Court Opinion

ID: 9764855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:42:04.235816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:49.221978
License: Public Domain

The opinion of the Court was delivered by
VERNIERO, J.
The New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act, N.J.S.A. 34:15-1 to -128 (the Act), provides the exclusive remedy for claims against an employer when a worker is injured on the job, except for those injuries that have resulted from the employer’s “intentional wrong.” N.J.S.A. 34:15-8. Under that exception, the worker may pursue a common-law remedy in the Law Division. The narrow issue before us is whether plaintiff Lisa Mull is entitled to pursue a common-law remedy for work-related injuries sustained while employed at defendant Zeta Consumer Products. To resolve that issue, we must apply our recent decision in Laidlow v. Hariton Machinery Co., 170 N.J. 602, 790 A.2d 884 (2002). In so doing, we hold that plaintiff is entitled to proceed with her action in the Law Division.
I.
Briefly stated, these are the pertinent facts. Defendant employed plaintiff as a line operator at its plastic-bag manufacturing facility. One of plaintiffs duties required that she work with a machine known as a “winder,” which winds plastic bags onto spools for packaging and delivery. Nylon ropes turn the machine’s cylinders. Plastic frequently jammed the machine, sometimes causing the nylon ropes to break. Whenever that occurred, the employer required the line operator to clear the jam and replace the broken ropes, if any.
On March 5, 1997, plaintiff was operating the winder when it became jammed. Plaintiff turned off the machine by pressing the red stop button on the control panel. She then lifted a fiberglass *388guard, removed the lodged plastic, and began to replace the broken ropes. Suddenly, the winder began to operate, pulling plaintiffs left hand into the machine. Plaintiff sustained serious injuries, including amputation of her left pinky and ring fingers.
As a result of the incident, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited defendant for various safety violations. Several months before, OSHA had cited defendant for failing to provide its employees with so-called lockout/tagout procedures. Those procedures are set forth in federal regulations and essentially are designed to control the release of hazardous energy when a worker is servicing or performing maintenance on equipment or machinery. See 29 C.F.R. § 1910.147. Also prior to the date of plaintiffs injuries, another line operator, Edin Hasanovic, had been injured when his hand was pulled into the winder, although that prior incident did not occur in exactly the same fashion as had plaintiffs incident. Hasanovic stated that “[ojperators complained all the time about safety but nothing seemed to be done.”
Plaintiff filed a complaint in the Law Division, seeking damages against defendant based on an intentional-tort theory. Plaintiff submitted an expert report that expresses the view that defendant, purportedly motivated by a desire to enhance productivity, had altered the original design of the winder. It also refers to another machine known as a “bagger,” which was located ahead of the winder on the production line. The report states, in part:
A. The [winder’s] original steel hinged cover was replaced with a plexiglass cover.
B. The [winder’s] original safety interlock switches (to prevent operation of the machine any time the access cover was opened) had been removed and [were] not replaced with any other equivalent safety device.
C. The wiring and computer control for the operation of the incident winder machine and bagger machine had been modified to operate in a synchronous mode of operation whereby any time the bagger machine was energized, the winder would automatically “START-UP” without any operator intervention.
The report also indicates that there were no warnings posted on the winder to inform workers of its “ ‘sudden start-up’ capabilities” or of the fact that the safety-interlock switches had been *389removed. It describes other purported hazards such as “the lack of warnings and instructions to follow a prescribed LOCK OUT/ TAG OUT power termination requirement any time the operator was required to reach into the hinged cover area”; the absence of indicator lights that visually would confirm whether the winder was in an operable mode; and the fact that “[t]he STOP switch ... did not operate in a safe manner.” The report concludes that those “hazardous operating conditions” created a “virtual certainty” of injury to the machine’s operators.
In addition to her expert’s report, plaintiff submitted a certification of a co-employee, Ronald MeLane, who stated that he, too, had “observed many things that raised safety concerns.” According to that employee, he brought his concerns to management, “but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other.” He stated that he was concerned specifically about “the fact that the winder machine could be off and suddenly start up at any time the bagger machine was energized.” MeLane also described one occasion on which he had been working with the winder when it suddenly began to operate without warning while its power source supposedly was turned off. Although MeLane escaped injury on that occasion, he became “alarmed [ ] as to the likelihood of injury,” and notified his supervisor of what had occurred.
After discovery, defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiffs sole remedy resided within the Division of Workers’ Compensation. The trial court denied that motion. The court concluded that a reasonable jury could find that defendant’s conduct created a “substantial or virtual certainty” of injury, rising to the level of an intentional wrong. After granting defendant’s motion for leave to appeal, the Appellate Division summarily reversed the trial court’s decision in an unreported order.
Subsequent to that disposition, we decided Laidlow. There, we addressed the Act’s intentional-wrong standard and resolved certain conflicting interpretations of this Court’s prior decision in Millison v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 101 N.J. 161, 501 A.2d 505 (1985). We granted plaintiffs petition for certification *390and summarily remanded the matter to the Appellate Division for reconsideration in view of Laidlow. 172 N.J. 175, 796 A.2d 892 (2002). After the remand, the Appellate Division affirmed its prior judgment in an unreported opinion. We granted plaintiffs second petition for certification, 174 N.J. 361, 807 A.2d 193 (2002), and now reverse.
II.
Having described the Act’s legislative history most recently in Laidlow, we need not repeat it here. Suffice it to say that the Act embodies “an historic ‘trade-off whereby employees relinquish their right to pursue common-law remedies in exchange for prompt and automatic entitlement to benefits for work-related injuries.” Laidlow, supra, 170 N.J. at 605, 790 A.2d 884. The Act, however, does not capture all forms of conduct. Most relevant to the present dispute, “an employer who causes the death or injury of an employee by committing an ‘intentional wrong’ will not be insulated from common-law suit.” Id. at 606, 790 A.2d 884 (quoting N.J.S.A. 34:15-8).
In Laidlow, the employee had “suffered a serious and debilitating injury when his [gloved] hand became caught in a rolling mill he was operating at his place of employment^]” Id. at 606, 790 A.2d 884. The employee alleged that from 1979 to the date of his injury in 1992, the employer had disabled the mill’s safety guard. Id. at 608, 790 A.2d 884. He further alleged that the employer had placed the guard in its proper position only when OSHA inspected the plant. Ibid. The employee narrowly escaped injury on a previous occasion when “he was able to slip his hand out of the glove before it was pulled into the machine.” Id. at 607, 790 A.2d 884. Another employee had suffered a similar close call, and both near misses were reported to the employer prior to the incident that resulted in the plaintiffs injuries. Id. at 607, 790 A.2d 884.
*391On appeal, we reaffirmed an analytical framework for evaluating the Act’s exclusivity provision first articulated in Millison. We stated that
under Millison, in order for an employer’s act to lose the cloak of immunity of N.J.S.A. 34:15-8, two conditions must be satisfied: (1) the employer must know that his actions are substantially certain to result in injury or death to the employee, and (2) the resulting injury and the circumstances of its infliction on the worker must be (a) more than a fact of life of industrial employment and (b) plainly beyond anything the Legislature intended the Workers’ Compensation Act to immunize.
[Laidlow, supra, 170 N.J. at 617, 790 A.2d 884.]
That first condition embodies what has become known as Millison’s “conduct” prong; the second condition reflects the “context” prong. Id. at 614-15, 790 A.2d 884.
Applying the conduct prong in Laidlow, we observed that within the month prior to his incident, the plaintiff had “asked his supervisor three times to restore the guard because the unguarded machine was dangerous and because new and inexperienced employees would be operating it.” Id. at 621, 790 A.2d 884. We also emphasized that “the only time the guard was ever activated by [the employer] was when OSHA inspectors came.” Ibid. Based on those facts, in addition to “the prior close calls, [and] the seriousness of any potential injury that could occur,” we held that a reasonable jury could conclude that the employer “knew that it was substantially certain that the removal of the safety guard would result eventually in injury to one of its employees.” Id. at 622, 790 A.2d 884.
As for the context prong, we concluded:
[I]f an employee is injured when an employer deliberately removes a safety device from a dangerous machine to enhance profit or production, with substantial certainty that it will result in death or injury to a worker, and also deliberately and systematically deceives OSHA into believing that the machine is guarded, we are convinced that the Legislature would never consider such actions or injury to constitute simple facts of industrial life.

