Court Opinion

ID: 9550038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:28:15.00558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:13.913756
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
concurring in the opinion of Chief Justice MACY and joining in the decision provided by Justice CARDINE in his special concurrence.
The divisiveness of the constitutional issue presented in these cases and the basic importance of these appeals not only to justice and the Wyoming court system but to every citizen of this state is identified by the fact that each Wyoming Supreme Court Justice will have written in contribution to this decision. Since I wrote in dissent to disclose the constitutional infirmity in Mills v. Reynolds, 807 P.2d 383 (Wyo.1991), before this court granted rehearing, I find it necessary only to synchronize the majority view.
In constitutional contemplation, this dialogue travels through Wyoming law far wider than today’s issue considering denied justice for injured workers. Our understanding has to be addressed here about the judicial responsibility to protect constitutional guarantees and assure some access for each citizen to enter the courthouse and seek justice for injuries sustained from misconduct, gross negligence or intentional harm committed by another. Mills/Bunker are not remedy cases involving public policy directive legislation; these cases require us to consider the propriety of a total elimination of any right of access for court relief after injury.
Despite this broader perspective, it is important to recall on this emotional and significant philosophical litigative dispute what I wrote in prior dissent:
In simplest terms, the end result of W.S. 27-14-104(a) and the majority holding in these cases is that everyone loses except the wrongdoer. The injured employee loses because he is denied the opportunity to recover damages for injuries caused by a culpably negligent or intentionally tortious co-employee. The employer loses because he is unable to minimize his premium contributions to the Worker’s Compensation fund and because employees protected with absolute immunity are less motivated to share responsibility for a safe work place. The Worker’s Compensation fund loses because it is unable to recover benefit payments otherwise due through the Act’s third-party recovery lien provision. Ultimately, the citizens of Wyoming lose because the legislature and the majority of this court abandon the Wyoming Constitution and extinguish protected rights. The only overt winner is a criminal, culpably negligent or intentionally tortious co-employee who escapes liability and receives opportunity carte blanche to act with impunity. The covert winner is the general insurance liability carrier whose claim costs are reduced and whose actual coverage is compressed.
I would find W.S. 27-14-104(a) unconstitutional and would reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment. By so doing, I would open the courthouse doors to employees injured at the hands of culpably negligent, criminal or intentionally tortious co-employees. It is constitutionally impermissible, in my opinion, to legislate a more dangerous work place by eliminating rights to justice for the laborers. We reverse a century of industrial effort to accomplish work place health and safety.
* * * ‡ * *
An employee injured at the hands of his criminal, culpably negligent or intentionally tortious co-employee constitutionally should be given an opportunity to recover damages for his physical harm. Because W.S. 27-14-104(a) clearly violates protected rights within the Wyoming Constitution, I [concur now in opposition to any] compulsion exclusion of justice and near intentional invitation for death or serious injury to stand at the shoulder of employees who are engaged in service in the extrahazardous Wyoming work places.
Mills, 807 P.2d at 399-410 (footnotes omitted).
*60I concur with the decision advanced in the court’s opinion authored by Chief Justice Macy. In eliminating an injured employee’s cause of action against an intentionally tortious, culpably negligent or criminal co-employee acting within the scope of his employment, Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a) (1991) will violate the Wyoming Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection by denying an injured employee the right to redress a wrong and recover damages. In so deciding, I agree with Chief Justice Macy that the right to access to the courts is and always has been a fundamental right guaranteed under Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 8.
I completely join with Justice Cardine in his special concurrence, except in belief that there is more than one reason to hold Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a) to be unacceptably contrary to guarantees provided in the Wyoming constitution.1 I explicitly join in that portion of his special concurrence which sets forth the proposition that the Wyoming State Legislature could not adopt Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a) in the absence of an amendment to Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4. See Mills, 807 P.2d at 406-07, Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting. In creating that constitutional provision, the intent of the framers of the Wyoming Constitution was clearly to preserve the right to recover damages for wrongful injury or death. Although amended on two different occasions in this century to permit adoption and subsequent expansion of worker’s compensation coverage, Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4 — as it exists at this time — still does not countenance legislation which effectively allows intentional injury or death to occur without liability. Subject only to the closely limited immunity for the employer, that constitutional provision continues our founder’s determination to protect an individual from becoming a societal discard by legislative pronouncement.
