Court Opinion

ID: 9686369
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:45:25.01915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:49:01.221775
License: Public Domain

MADDOX, Justice
(dissenting).
I concur in the opinion in all respects except that portion which holds that Liberty Mutual Insurance Company as the compensation carrier is not immune from a third-party suit. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the conclusion reached by the majority that the trial court erroneously sustained Liberty Mutual’s demurrer to Count Four of the Complaint as last amended.
Under our Workmen’s Compensation laws, I think Liberty Mutual, as the compensation carrier, is not a “third person” for the purpose of a tort suit based upon its alleged negligence in conducting a safety inspection. We need not decide under what circumstances a compensation carrier could be liable as a third party tortfeasor.
*200I recognize that there has been a dramatic and fast-moving development in the law of third party liability since the first decision was reached in another jurisdiction that the compensation carrier could be sued as a third-party tortfeasor. This is the first time we have been asked to add our thinking, and I feel that the majority has made a mistake on this our first case. As I view the issue, we need only interpret our statute, which I think is materially different from the statutes being interpreted in the opinions cited by the majority in reaching their conclusion.
In any event, an analysis of the views of the other courts shows that the law in this area is still in the formative stage, and there is widespread disagreement, not only between different jurisdictions but also among judges on the same court. In some states the Legislatures have enacted statutes to reverse or confirm judicial holdings.
The majority has set out many of the decisions from other jurisdictions which have considered the question. There are decisions both ways- — some holding the compensation carrier to be subject to a third-party suit, others holding the contrary.1 The majority of these decisions would probably support Liberty Mutual’s position of immunity from suit, but I think it unnecessary, and probably unwise, to “count jurisdictions” because in some of them statutory backgrounds vary so widely that no meaningful comparison can be made. Courts construing statutes similar to ours appear to reach the same conchtsion I would reach in this case.2
Our Workmen’s Compensation Act, it seems to me, clearly shows that the compensation carrier is meant to be assimilated to the employer. Title 26, § 262(d), Code of Alabama, 1940, in pertinent parts, reads:
“The term ‘employer’ * * * shall if the employer is insured, include his insurer as far as applicable * * *”
I believe that the majority specifically fell into error when they concluded that:
“* * * If the Legislature had intended § 262(d) to require reading the word ‘employer’ to include ‘his insurer’ for all purposes wherever the word employer was ttsed in the Alabama Act, there would have been absolutely no necessity for amending § 312,3 extending to the insurer subrogation rights which had been given to the ‘employer’ to begin with. * * *” (Footnote added)
I think the provisions of § 312 relating to subrogation claims to which the majority attaches great significance are purely procedural and in no way limit, restrict or modify the definition of “employer” contained in § 262(d). As a matter of fact, Professor Larson, who is quoted extensively by the majority, thinks that our statutory definition of “employer” virtually disposes of the question of immunity of the compensation carrier. He writes:
“The main outlines of the controversy are by now sufficiently clear to permit a systematic analysis of this volatile and hotly-contested issue.
*201“One may begin by identifying two approaches to the question, which might be called the conceptual and the functional.
“The conceptual approach asks: who is the carrier? Is he a third party?
“The functional approach asks: what was the carrier doing? And what was the relation of that function to the act?
“Under the first approach, the emphasis is on trying to extract from the language of the act any clues on whether the carrier was meant to be assimilated to the employer, or in any other way excluded from the third-party category.
“For the sake of completeness, we may begin with statutes that virtually dispose of the issue by express language. Among these statutes, some of which, as we have seen, were deliberately enacted to reverse or confirm judicial holdings, are those of Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.”
See also: Comments, The Workmen’s Compensation Insurance Carrier as a Third Party Tortfeasor, 1 Conn.L.Rev. 183, 185.
The language of both § 262(d) and § 272 4 of Title 26, in my judgment, excludes all rights and remedies of the employee injured in the course of his employment other than those remedies granted under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. In view of this, I feel that my brothers in the majority have failed to give force to our statutes and as a consequence have unwittingly amended our Workmen’s Compensation laws. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.
LAWSON, and HARWOOD, JJ., concur.

. Sec collection of cases, Larson’s Workmen’s Compensation Law, Vol. 2, Section 72.90, p. 226.28.

. Illustrative cases are Williams v. U. S. F. & G., 358 F.2d 799 (4 Cir., 1966) and Brown v. Travelers Ins. Co., 434 Pa. 507, 254 A.2d 27 (1969).

. The portion of § 312 to which the majority refers reads:
“ * * * In the event the injured employee, or in ease of his death, his dependents, do not file suit against such other party to recover damages within the time allowed by law, the employer or the insurance carrier for the employer shall be allowed an additional period of six months within which to bring suit against such other party » * (Emphasis added.)

. “The rights and remedies herein granted to an employee shall exclude all other rights and remedies of said employee, his personal representative, parent, dependents or next of kin, at common law, by statute or otherwise on account of said injury, loss of services or death; and except as herein provided in article 1 and article 2 (as the case may be) of this chapter, no employer included within the terms of this chapter, shall be held civilly liable for any personal injury to or death of any workman due to accident while engaged in the service or business, of the employer, the cause of which accident originates in the employment; but nothing in this section shall be construed to relieve any employer from' criminal prosecution for failure or neglect to perform any duty imposed by law.”