Opinion ID: 1918602
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: immunity and exclusivity provisions of workers' compensation act

Text: [¶ 7] The immunity and exclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act generally provide that employers are exempt from civil actions for personal injuries sustained by an employee arising out of and in the course of employment, 39-A M.R.S.A. § 104, and that employees who have secured compensation under the Act are deemed to have waived any common law action against the employer, 39-A M.R.S.A. § 408. [3] The former provision is considered to be the immunity provision, and the latter is the exclusivity provision. Because of the cross-reference in section 408 to section 104, the provision are interrelated and, for the purposes of this case, coextensive. In the context of this case the term employer includes the insurer. See 39-A M.R.S.A. § 102(12) (Pamph.2000). [4] [¶ 8] When we examine whether the defense of immunity is available to an employer or an insurer, we look to the gist of the action and the nature of the damages sought to determine whether the claim for injury is excluded by the exclusivity provision. Cole v. Chandler, 2000 ME 104, ¶ 13, 752 A.2d 1189, 1196. Personal injuries that arise out of and in the course of employment are covered by the Workers' Compensation Act, and insurers are immune from liability for such injuries. See id. ¶ 9, 752 A.2d at 1195. To come within the coverage of the Act, an injury must be sufficiently work-related, so it can be said to have been suffered both while and because the employee was at work. Knox v. Combined Ins. Co. of Am., 542 A.2d 363, 366 (Me.1988) (citation, quotation, and emphasis omitted).
[¶ 9] Because only personal injuries come within the Act, we first look to the nature of the injury suffered by Hawkes to determine if it is a personal injury. Following the trial court's decision on summary judgment, the claims remaining against Commercial Union are trespass to property, intrusion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The last claim is for a personal injury. In Cole we noted that we have previously held that mental injuries are personal injuries. See Cole, 2000 ME 104, ¶ 13, 752 A.2d at 1196. [¶ 10] Trespass, however, is not a personal injury; rather, an action for trespass seeks recompense for damages to property. Trespass protects possession of land. JACK H. SIMMONS, ET AL., MAINE TORT LAW 77 (1999). The Workers' Compensation Act is not applicable to Hawkes' trespass claim. [¶ 11] Intrusion of privacy, a tort which we adopted in Estate of Berthiaume v. Pratt, 365 A.2d 792, 794-95 (Me.1976), is a claim that is broad enough to include recovery for economic injuries, as well as mental or physical injuries. Cole, 2000 ME 104, ¶ 13, 752 A.2d at 1196. Insofar as it covers economic injuries, intrusion of privacy is not a personal injury and not within the ambit of the Workers' Compensation Act. Because neither trespass nor economic injuries from intrusion of privacy are personal injuries, Hawkes' action for damages for these two torts is not barred by the exclusivity provision of the Workers' Compensation Act.
[¶ 12] Next, we must address whether the claimed personal injury, that is, the intentional infliction of emotional distress as well as any personal injury Hawkes claims from the intrusion of privacy, arose out of and in the course of his employment. The requirement that the personal injury arise out of and in the course of employment is in the conjunctive and, therefore, the personal injury must both arise out of and in the course of. Considering first, the arising out of prong, we have said that [a]n injury arises out of employment when, in some proximate way, it has its origin, its source, or its cause in the employment. Li v. C.N. Brown Co., 645 A.2d 606, 609 n. 2 (Me.1994). Arising out of employment means that the injury must have a causal connection to the employment. See Comeau v. Maine Coastal Servs., 449 A.2d 362, 365 (Me.1982). The only tie between Giberson Buick and these claims is that the alleged torts were committed by Giberson Buick's insurance carrier and arose from surveillance activities in which the insurer was attempting to determine if Hawkes was still incapacitated. Although the causal link is remote, we cannot say that the claims did not originate or have their source in Hawkes' employment. Therefore, the personal injury claims meet the arising out of prong. [¶ 13] Going on to the final step in the analysis, we determine whether the personal injury claims arose in the course of Hawkes' employment. Arising in the course of employment means that the injury must have a relationship in time and location with the employment. See Hebert v. Int'l Paper Co., 638 A.2d 1161, 1162 (Me.1994). In Hebert, the plaintiff's mental distress injury was caused by signs posted at his place of employment which demeaned the plaintiff who was at home recuperating from a work-related accident. Id. at 1162-63. We held that the exclusivity provision of the Act was not applicable because even though the mental distress injury may have arisen out of the employment, it did not arise in the course of employment. Id. at 1162. Arising in the course of employment requires focusing on the temporal and spatial circumstance of the worker's sustaining of injury. Id. Hawkes' injuries caused by the surveillance actions of Commercial Union did not arise in the course of his employment because the injury was not related in either time or space to his employment. His employment ended in 1984, eight years before these claims are alleged to have arisen. These torts occurred at and near his home; they did not occurred at Giberson Buick's place of business; and they did not occur in furtherance of the business of Giberson Buick. Thus, Hawkes' injury did not occur in the course of his employment. [¶ 14] Because the economic injuries suffered by Hawkes are not personal injuries and because the personal injury claims against Commercial Union did not arise in the course of his employment, the immunity and exclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act do not apply, and Commercial Union is not entitled to summary judgment on this ground.