It should come as no surprise that I view with antagonism and deep adjudicatory concern any conceptualization that the opportunity was provided in the Wyoming Constitution, despite articles 1 and 2 of its text defining declaration of rights and separation of power, for either the legislature by legislation or the judiciary by acquiescence to lock the doors and throw away the key and close down the courthouse to deny access to justice to anyone who accepts and believes:
§ 1. Power inherent in the people.
All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness; for the advancement of these ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper.
§ 2. Equality of all.
In their inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all members of the human race are equal.
§ 7. No absolute, arbitrary power.
Absolute, arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority.
§ 8. Courts open to all; suits against state.
All courts shall be open and every person for an injury done to person, reputation or property shall have justice administered without sale, denial or delay. Suits may be brought against the state in such manner and in such courts as the legislature may by law direct.
Wyo. Const., art. 1, §§ 1, 2, 7, and 8.
As I will discuss more fully at a later time in another case, the “freemen” provision in Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 7 is particular to Wyoming by constitutional inclusion almost alone among the several states. No one has otherwise answered for me how a person can be free if authoritative government denies opportunity to justice by denial of access to the courts. White v. State, 784 P.2d 1313, 1322 (Wyo.1989), Urbigkit, *61J., dissenting; Hoem v. State, 756 P.2d 780 (Wyo.1988).
A major neglect and defect in interpretive understanding of the Wyoming Constitution is to assume some predisposing meaning to it which may have recently been expostulated by a totally separate court system. The United States Constitution is barely mentioned in debates among those who were present in 1889 to write the Wyoming Constitution, and the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution were not mentioned at all. In that time, the drafters of the Wyoming Constitution were creating rights for their frontier society in Wyoming to be protected under the Wyoming Constitution. The Washington, D.C.-governed Bill of Rights meant little for protection of citizens under laws and activities to be enacted or enforced through Wyoming state government. Decades would come and go before selective incorporation would add, if it did, protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to deter incursion against individual rights by acts of the state of Wyoming and its agents.
In State v. Peterson, 27 Wyo. 185, 213, 194 P. 342, 350 (1920), this court held that the search and seizure provisions of the United States Constitution did not constrain the state:
As to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it has been held to operate solely on the federal government, its courts and officers, and not as a limitation upon the powers of the states. * * * The state Legislature, officers and courts being limited in this respect by the provisions of the state Constitution.
Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court, under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, has held Bill of Rights protections apply to the states. See, e.g., Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963) (Sixth Amendment right to counsel); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) (exclusionary rule); Wolf v. People of the State of Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949) (Fourth Amendment search and seizure); Near v. State of Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931) (First Amendment freedom of press); and Fiske v. State of Kansas, 274 U.S. 380, 47 S.Ct. 655, 71 L.Ed. 1108 (1927) (First Amendment freedom of speech).
Moreover, as we trace back into our history of constitutional heritage, we find that the Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence were very familiar to and closely considered in philosophy by that highly talented group of relatively young Wyoming men. The rights of freemen, Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 7, did have a place in our heritage.
We have also granted to all the free men of Our Kingdom, for Us and Our heirs for ever, all the liberties underwritten, to have and to hold to them and their heirs of Us and Our heirs.
Magna Charta.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed * * *.
The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S.1776).
In my opinion, the Wyoming Constitution explicitly directs that an employee who is injured at the hands of his culpably negligent, intentionally tortious or criminal co-employee should have an opportunity to recover damages for his physical harm. “Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 8, when read in conjunction with Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4, forbids unlimited legislative discretion to close the doors of the courts in this state to workers intentionally injured by co-employees.” Mills, 807 P.2d at 401-02, Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting (footnote omitted).
Differing from Justice Golden in his dissent, I cannot accept a neutered capacity and adjudicatory indignity in application to the grand promise and intendment of Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 8 permitting extraction of the concept that the clear constitutional *62command really provides no guarantee of protectable interest to the Wyoming litigant. Overtly, Hoem, 756 P.2d at 784, Thomas, J., specially concurring, is explicitly directed to the contrary. My continued belief is also expressed in Cooney v. Park County, 792 P.2d 1287, 1303 (Wyo.1990) (Urbigkit, J., dissenting), cert. granted and judgment vacated — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2820, 115 L.Ed.2d 965 (1991) and White, 784 P.2d at 1354, Urbigkit, J., dissenting.
