Court Opinion

ID: 9489508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:17:27.152193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:34.150114
License: Public Domain

*116COWEN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The decision of the district court dismissing the appellant-plaintiffs claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress should be affirmed for two separate and distinct reasons: the claim is clearly within the exclusivity provision of New Jersey Worker’s Compensation Act (the “WCA” or the “Act”) and not saved from the Act by the exception which permits claims for intentional wrongs. In addition, the conduct allegedly engaged in by the defendant clearly was not so outrageous so as to meet the minimal requirements under New Jersey law for a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I.

New Jersey Worker’s Compensation Law

The New Jersey Worker’s Compensation Act provides an automatic addition to any employment contract entered into in the state, unless the parties at the time of the employment contract expressly disclaim that the WCA be part of the employment agreement. N.J.S.A. 34: 15-8. Under the Act employees are barred from pursuing remedies against their employer or the employer’s agent relating to injuries received by reason of the employment relationship, other than a worker’s compensation claim under the Act. The pertinent provisions of the WCA, as relevant to this matter, states:
If an injury or death is compensable under this article, a person shall not be liable to anyone at common law or otherwise on account of such injury or death for any act or omission occurring while such person was in the same employ as the person injured or killed, except for intentional wrong.
N.J.S.A. 34:15-8 (emphasis added).
All claims by employees who suffered injury or illness by reason of their employment must be made pursuant to the administrative procedure set forth in the Worker’s Compensation Act. The sole exception which the Legislature carved out allowing an employee to sue the employer at law, and bypass the administrative framework of the Worker’s Compensation Act, is if the claim arose by reason of an “intentional wrong.” Id.
The law in New Jersey is well-settled. To invoke this narrow exception to the Worker’s Compensation Act, the employee must prove that the action of the employer was substantially certain to cause the harm. Millison v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 101 N.J. 161, 177, 501 A.2d 505 (1985), aff'd 115 N.J. 252, 558 A.2d 461 (1989). The New Jersey courts have been careful to explain that for an action to be “substantially certain” to be the cause of an injury or illness, the individual bringing about the injury must be found to have known with “virtual certainty” that the act would produce the injury. Bustamante v. Tuliano, 248 N.J.Super. 492, 498, 591 A.2d 694 (App.Div.1991).
Even when considering all inferences which can reasonably be drawn from the pleadings and plaintiff’s affidavits, the district court correctly concluded that the claim did not approach the narrow intentional wrong exception which is necessary under the Act for an employee to sue an employer at law for a work related illness.
In order to find refuge from the exclusivity provision of the Worker’s Compensation Act, an employee suffering from emotional distress and disability arising from employment cannot avoid the administrative provisions of the Worker’s Compensation Act by simply characterizing as “intentional” the employer’s acts which caused the illness. Even crediting plaintiffs allegations, and acknowledging that the conduct of her supervisor and employer was offensive and uncalled for, such conduct did not constitute an exception to the exclusivity provision of the Worker’s Compensation Act.
The New Jersey Legislature never envisaged that the intentional wrong exception would encompass the normal and even extreme comments which arise in an employment relationship. To hold, as the majority does today, that criticism and harsh statements concerning work practices, competence and ability of an employee are sufficient to constitute intentional wrongs within the meaning of the Worker’s Compensation Act is to be insensitive to the realities of the workplace. The majority fails to reckon with true employment reality. The workplace often is a hard-driving environment. Competitive imperatives may call for clear, sometimes insulting language, and one’s immediate supervisor will often be perceived as crude, impersonal and insulting. The work*117place is not afternoon tea or a day at the beach. We should not, and the New Jersey Legislature never envisaged that courts would, censor the language or dialogue in the workplace.
The district court analyzed the parameters of the intentional wrong exception and correctly concluded that plaintiffs allegations reflect that Baccigalupi engaged in conduct which was consistent with behavior or practices sometimes engaged in as part of the business environment or employment relationship. The majority may not like the employer’s words or conduct, and I agree that the words were uncouth and gross. But, like it or not, these are the words which the employer chose, and such is the opinion of some employers of their employees. We should not be in the business of scripting dialogue in the workplace.
