Opinion ID: 2036605
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Plaintiff's Suit Against His Coemployees.

Text: Under our Code, workers' compensation benefits are the exclusive remedy against an employer for acts covered by the statute. Iowa Code § 85.20(1). In addition, workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy against any other employee of such employer, provided that such injury, occupational disease, or occupational hearing loss arises out of and in the course of such employment, and is not caused by the other employee's gross negligence amounting to such lack of care as to amount to wanton neglect for the safety of another. Iowa Code § 85.20(2) (emphasis added). The requirements of this statute impose a substantial burden on a plaintiff attempting to sue a coemployee because it requires wanton neglect. In the first case decided under this gross negligence language, we noted: The term gross negligence is said to be nebulous, without a generally-accepted meaning: It implies conduct which, while more culpable than ordinary inadvertence or [i]nattention, differs from ordinary negligence only in degree, not kind. However, the legislature added a new dimension and a certain amount of refinement to the term gross negligence in section 85.20 by providing it must amount to wanton neglect for the safety of another. Similar to willful or reckless conduct, wanton conduct lies somewhere between the mere unreasonable risk of harm in ordinary negligence and intent to harm. Thompson v. Bohlken, 312 N.W.2d 501, 504 (Iowa 1981) (quoting Iowa Code § 85.20(2)) (other citations omitted). The key to liability under section 85.20(2) is a showing of wanton neglect. We discussed and illustrated the meaning of that term in Thompson: [A]uthorities distinguish between willfulness, characterized by intent to injure, and wantonness, which merely implies an indifference to whether the act will injure another. The difference is illustrated by comparing the throwing of an object with intent to strike another and throwing it without such intent, but believing that it will, in fact, strike another, and proceeding with indifference as to whether it does not. Wantonness is said to be less blameworthy than an intentional wrong only in that instead of affirmatively wishing to injure another, the actor is merely willing to do so. Id. at 505 (citations omitted). In Thompson we adopted the following test to establish gross negligence amounting to such lack of care as to amount to wanton neglect under section 85.20(2): (1) knowledge of the peril to be apprehended; (2) knowledge that injury is a probable, as opposed to a possible, result of the danger; and (3) a conscious failure to avoid the peril. Id. In applying this test, we view the evidence in the summary judgment record in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. The specific question is whether there is evidence that the defendants knew injury was a probable, as opposed to a possible, result of their actions and, nevertheless, proceeded with indifference. A deposition of the plaintiff established that pranks were common at Winnebago. The plaintiff himself had participated in several of them, including lighting a fire to the strings of aprons being worn by coemployees so many times the witness relating these events could not even estimate the number. On the day in question, a coemployee sneaked up behind Nelson and began to tape him. Other employees joined in, and he was taped like a mummy with duct tape. The plaintiff testified my hands and feet were taped. I couldn't move. His feet were taped together tight when his coemployee finished taping him. Seven (or possibly eight) men carried him a distance estimated by the plaintiff to be ten to fifteen feet to a shower, where he was dropped. Witnesses other than the plaintiff estimated it could have been as far as thirty feet. He said he did not believe anyone intended to drop him and the whole incident was a practical joke. Once taped, he did not resist because [i]t's kind of hard to move when you're taped up. The issue is whether, given the facts provided in the summary judgment record, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, could a reasonable fact finder conclude that injury to the plaintiff was a probable, as opposed to a possible, result. A probable result means a result that probably will occur. Probably is defined as that which seems reasonably ... to be expected: so far as fairly convincing evidence or indications go. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1806 (unabr. ed.1986). We do not believe a reasonable fact finder could conclude that, when a person who was supported by seven or eight full-grown men was carried a distance of only ten to fifteen (or as many as thirty) feet, at a height of only two feet, an injury was probable as opposed to possible. Applying the illustration in Thompson, carrying the plaintiff, believing that it would in fact result in injury to him and proceeding with indifference as to whether it does [or] not would be wanton conduct. The record in this case cannot reasonably be construed to support such a claim. We conclude the district court properly entered summary judgment in the suit against the coemployees. We affirm on both issues. AFFIRMED.