Even, however, if we give full credence to some conception that Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 8 provides no limitation on legislative authority to extinguish basic rights of men, women, children and the elderly to recover from injury, I would still find that the Wyoming Constitution by other sections precludes the special interest legislation found in Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a) by selectively eliminating an injured worker’s right for access to the courts.2 Justice Cardine demonstrated that Wyo.Const. art. 10, § 4 cannot be circumvented by “granting total immunity to coemployees causing injury or death [to eliminate] the right to recover damage and [limit] the amount of damage to be recovered.” Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 8, whether debased or not, does not determine the Wyo.Const. art. 10, § 4 preclusion against legislative attack on a citizen’s right to recover damages for sustained injury-
My objection to structural amendments to the Wyoming constitutional guarantees present in our Bill of Rights, does not, however, end at the doorstep of even Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 8 and Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4. I continue to believe that at the Wyoming constitutional convention, there in that hot summer of 1889, that a most scholarly, extremely well educated and thoughtful group had an understanding of government and a concern for providing clearly stated, carefully designed and separately enumerated constitutional guarantees.
The question we again ask is whether the legislature can totally eliminate a right for recovery to a co-employee whether the charged conduct was accidental, negligent, grossly wrongful, or even intentionally committed physical injury. Clearly, that right to legislate in such a fashion is not provided by the worker’s compensation employer exception added by electoral vote on November 3, 1914:
The right of each employee to compensation from the fund shall be in lieu of and shall take the place of any and all rights of action against the employer contributing as required by law to the fund in favor of any person or persons by reason of the injuries or death.
Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4 (emphasis added).
Where then is the authority for deprivation of rights possibly accorded to the legislature for enactment of Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a)? Finding nowhere, I continue to believe the statute is constitutionally unpalatable under Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 1, power inherent in the people; Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 2, equality of all; Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 6, due process of law; Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 34, uniform operation of general law; Wyo. Const, art. 3, § 27, special and local laws prohibited; but also in particular, Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 7, “[ajbsolute, arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority.”
No one would suggest that a rancher’s right to live on a ranch is subject to a legislative preclusion nor that the educator’s occupation can be arbitrarily abolished for all of those found in the class. The guest statute ended by conclusion un*63der Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 34, the uniformity clause; Nehring v. Russell, 582 P.2d 67 (Wyo.1978), that its discrimination could not be accepted constitutionally. So likewise, I fail to find in the basket of protections carefully produced and supplied by our constitutional founding fathers of Wyoming that a laborer’s right to claim damage from others than the employer can ever be denied by prohibiting legislation.
Alternatively, in further answering the question that the statutorily created denial of court access cannot be constitutionally justified, I would add support for this decision from the action of the state constitutional convention in establishing the obligation of society to protect the state work force. We should recognize in the terms of Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a), as what it is to be — an unsafe work place act — that there is preclusive violation of two other constitutional provisions, Wyo.Const. art. 1, § 22, protection of labor — “[t]he rights of labor shall have just protection through laws calculated to secure to the laborer proper rewards for his service and to promote the industrial welfare of the state” — and Wyo. Const, art. 19j § 7:
It shall be unlawful for any person, company or corporation, to require of its servants or employees as a condition of their employment, or otherwise, any contract or agreement whereby such person, company or corporation shall be released or discharged from liability or responsibility, on account of personal injuries received by such servants or employees, while in the service of such person, company or corporation, by reason of the negligence of such person, company or corporation, or the agents or employes thereof, and such contracts shall be absolutely null and void.
Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a) actually violates the protected right to redress injuries in contravening three foundational precepts of the Worker’s Compensation Act. First, the statute promotes a less safe and less harmonious work place environment because fellow employees may by gross negligence or intentional act injure with impunity and everyone remains at risk subject only to what can be done for self-protection. An unsafe work place not only creates significant unnecessary inefficiencies, but by the stress and strain created adds further danger to everyone present. Second, the statute serves to undermine the financial solvency of the Worker’s Compensation fund because it eliminates a potential source of reimbursement for the coffers under Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-105(a) (1991) (the fund is entitled to reimbursement for payments made to an injured employee covered under the Act). Finally, because Wyo. Stat. § 27-14-104(a) eliminates viable incentives for work place safety, the more-likely-to-be injured worker will bear the brunt of his injuries while his severely negligent or intentionally tortious co-employee escapes liability. Mills, 807 P.2d at 404-06, Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting.
