Court Opinion

ID: 9665288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:44:08.939051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:14.452271
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with Justice Levin’s conclusion that injuries intentionally imposed upon employees by employers are outside the immunity of the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy provision, MCL 418.131; MSA 17.237(131).1 I also agree that for an intentional injury to escape the exclusivity bar, the plaintiff need not prove that the employer intended the actual injury which occurred. I write separately to clarify the proper standard of the substantial certainty test adopted by this Court in the instant case.
Most state courts have recognized an exception to the exclusive remedy provisions of workers’ compensation acts in situations involving the intentional injury of an employee by an employer. See, generally, 2A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 68, pp 13-1 to 13-106. This exception, however, has generally been limited to circumstances involving an intentional assault by the employer on the employee when the employer acts in person. Id., § 68.11. The most common examples are cases involving assault and battery. See, e.g., Doney v Tambouratgis, 73 Cal App 3d 448; 140 Cal *29Rptr 782 (1977), vacated and aff'd on other grounds 23 Cal 3d 91; 151 Cal Rptr 347; 587 P2d 1160 (1979) (nude bar dancer attacked by employer after she refused to disrobe in employer’s private office); Schutt v Lado, 138 Mich App 433; 360 NW2d 214 (1984) (employee imprisoned by employer in office, assaulted and battered).
As the instant case illustrates, once an exception to the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy provision is acknowledged for intentional torts, the main issue is the type of "intentional” behavior which escapes the statutory bar. Under a rule described in Larson as "almost unanimous,” § 68.13, p 13-8, most courts hold that the employer’s injurious behavior must be genuinely intentional:
[T]he common-law liability of the employer cannot, under the almost unanimous rule, be stretched to include accidental injuries caused by the gross, wanton, wilful, deliberate, intentional, reckless, culpable, or malicious negligence, breach of statute, or other misconduct of the employer short of genuine intentional injury. [Id., pp 13-8 to 13-9. Citations omitted.]
Larson explains some of the allegations which, falling short of actual intent to injure, fail to escape the exclusive remedy bar:
Even if the alleged conduct goes beyond aggravated negligence, and includes such elements as knowingly permitting a hazardous work condition to exist, knowingly ordering claimant to perform an extremely dangerous job, wilfully failing to furnish a safe place to work, or even wilfully and unlawfully violating a safety statute, it still falls short of the kind of actual intention to injure that robs the injury of accidental character. [Id., pp 13-22 to 13-26.]
*30What type of conduct, then, constitutes an "intentional wrong” that is outside the exclusivity provision? Under standard tort analysis, "intent” is more than an actual desire to achieve the injury which occurs:
[I]ntent is broader than a desire or purpose to bring about physical results. It extends not only to those consequences which are desired, but also to those which the actor believes are substantially certain to follow from what the actor does. The actor who fires a bullet into a dense crowd may fervently pray that the bullet will hit no one, but if the actor knows that it is unavoidable that the bullet will hit someone, the actor intends that consequence. [Prosser & Keeton, Torts (5th ed), § 8, p 35. Emphasis added.]
Similarly, § 8A of the Restatement of Torts, 2d, states:
The word "intent” is used throughout the Restatement of this Subject to denote that the actor desires to cause [the] consequences of his act, or that he believes that the consequences are substantially certain to result from it.
Adopting the above definitions of "intent,” I would hold that the exclusive remedy provision of the workers’ compensation act does not bar civil suit where an employee alleges either that the employer intended the injury which occurred or that the employer acted despite the belief that the consequences were substantially certain to follow from what the employer did. As the New Jersey Supreme Court recently observed, the exclusive remedy provision should not be avoided for negli*31gence or gross negligence — "a virtual certainty” of injury must be proved. Millison v E I duPont deNemours & Co, 101 NJ 161, 178-179; 501 A2d 505 (1985). As Prosser & Keeton, supra, p 36, state:
[T]he mere knowledge and appreciation of a risk —something short of substantial certainty — is not intent. The defendant who acts in the belief or consciousness that the act is causing an appreciable risk of harm to another may be negligent, and if the risk is great the conduct may be characterized as reckless or wanton, but it is not an intentional wrong.
Similarly, comment f of the Restatement of Torts, 2d, § 500 describes the difference between recklessness and intentional conduct:
Reckless misconduct differs from intentional wrongdoing in a very important particular. While an act to be reckless must be intended by the actor, the actor does not intend to cause the harm which results from it. It is enough that he realizes or, from facts which he knows, should realize that there is a strong probability that harm may result, even though he hopes or even expects that his conduct will prove harmless. However, a strong probability is a different thing from the substantial certainty without which he cannot be said to intend the harm in which his act results. [Emphasis added.]
I would remand this case to the trial court for consideration of whether the above standard is met by the complaint in this case.
J. Brickley and Riley, JJ., concurred with Boyle,

 MCL 418.131; MSA 17.237(131) provides:
The right to the recovery of benefits as provided in this act shall be the employee’s exclusive remedy against the employer. As used in this section and section 827 "employee” includes the person injured, his personal representatives and any other person to whom a claim accrues by reason of the injury to or death of the employee, and "employer” includes his insurer, a service agent to a self-insured employer, and the accident fund insofar as they furnish, or fail to furnish, safety inspections or safety advisory services incident to providing workmen’s compensation insurance or incident to a self-insured employer’s liability servicing contract.