[¶ 15] In their arguments the parties have relied on a trio of cases involving suits against employers and/or insurers by employees whose receipt of workers' compensation benefits was delayed, reduced, or denied and in which we have arrived at differing results. The first is Gibson v. Nat'l Ben Franklin Ins. Co., 387 A.2d 220, 223 (Me.1978), where we held that an insurer who wrongfully withheld workers' compensation benefits was not immune from liability in tort to the injured employee. We found that the case did not arise out of the employment relationship but out of [the employee's] relationship to the insurance carrier after her basic remedies as an injured employee had been settled through procedures provided by the Act. Id. at 222. [¶ 16] In Procise v. Elec. Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., 494 A.2d 1375, 1382 (Me.1985), however, we held that an insurer was immune from a suit for fraud, bad faith, and other claims in which the employee's basic contention was that he was wrongfully denied workers' compensation benefits. Procise claimed that his employer had persuaded him to apply for disability benefits instead of workers' compensation benefits and to state that his injury was not caused by a work accident. Id. at 1378. When he later applied for workers' compensation benefits, he settled his claim. Id. In his tort action he asserted that he had been denied workers' compensation benefits to which he was entitled by the actions of his employer, its insurer, and their agents. Id. at 1378-79. We noted that the Workers' Compensation Act contains a procedure to set aside a settlement agreement when there is a mistake of fact or fraud, but that Procise had not taken advantage of that procedure. Id. at 1382. We distinguished Gibson by stating that Gibson's claim arose not from her employment but from her relationship with the insurer after her workers' compensation claim had been settled, whereas Procise's claims arose from the initial handling of his workers' compensation claim. [5] Id. at 1382-83. [¶ 17] In Lavoie v. Gervais, 1998 ME 158, ¶ 11, 713 A.2d 335, 337, we held that an employer and its insurer were immune from suit where the employee alleged that he had been denied workers' compensation benefits because of fraud committed during the workers' compensation proceedings. Lavoie contended that the defendants and others had conspired to hide the true identity of the employer. Id. ¶ 5, 713 A.2d at 336. We held that the Act itself contains the exclusive remedy for fraud occurring during the course of the proceedings for benefits. Id. ¶ 13, 713 A.2d at 338; see 39-A M.R.S.A. § 321 (Pamph. 2000). We cited Procise for the proposition that when the tort action is based on a claim of wrongful denial of workers' compensation benefits, the Workers' compensation Act provides the exclusive remedy. Lavoie, 1998 ME 158, ¶ 13, 713 A.2d at 338. [¶ 18] We need not attempt to harmonize these cases, because they differ significantly from the instant case. [6] The injuries alleged in the three cases arose from the denial or delay of workers' compensation benefits. Hawkes, unlike the three plaintiffs in Gibson, Procise, and Lavoie, is not claiming that he is entitled to more workers' compensation benefits or that his receipt of benefits was interfered with or delayed. He does not complain about his benefits; he does not contend that they were delayed, denied, or reduced because of the actions of the tortfeasors. This is in sharp contrast to the gravamen of the complaints in Gibson, Procise, and Lavoie. For this reason, the holdings of Gibson, Procise, and Lavoie are inapplicable to this case. [7]