We should understand that these appeals have nothing to do with immunity of employers. If co-employee liability issues were to have been added points of discussion in adoption of the constitutional amendment, they would have been included by statement of Governor Joseph M. Carey in his address to the Twelfth Wyoming State Legislature and no doubt would then have been added to the amendment text to provide additional exclusionary provision in the legislatively proposed constitutional amendment as an additional exception beyond “all rights of action against any employer * * *." Wyo. Const. art. 10, § 4. Surely, both that knowledgeable governor as well as the legislature knew how to include any co-employee if that had been their direction or intent. Neither was Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4 amended to provide for co-employee immunity when the last two sentences of the constitutional provision were added in 1986. It was not done with either amendment when added more than seventy years apart and we now address plastered-on authority for some further reductions in workers’ rights by attribution without any supporting language found in any amendatory provision. Plain meaning cannot take us to what Justice Thomas and Justice Golden seek in a basic diminution of a constitutional right legislated without authorizing change in the. constitution and *64directed to provide a special interest benefit which surely does not favor the injured worker. Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Wyoming State Bd. of Equalization, 813 P.2d 214 (Wyo.1991).
Clearly, dissertation in this opinion has nothing to do with principles and objectives included in the philosophy of worker’s compensation legislation, originally addressed in 1913 by Governor Carey and since frequently considered by legal scholars. Worker’s compensation state agency personnel in a Cheyenne, Wyoming office have little conversance and no authority for supervision regarding a drilling rig or sawmill safety requirements. What we do have is another immunity effort to limit the injured person’s right of recovery. I do not accept a reductio ad absurdum conjecture to justify denied justice to this specialized class of state citizens. If I should negligently injure my judicial assistant or law clerk while at work, they could sue; however, a pipefitter killed or badly injured by a fellow worker through a culpably negligent act is denied the same relief. The world did not come to an end during the period of time while the rights to recovery did exist under this state’s laws and a resumption of that right does not seem to me to be an implacable burden on the justice delivery system in providing redress from wrongful conduct.
Legislation which arbitrarily abolishes an entire cause of action and eliminates all right to redress for injury violates the Wyoming Constitution. Nehring, 582 P.2d 67; Markle v. Williamson, 518 P.2d 621 (Wyo.1974); Pleasant v. Johnson, 312 N.C. 710, 325 S.E.2d 244, 250 (1985). In my opinion, Wyo.Stat. § 27-14-104(a) is constitutionally unacceptable in these several definable ways. Consequently, I concur in the opinions of Chief Justice Macy and Justice Car-dine. Without re-recitation of everything I have previously written in these cases, I specifically concur in the result to determine that this challenged statute impermis-sibly denies rights of an injured person contrary to rights guaranteed by the Wyoming Constitution. “Particularly to be guarded against by a self-governing people is any deficiency in knowing what in human beings and in citizens is truly to be cherished.” George Anastaplo, Amendments to the Constitution of the United States: A Commentary, 23 Loyola U.Chi.L.J. 631, 848 (1992). Protection from physical injury at the work place is one such challenge.

. Starting from the last sentence of the second paragraph provided in Justice Cardine’s special concurrence, by striking the fifth word "only,” I totally concur and agree with his thoughtful and cogent analysis and conclusion.

. It is frequently difficult, if not totally impossible, to conceptualize how a defined "fundamental right” really differs from an “important substantive right” without a comprehensive case-by-case analysis. It seems that the difference is normally the result of a determination that the right will not be protected against legislative incursion and, as a consequence, in order to determine the test for evaluation, it is defined as only substantive and consequently not enforceable. The injured co-worker who suffers permanent disability will hardly know the difference between a substantive and a fundamental right except whether recovery is denied. See Carson v. Maurer, 120 N.H. 925, 424 A.2d 825 (1980) and Opinion of the Justices, 113 N.H. 205, 304 A.2d 881 (1973). Whether I find the interest addressed here to be fundamental or an important substantive right, I would reject constitutional efficacy to eliminate access to the courts through this legislation.