Court Opinion

ID: 9885039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:28:19.03864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:43.449744
License: Public Domain

FOLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority imposes liability on Stenberg beyond what is set forth in the Workers’ Compensation Act. The purpose of the workers’ compensation statute is to limit the liabilities and remedies of the employer as well as the employee. In Lambertson v. Cincinnati Corp., 312 Minn. 114, 257 N.W.2d 679 (1977), the Minnesota Supreme Court stated:
Worker’s Compensation * * * subjects almost all employers and employees to an essentially nonfault recovery system for accidents arising out of and in the course of employment. In exchange for guaranteed compensation for injury regardless of his own fault or solvency of at-fault fellow employees, the employee is limited to a fixed schedule of recovery and gives up any right to a common-law action against the employer.
Id. at 120-21, 257 N.W.2d at 684 (emphasis added).
Here, Stenberg has paid workers’ compensation benefits to Klemetsen pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 176.215, subd. 1, because its subcontractor was uninsured. Klemet-sen now seeks to sue Stenberg in tort. If Stenberg had been Mylan Klemetsen’s actual employer and not just his “statutory employer,” she clearly would not be allowed to bring a wrongful death action against Stenberg. Minn.Stat. § 176.031. Yet the majority wants to carve out an exception to allow Klemetsen to do so, because they are troubled by the fact that “appellant would be deprived of the ability to bring suit against a potential defendant solely because of the happenstance of Klemetsen’s employment by an uninsured subcontractor.” I, however, am troubled by the fact that Stenberg is, under the majority’s analysis, subject to double liability. While I recognize it is within a general contractor’s power to make certain that it’s subcontractor is insured, I do not think the imposition of double liability on Stenberg is just and equitable.
*892If we decide that Stenberg is an “employer” for purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act and impose liability for workers' compensation payments, it does not seem to me that we can then say, for purposes of a civil action, Stenberg is not an “employer.” Section 176.031 clearly states that the liability of the employer is exclusive:
The liability of an employer prescribed by this chapter is exclusive and in the place of any other liability to such employee, his personal representative,***.
Minn.Stat. § 176.031 (1986) (emphasis added).
The Minnesota Supreme Court has recently had the opportunity to expand the employers’ liability under the exclusive remedy provision but has declined to do so. See Kaess v. Armstrong Cork Co., 403 N.W.2d 643 (Minn.1987). In Armstrong, the supreme court noted:
Through the years we have upheld the legislative mandate of the exclusive remedy provision by maintaining the narrowness of the intentional tort exception. * * * We reiterated the exclusivity of the Workers’ Compensation Act insofar as it provided any compensation to an employee for accidental or other injuries suffered by the employee.
Id. at 644 (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
Previous decisions by the supreme court bar double liability on behalf of the employer. See Wandersee v. Brellenthin Chevrolet Co., 258 Minn. 19, 102 N.W.2d 514 (1960). There, the Minnesota Supreme Court held:
Another rule which has grown out of the administration of the Workmen’s Compensation Act in this state is that the injured employee will not be permitted a double recovery. He is not permitted to keep both the amount of his damage compensation award and the amount of his common-law recovery. If the common-law damage action is brought by the injured employee, the employer is permitted to deduct from any compensation payable to him by the net amount of the employee’s recovery in his damage action; and if the damage action is brought by the employer, the employer is required to pay to the injured employee only that amount of the net recovery in excess of the amount of compensation payable by the employer. This means that the employer receives or is credited with so much of the common-law recovery as is necessary to reimburse the employer for his compensation outlay. The injured employee therefore receives either the common-law recovery or the statutory compensation, whichever is greater, but not both.
Id. at 23, 102 N.W.2d at 517 (emphasis added).
I would affirm the trial court’s entry of summary judgment.