.