Court Opinion

ID: 9844370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:01:50.111109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:33.769601
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice
(concurring specially):
The Employers’ Liability Act, I.C. § 44— 1401 et seq., was enacted by the legislature in 1909 and has remained intact without amendment. When Idaho first enacted workmen’s compensation laws in 1917, most of the coverage of § 44-1401 et seq., was impliedly repealed because it was covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Consequently, there has been very little application or judicial construction of the Employers’ Liability Act.
The majority having concluded, and correctly so, that defendant respondent Allen was not operating a “warehouse” within the meaning of I.C. § 44-1401 of the act, and it appearing that the activities of the respondent do not come within any of the other categories of the act, then none of the act’s other provisions concerning assumption of the risk (I.C. § 44 — 1401(6)), contributory negligence, (I.C. § 44-1402), or the fellow-servant rule (I.C. § 44 — 1403) are applicable since those subsequent sections specifically provide that, “The master or employer shall not be liable under any of the provisions of section 44-1401 . . . .” I.C. §§ 44-1402, 44-1403. Thus, this Court having concluded that the defendant was not within the provisions of the Employers’ Liability Act, none of those statutory defenses were applicable, and the case should be tried on general common law principles.
That conclusion raises the issue of whether or not there is such a thing as a common law fellow-servant rule in Idaho in the absence of a cause of action based upon the Employers’ Liability Act. The majority assumes that there is, and willingly engrafts upon it the exception promulgated by the Washington Supreme Court in Plemmons v. Antles, 52 Wash.2d 269, 324 P.2d 823 (1958), which provides that if the instrumentality by which the injury is inflicted is under the exclusive control of the negligent employee, then the fellow-servant doctrine is not applicable. The rationale of the Washington cases “is based on the theory that the exclusive control of the vehicle which creates the danger is a nondelegable duty and remains the responsibility of the master.” Bennett v. Messick, 76 Wash.2d 474, 457 P.2d 609 (1969), at 610. This exception enlarged the existing common law exception to the fellow-servant doctrine which denied application of the rule where the negligent employee was in a position of authority or supervision over the injured employee. Buss v. Wachsmith, 190 Wash. 673, 70 P.2d 417 (1937); see Am.Jur.2d, Master and Servant, § 332 (1970). In both instances the negligent employee stands as a “vice principal” rather than a fellow-servant, and his negligence is thus imputed to the employer.
The exception engrafted on to the fellow-servant rule by the Washington court really raises the basic question of what place the fellow-servant doctrine has in our present day system of jurisprudence. While this Court on one occasion did deny *873relief to an injured employee because of the fellow-servant doctrine, Zienke v. Northern Pacific RR Co., 8 Idaho 54, 66 P. 828 (1901), in subsequent cases the Court has upheld factual findings by the jury that the negligent employee and the injured employee were not fellow-servants. Johnson v. Stanger, 95 Idaho 408, 510 P.2d 303 (1973); Brayman v. Russell & Pugh Lumber Co., 31 Idaho 140, 169 P. 932 (1917). With the advent of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which eliminates any cause of action in tort in most situations where the fellow-servant rule would otherwise be applicable, and in view of the exception carved out by the Washington court which the majority of this Court has now accepted, there appears to be very little if anything left of the old common law fellow-servant rule in this state.
An analysis of the language of the fellow-servant rule as set out in I.C. § 44— 1403 sheds little light on the. legislative policy regarding negligence of a fellow employee. That section excuses the employer from liability only if the injury is caused “by the incompetency of a coemployee.” Nowhere in that section is negligence or intentional conduct even mentioned. If the word “incompetency” is used in its usual context, i. e., mental incompetency, that section is really inapposite to the problem now before the Court on the question of whether or not an employer will be liable for injury to an employee caused by the negligence of a co-employee.
Since I.C. § 44 — 1403 provides no policy justification for the fellow-servant doctrine, and since the fellow-servant doctrine is obviously inconsistent with the recent trends in the law of negligence which have, among other things, eliminated the defenses of sovereign immunity, spousal immunity and contributory negligence, substituting comparative negligence therefor, this Court should expressly reject the fellow-servant doctrine as a common law principle in the state of Idaho and allow the negligence of a co-employee to be imputed to the employer under general agency principles. The fellow-servant rule, which is really a doctrine of employer immunity, is a philosophy of another era and has no place in our present day jurisprudence.
Regarding the experiment with the tractor which is discussed at length in the majority opinion, I am of the opinion that the circumstances were too dissimilar to make that a valid experiment and on retrial would direct the trial judge to refuse that evidence.