[Ibid.]

Lastly, we explained that “the same facts and circumstances” generally will be relevant to both the conduct and context prongs of the Millison test. Id. at 623, 790 A.2d 884. We stated that in *392evaluating a potential cause of action, a trial court must evaluate whether a plaintiff has satisfied each prong of the analysis. We further explained that determining whether the context prong has been satisfied “is solely a judicial function.” Ibid. “Thus, if the substantial certainty standard presents a jury question and if the court concludes that the employee’s allegations, if proved, would meet the context prong, the employer’s motion for summary judgment should be denied; if not, it should be granted.” Ibid.
III.
The facts in this case are similar to those found in Laidlow. Plaintiff alleges that her employer disengaged the winder’s critical safety devices, knowing of the dangerous consequences of such conduct. She asserts that Hasanovie’s prior accident, McLane’s safety concerns, and OSHA’s prior citations, all known to the employer, underscored the machine’s hazardous condition. According to plaintiffs expert, defendant’s purported failure to provide lockout/tagout procedures made harm to defendant’s employees predictable. We agree with the trial court that the foregoing facts, if proved, could result in a reasonable jury finding that defendant’s conduct created “substantial certainty” of injury consistent with the case law just cited.
Defendant contends that its lack of deception toward OSHA warrants a contrary conclusion. We disagree. Although the employer’s purported deception in Laidlow was a prominent factor in our analysis, we emphasized in that case that no one fact compelled our holding. In that respect, we stated as guidance to future courts and litigants that “our disposition in such a ease [involving removal of safety devices] will be grounded in the totality of the facts contained in the record[.]” Laidlow, supra, 170 N.J. at 623, 790 A.2d 884 (emphasis added). Following that approach here, we are persuaded that plaintiff has satisfied Millison’s conduct prong.
We also agree with plaintiff that she has satisfied the context prong. We again echo Laidlow. The Legislature would not have *393considered the removal of the winder’s safety devices, coupled with the employer’s alleged knowledge of the machine’s dangerous condition due to prior accidents and employee complaints, in addition to OSHA’s prior violation notices, “to constitute simple facts of industrial life.” Id. at 622, 790 A.2d 884. Plaintiff, therefore, has satisfied both prongs of Millison, entitling her case to proceed in the Law Division.
IV.
The judgment of the Appellate Division is reversed. The matter is remanded to the Law Division for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.