Court Opinion

ID: 9798073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:36:32.680599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:00:38.624312
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice,
concurring in part, and dissenting in part:
[ 54 I concur in the analysis advanced by my colleagues regarding the application of the intentional injury exception to the Workers' Compensation Act. However, in a case such as the one before us where the claimant-employee has elected to pursue the benefits afforded under the Workers' Compensation Act, I believe doing so is an election of remedy by the claimant that prohibits further suit against the employer under any exelusion from the Act. Simply put, either a claim falls within the Act, or it does not as a result of some exception to the Act's applicability. It cannot be both. If an employee injured on the job elects to pursue the benefits of the Act, that decision brings with it the burdens of the Act too, namely the exelu-sive remedy provisions applicable to the employer. As a result, although I agree the district court got the law wrong, I believe it got the result right. I would affirm on that basis.