Court Opinion

ID: 9567402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:53:31.729351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:35.724059
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Chief Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but would dispose of the appeal on the single issue of whether or not the Worker’s Compensation Act grants the employer absolute immunity from a tort action by the employee and/or his or her dependent. Section 27-12-103(a), W.S.1977, provides that the rights and remedies provided by the Worker’s Compensation Act for the “employee and his dependents” are in lieu of all other rights and remedies against the contributing employer. The contributing employer’s immunity from suit by the employer or his or her dependents is absolute. This protection from tort liability was the gain achieved by the employer in return for his contribution to the fund established for employees and dependents of employees who are killed or injured on the job and which benefits are made available without regard to all but the worker’s culpable negligence. This is what was contemplated by the framers of Art. 10, § 4, Wyoming Constitution, and the fact that § 27-12-103, supra, protects all employers contributing to the fund in behalf of the injured worker and his dependents, whether negligent or acting through wilful and wanton misconduct, is not, in my mind, subject to attack.
I am, however, in disagreement with the application to this case of the constitutional analysis expressed in Meyer v. Kendig, Wyo., 641 P.2d 1235 (1982). As I pointed out in my dissent in Meyer, the constitutional analysis with regard to Art. 10, § 4 is wrong, and it should not be applied here. The correct analysis in this case is simply to say that Art. 10, § 4 clearly intended the legislature to protect the employer from actions by his employee in all instances. Such a view is consistent with our past holdings which construe the Wyoming Worker’s Compensation Act as being in the nature of insurance. I therefore concur in the result reached in this case.