Plaintiff relies heavily on Cremen v. Harrah’s Marina Hotel Casino, 680 F.Supp. 150 (D.N.J.1988). Cremen is clearly distinguishable from this matter. The plaintiff in Cre-men was raped by her supervisor who continued to physically abuse her with physical as well as mental encounters. The Cremen court correctly concluded that such assaults were not part of the landscape in any work environment and that the emotional distress which resulted from the conduct was outside of the Worker’s Compensation Act. The plaintiffs case before us in its totality is based solely on words. Words not even spoken to her. Words that she claims made her sick and should not have been used to describe her performance in the work environment or characterize her as an employee. Plaintiffs allegations are a far cry from Cre-men. She can cite no other New Jersey case in which the “intentional wrong exception” was found to apply to support her position.
The plaintiff has failed to allege facts which would take the admittedly harsh language out of the work environment. All of the remarks leveled by plaintiffs supervisor were directed to her work performance and all of his comments concern the employment relationship. Not one of the alleged “intentional wrongs” are removed from the proper subject of an employer’s evaluation and opinions concerning work performance or job competence. While we as individuals may have our view as to the proper language that should transpire at a work site, it does not lie in the province of the judiciary to instruct employers on proper etiquette or set ourselves up as the super-Emily Post of the workplace.
II.
Separate and apart from the allegations of the plaintiff not qualifying as an “intentional wrong,” the facts of the case as alleged by the plaintiff fall short of the New Jersey cause of action of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The New Jersey Supreme Court has defined this tort as requiring conduct “so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” Buckley v. Trenton Saving Fund Soc’y, 111 N.J. 355, 366, 544 A.2d 857 (1988). The conduct of the perpetrator of such a tort must be by its nature “so severe that no reasonable man could be expected to endure it.” Id.
Conduct which the New Jersey courts have found to meet this extremely high level of uncivilized conduct are such matters as a doctor knowingly and untruthfully advising parents that their child had cancer, Hume v. Bayer, 178 N.J.Super. 310, 317-19, 428 A.2d 966 (Law Div.1981); a hospital unable to locate the body of a dead baby for three weeks, Muniz v. United Hospitals Medical Center, 153 N.J.Super. 79, 379 A.2d 57 (App.Div.1977). The federal court has recognized the extreme difficulty of establishing such a claim in a mere employment relationship when the conduct alleged does not exceed the employer/employee relationship. See Fregara v. Jet Aviation Business Jets, 764 F.Supp. 940, 956 (D.N.J.1991); Alm v. Marriott Corp., No. 90-3648, 1991 WL 313897 (D.N.J. Nov. 6, 1991); Borecki v. Eastern Intern. Management Corp., 694 F.Supp. 47 (D.N.J.1988). After Buckley, it has been recognized that “New Jersey has prescribed a heavy burden for one alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Obendorfer v. Gitano Group, Inc., 838 F.Supp. 950 (D.N.J.1993).
The New Jersey Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear in Buckley, that when a claim is made for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the trial court must clear*118ly exercise a gatekeeping rule: “the court decides whether as a matter of law such emotional distress can be found, and the jury decides whether it has in fact been proved.” Id. at 367, 544 A.2d 857. It is the obligation of the trial court to determine in the first instance whether the plaintiff has set forth conduct which is sufficiently extreme such that a jury could reasonably conclude that outrageous conduct permits it to award damages. Contrary to the opinion of the majority, the district court did not overstep its role with respect to the claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress since the trial court is mandated under New Jersey law to determine in the first instance “whether reasonable minds could conclude that that alleged conduct has met [outrageous] standard.” See Obendorfer v. Gitano Group, Inc., 838 F.Supp. at 955; Borecki v. Eastern Intern. Management Corp., 694 F.Supp. at 61.
The district court correctly performed its function by determining that under New Jersey law the facts alleged as a matter of law failed to reach the elevated and high standard required for the cause of action of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court recognized that Baccigalu-pi’s statements, if credited, were “inexcusable” and “offensive,” but did not rise to the level of outrageous and unacceptable in a civilized society. Plaintiffs claims boil down to an assertion that her supervisor’s choice of words required her to put up with “more than the normal pressure of a job.” Being subject to “more than normal pressure” at work is a long distance from conduct that is “so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” Even plaintiff had a difficult time labeling Baceigalupi’s actions as anything beyond harmless threats, intimidation, and ridicule. Admittedly, the words allegedly spoken by Baccigalupi were strong and even harsh at times, but they were merely words. There is no proof, nor even an allegation, that Baccigalupi even touched her or that he set in motion any physical or other instrumentality to bring about an injury or illness.
III.
The majority is to be lauded in its desire to upgrade the repartee of the workplace and to be offended by language which it deems inappropriate. But the workplace is not the dance of a minuet and employers are not nursemaids. As judges we will rue the day we sat in judgment of the propriety of speech which should transpire in the workplace between an employer and his employee. I respectfully dissent.
Before: SLOVITER, Chief Judge, BECKER, STAPLETON, MANSMANN, GREENBERG, SCIRICA, COWEN, NYGAARD, ALITO, ROTH, LEWIS and MeKEE, Circuit Judges.