Court Opinion

ID: 9673407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:11:14.682345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:21.998452
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
There are only two versions of this tragedy. One, shown by the State in a prior murder trial, was alleged by the plaintiff. The other was asserted by the murderer at the same trial. The majority position, as I understand it, is to start with the murderer’s version and to imagine a scenario which might take the case outside workers’ compensation coverage and thus rescue this tort suit against the employer. Much as my heart goes out to the family of this victim I have a number of problems with the majority’s rescue. I think the trial court’s ruling was correct.
I. The plaintiff’s version is unequivocal. She alleges
that on or about September 5, 1985, Louise [the decedent] was working at her place of employment ... when between the hours of 5:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. a fellow employee, Bernard Hickman, violently assaulted, and stabbed Louise numerous times, resulting in her death.
The negligence which plaintiff alleges against the employer is six-fold:
(1) In failing to acquire proper and adequate information concerning the background of Hickman prior to his employment.
(2) In failing to warn co-employees of Hickman’s background for sexual assaults.
(3) In failing to take adequate steps to protect employees from Hickman.
(4) In failing to protect Louise from assault of employees.
(5) In allowing access to Hickman to dangerous instrumentalities which could cause injuries or death.
(6) In failing to provide adequate security for employees upon the premises at the time of Louise’s death.
We know some undisputed facts from the record made in Hickman’s trial. State v. Hickman, 337 N.W.2d 512 (Iowa 1983). We also know Hickman’s version.
We can take it as established that Louise was employed as a waitress at a Betten-dorf motel and that Hickman was employed there as a cook. Louise’s relationship with Hickman originated at work; the place of work necessitated contact between the two; Louise’s work assignment placed her in isolated proximity with Hickman; and the knife used in the murder belonged to the employer. Louise was stabbed thirty-nine times.
The employer’s insurance carrier has claimed a lien in this action under Iowa Code section 85.22(1) for death benefits paid upon Louise’s death.
In order to avoid the exclusive remedy provisions of Iowa Code sections 85.3(1) and 85.20, plaintiff maintains her daughter’s death could have arisen out of a private disagreement that was not related to her employment. On the other hand neither the plaintiff nor anyone for her has subscribed to Hickman’s version of the events: rather than the crude rape-murder of which he was convicted, Louise indicated to him (Hickman) by “looks” that she de*419sired to have sexual intercourse and freely went with him to the motel’s men’s room and did so. According to Hickman he thereafter became enraged because Louise taunted him by asserting he lacked sexual prowess and the knife attack followed. Plaintiff’s counsel vaguely mentions that Hickman had a version differing from the State’s. But the foregoing product of the twisted and desperate criminal mind has not been alleged or urged by the plaintiff. I am confident it never will be.
II. We have twice considered whether assaults by co-employees are compensable by way of workers’ compensation. In Everts v. Jorgensen, 227 Iowa 818, 289 N.W. 11 (1939) we affirmed an award to a motel clerk who was attacked while on duty by a recently fired co-employee. We rejected the employer’s argument that, because the attack was “for reasons personal to the employee” it did not occur “in the course of” or “arise out of” the employment:
They had never had any quarrels, cross-words or disagreements and ... there is nothing in the record which points to any conduct on the part of Everts to change this relationship and the commissioner reasons that the attack made upon claimant would have been made upon any other person who happened to be located where claimant was at the time the attack was made, the attack being “willful without reason, perhaps superinduced by stimulants when his impulse to aggression was beyond control,” or, being possessed at the time of an evil mind, made no attempt to control his impulse....
Id. at 827-28, 289 N.W. at 15-16.
In Cedar Rapids Community School v. Cady, 278 N.W.2d 298 (Iowa 1979) we affirmed an award of workers’ compensation benefits for an employee killed by a psychotic fellow employee. In holding the employee’s death “arose out of” his employment, we noted:
An employee who associates with other employees is exposed to the risk of injury arising from their acts or omissions. No difference in principle exists when the injury is caused by conduct resulting from an insane delusion rather than negligence or chance mishap. The resulting injury is equally a rational consequence of a hazard connected with the employment.
Id. at 302-03. Plaintiff believes the Cady holding extends only to cases where the attacker is deranged and argues there was no such finding regarding Hickman. It is of course true that the record here shows no adjudication of insanity. Indeed, Hickman must have been considered able to answer for his criminal conduct. On the other hand the record certainly accords Hickman no clean bill of mental health; his acts could scarcely be characterized as rational in the sense suggested here.
The actual or adjudicated state of Hickman’s mental health is not controlling however because Cady makes no such demand. Contrary to plaintiff’s contention, the Cady opinion requires no finding of a mental disorder on the part of the attacker before the worker-victim is to be compensated under the statute. The key language which established workers’ compensation in Cady equated the risk experienced by the attack victim with the risk any employee faces by reason of being “exposed to the risk of injury arising from [the] acts or omissions” of fellow employees, the resulting injury being “equally a rational consequence of a hazard connected with the employment.” 278 N.W.2d at 302-03.
Louise Sheerin, through her association with Hickman, was “exposed to the risk of injury arising from [Hickman’s] acts or omissions.” It is not required that Hickman be found “deranged” at the time; the injury is equally a rational consequence of a hazard connected with Louise Sheerin’s employment. Such a view comports with the broad reading of the workers’ compensation statute demanded by Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Shook, 313 N.W.2d 503, 506 (Iowa 1981).
My view is also supported by an observation of Professor Larson:
*420Assaults arise out of employment if the risk of assault is increased because of the nature or setting of the work, or if the reason for the assault was a quarrel having its origin in the work_ Assaults for private reasons do not arise out of employment unless, by facilitating an assault which would not otherwise be made, the employment becomes a contributing factor.
1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation § 11, at 3-161 (1985) (emphasis added). Louise Sheerin was exposed to the risk of this injury because of her employment. More than that, the isolated circumstances of her work at the time directly linked her to the assault which resulted in her death. Indeed, it is those same circumstances that make up plaintiffs claim of negligence against the employer. It seems plain to me that, under either suggested version of the tragedy, the injury was covered by workers’ compensation. Because the workers’ compensation remedy is exclusive this tort suit is precluded.
III. The majority opinion flies in the face of the fundamental scheme of workers’ compensation: absolute but limited liability for people injured or killed on the job. It is incredibly bad law because it unsettles the rights of both employers and employees.
Employers will surely wonder how much, if any, security there is for them in the “exclusive recovery” provisions of the workers’ compensation act. They will remain absolutely liable to their injured employees in the amounts provided by statute and, under the majority holding, be required to budget for an additional risk of liability.
The majority holding is even more odious for employees. It will serve as a ready precedent for employers or their insurers who wish to escape payment of clearly mandated workers’ compensation claims.
I would affirm.
REYNOLDSON, C.J., joins this dissent.