Court Opinion

ID: 9543134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:42:29.514949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:45.710770
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that an employer’s immunity from the tort actions of injured workers under the Workmen’s Compensation Act extends not only to the employer’s compensation insurance carrier but also to “those individuals or entities who perform or assist in performing the functions of the insurance carrier in handling workmen’s compensation claims as agents or employees of the carrier,” who commit intentional, active fraud and deceit upon the employees in order to deprive them of workmen’s compensation benefits. In fact, these alleged “agents or employees” are independent contractors. I believe that the Workmen’s Compensation Act should not provide for such far reaching immunity and, therefore, should not bar this action. Accordingly, I dissent.
In Poyser v. Neuman & Company, Inc., 514 Pa. 32, 40, 522 A.2d 548, 552 (1987), the majority held that the Workmen’s Compensation Act does not preserve “the right of an employee to sue in tort where his injury was caused by the employer’s intentional wrongdoing [in that t]here is no such provision in *271The Pennsylvania Workmen’s Compensation Act.” Poyser at 514 Pa. 38, 522 A.2d at 551. However, in my dissent to Poyser (joined by Papadakos, J.), I pointed out that “ ‘the purpose of this kind of legislation [the Workmen’s Compensation Act] was to restrict the remedy available to an employee against the employer to compensation, and to close to the employee, and to third parties, any recourse against the employer in tort for negligence.’ Kline v. Arden H. Verner Co., 503 Pa. 251, 254-55, 469 A.2d 158, 159-160 (1983) (emphasis added).” Subsequently, in Kuney v. PMA Insurance Co., 525 Pa. 171, 578 A.2d 1285 (1990), the majority expanded Poyser so as to preclude the right to sue in tort for the intentional wrongdoing of the employer’s compensation insurance carrier, which of necessity includes the insurance carrier’s employees and agents. In my dissent to Kuney (joined by Papadakos, J.), I stated that an employee should not be barred by the Workmen’s Compensation Act from maintaining an action in trespass for the separate injury he has incurred at the hands of the employer’s compensation insurance carrier.
Now, the majority is extending the bar against intentional tort actions to the employer’s compensation insurance carriers’ independent contractors. This is a first in Pennsylvania: independent contractors of independent contractors having the immunity of the principal. The underlying purpose of the Act is not served by extending immunity to such attenuated extremes. If the majority remains on its present course, everyone will be immune from liability, and the injured employee will have no remedy whatsoever — no matter how intentional or despicable the act that caused the injury.
Accordingly, I would reverse the order of the Superior Court, affirming the grant of appellees’ motion for summary judgment and remand for further proceedings.
PAPADAKOS, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.