Court Opinion

ID: 9596988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:54:50.887548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:36.323475
License: Public Domain

*784Wilson, Justice,

concurring:

Although I concur in the decision in this case, I cannot subscribe to language in the opinion and in Syllabus No. 2 indicating that wanton misconduct, if alleged and proved, would not sustain an employee’s action against an employer for injury by deliberate intention under W. Va. Code, 23-4-2.
This case was readily decided without reference to “deliberate intention,” and I am concerned that the language of the opinion and Syllabus No. 2 will do much mischief in future actions by employees against employers in which the question of the employer’s “deliberate intention” could, in pleadings and proof, be fairly raised under the language as used in W. Va. Code, 23-4-2.
When this language was first confronted by this Court, it seemed that it was viewed reasonably and was so interpreted as to give an employee the benefit of a cause of action left open to him by the statute. Although the standards of pleading and proof were intended to be strict, there was no apparent effort to define “deliberate intention” in such terms as to impose what now amounts to a higher standard of pleading and proof than would be required in pleading and proving a charge of murder.
A brief chronological review of the principal cases addressing the problem will serve to show the development of a rigid and restrictive interpretation whose effect has been to choke off any rational exercise of the valuable right of action which the Workmen’s Compensation statute preserved for employees against employers.
In Collins v. Dravo Contracting Co., 114 W. Va. 229, 234-35, 171 S.E. 757 (1933), this Court took a reasonable approach to the requisites of an employee’s statement of a valid claim against an employer for injury by “deliberate intention.” In commenting upon facts alleged in plaintiffs declaration, the Court stated:
*785“If the defendant permitted the conditions set forth in the declaration to exist; if they were conditions that would naturally result in injury or death to its employees, and lent themselves to that purpose; if the defendant, prior to the happening that resulted in the death of plaintiff’s decedent, knew full well that such conditions existed; then, however difficult the proof may be when it comes to that, as a matter of pleading, we cannot see why the very conditions alleged as matters of fact might not have been permitted to continue with the deliberate intent on the part of the employer, and with a design, that their continuance should cause injury or death or both to its employees.”
Then, in Maynard v. Island Creek Coal Co., 115 W. Va. 249, 253, 175 S.E. 70 (1934), this Court said:
“It may be that the carelessness, indifference and negligence of an employer may be so wanton as to warrant a judicial determination that his ulterior intent was to inflict injury. But in the very nature of things, a showing which would warrant such finding would have to be clear and forceful in high degree.”
However, in Allen v. Raleigh-Wyoming Mining Co., 117 W. Va. 631, 186 S.E. 612 (1936), the Court seemingly almost closed the door on actions by employees against employers when it stated in its Syllabus that:
“[A] specific intent on the part of the employer to produce the injury must be shown to support a recovery in such case.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In Brewer v. Appalachian Constructors, Inc., 135 W. Va. 739, 65 S.E.2d 87 (1951), this Court apparently permitted employees to have a peek into the room beyond when it stated that the employee must allege facts showing “or clearly implying such intent”. But then, in Syllabus No. 3, the Court stated that negligence, however wanton, does not supply such intent. Perhaps the Court was at*786tracted by the niceties of tort-law semantics and could not permit itself to think in terms of the well-known law of inferences permitted from established facts — a staple of the criminal law by means of which “intent,” “malice,” and other elements of criminal conduct are frequently established.
I see no reason why this matter should remain in confusion or continue to be so severely restricted as to be meaningless to employees who are the victims of the most atrocious callousness of employers.
In other contexts, this Court has not had difficulty with the concept o'f wanton misconduct.
For example, in Kelly v. Checker White Cab, Inc., 181 W. Va. 816, 822, 50 S.E.2d 888 (1948), this Court recognized, with approval, language from the Virginia case of Thomas v. Snow, 162 Va. 654, 174 S.E. 837, 839, as follows:
“Negligence conveys the idea of heedlessness, inattention, inadvertence; willfulness and wantonness convey the idea of purpose or design, actual or constructive.”
It would seem reasonable that, if wantonness conveys the idea of purpose or design, actual or constructive, then evidence sufficient to show wanton misconduct and injury resulting therefrom should be considered sufficient to permit a jury to find both deliberation and intent.
It is further peculiar that this Court has failed to take a strong position with reference to the expression “deliberate intention” when it has not struggled at all with the concept of willful misconduct when applied to an employee. For example, in Young v. State Compensation Commissioner, 123 W. Va. 299, 303, 14 S.E.2d 774 (1941), when it was dealing with a charge of willful misconduct on the part of an employee, this Court stated:
“Knowledge of the statute or rule promulgated and deliberate and intentional violation of either *787constitutes willful misconduct.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In any further consideration of this matter, the Court might be well-advised to study the logical implications of language found in W. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts 185 (4th ed. 1971), in which it is stated that:
“The usual meaning assigned to ‘wilful,’ ‘wanton’ or ‘reckless,’ according to taste as to the word used, is that the actor has intentionally done an act of an unreasonable character in disregard of a risk known to him or so obvious that he must be taken to have been aware of it, and so great as to make it highly probable that harm would follow. It usually is accompanied by a conscious indifference to the consequences, amounting almost to willingness that they shall follow; and it has been said that this is indispensable.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In a proper case, this Court should make an effort to state, for the benefit of employees, that it will permit “deliberate intention” to be established in accordance with some such standard.
It is time that we define a rule of law which permits employees to be treated as human beings whose hurts and sufferings are fully compensable. We should no longer permit employers knowingly to disregard safety standards, safety statutes, safety codes and safety warnings and, then, be immunized from liability by a restrictive judicial interpretation of “deliberate intention” which is illogical and contrary to the clear intent of the Workmen’s Compensation statute.1

 See 72 W. Va. L. Rev. 90 (1970).