Court Opinion

ID: 9696911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:01:26.860941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:27.613787
License: Public Domain

FLANDERS, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
For the reasons stated by the Court and for those set forth in rñy dissenting opinion in Kaya v. Partington, 681 A.2d 256, 267-71 (R.I.1996) (Flanders, J. dissenting), I agree that the so-called Injured On Duty (IOD) statute, G.L.1956 chapter 19 of title 45, does not bar plaintiff from pursuing her surviving spouse’s remedy under the Wrongful Death Act (WDA), G.L.1956 chapter 7 of title 10. But for these same reasons I also do not believe that the IOD statute bars plaintiff from recovering under §§ 10-7-5 and 10-7-7 of the WDA for her deceased husband’s pain and suffering and for the lost earning power that he experienced before his death. Thus, I respectfully disagree with that portion of the Court’s opinion.
I also believe that the result in this ease illustrates the difficulty of the Court’s attempt in Kaya to transmute legislative silence into an audible signal of exclusivity for the IOD benefit scheme. As it now stands, a majority of the Court believes that the IOD statute is the exclusive remedy for injured public-safety officers against their own governmental employers, superi- or officers, fellow officers, and officers of the municipal corporation, see Kaya, 681 A.2d at 260, but not for the statutory claims of their surviving spouses brought against these same defendants under the WDA — except for any pain and suffering and lost earning-power damages that the deceased may have experienced before his death. As to these latter WDA claims, the majority believes that the implied exclusivity provision of the IOD scheme bars such express statutory claims. On the other hand, the majority holds that the implied exclusivity of the IOD statute does not bar WDA claims brought by the surviving spouses of firefighters against police officers employed by the same municipality.
Thus, importing an exclusivity provision into the IOD statute for certain types of tort claims filed by public-safety officers or their surviving spouses results in the following crazy quilt of potential liability:
(1) Public-safety officers may not pursue common-law negligence claims against their own governmental employers, fellow officers, superior officers, and officers of the municipal corporation, see Kaya, 681 A.2d at 260, but the surviving spouses of deceased public-safety officers may sue the very same governmental employers, fellow officers, superior officers, and officers of the municipal corporation of their deceased spouses for negligence under the WDA. Notice that in Kaya the majority believed that “[i]t would be productive of near chaos if we should recognize a right of action for police officers, firefighters, and crash-rescue crewmembers to sue their superior officers and fellow employees,” Kaya, 681 A.2d at 261, but apparently it is not so “detrimental to good order and discipline,” id., to allow their surviving spouses to file such suits after their officer-spouses have died rather than after they have suffered mere incapacitation in the line of duty.
(2) Notwithstanding the ability of surviving spouses of deceased public-safety officers to sue for negligence under the WDA, the majority holds that the IOD’s implied exclusivity bars them from recovering under that same act for their deceased spouses’ pain and suffering and lost earning power.
(3) The implied exclusivity of the IOD statute does not bar surviving spouses of deceased firefighters from suing police officers employed by the same municipality that employed their deceased spouses for alleged negligence in causing their spouses’ deaths, and, presumably, the surviving spouses can also recover for their deceased spouses’ pain and suffering and lost earning power damages from these defendants.
As the above schematic shows, I believe that the sounds of silence emanating from the IOD’s “implied exclusivity” provisions *437are proving much too Delphic to indicate reliably which of the various WDA remedies are legally available to the surviving spouses of deceased public-safety officers and which are not. I believe that the more defensible result from the standpoint of pure statutory interpretation — as opposed to enacting our own personal preferences into law — is as I suggested in my Kaya dissent: the absence of any exclusivity provision in the IOD statute indicates that it should not be interpreted as the sole remedy for injured public-safety officers and their surviving spouses vis-a-vis their government employers and other potentially responsible tortfeasors. See Kayo, 681 A.2d at 268. Unlike the WCA, see G.L.1956 §§ 28-29-20 and 28-29-21,8 the IOD statute contains no express exclusivity provisions that would bar any of the WDA claims that are at issue here, and none of its express provisions is inconsistent with allowing these WDA claims to proceed. Moreover, far from impliedly barring suits against fellow employees, superior officers, and officers of the municipal corporation, § 45-19-1.1 of the IOD statute itself provides in pertinent part that
“[wjhere the injury or sickness for which compensation is payable under § 4-5-19-1, was caused under circumstances creating a legal liability in some person other than the employer to pay damages in respect of the injury or sickness, the employee may take proceedings, against that person to recover damages, and the employee shall be entitled to receive both damages and compensation ; provided, that the employee, in recovering damages either by judgment or settlement from the person liable to pay damages, shall reimburse the city, town, or the state of Rhode Island by whom the compensation was paid to the extent of the compensation paid as of the date of the judgment or settlement, and the receipt of those damages by the employee does not bar future compensation.” (Emphasis added.)9
But even after giving Kaya its full force and effect, I still would not extend its holding to negate independent statutory claims like those authorized by the WDA. It is one thing, as in Kaya, for the Court to import an exclusivity provision into the IOD statute and then proclaim that it bars all common-law claims that otherwise might be brought by public-safety officers against their governmental employers, fellow officers, superior officers, and officers of the municipal corporation. But compare Kaya, 681 A.2d at 260 (“It is true that when adopted by the Legislature, the IOD statute contained no such exclusivity provision. However, as with the WCA, the remedy provided for in the IOD statute must be exclusive.”); with Aldcroft v. Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York, 106 R.I. 311, 316-17, 259 A.2d 408, 412-13 (1969) (“it is our opinion that if, in enacting *438§ 45-19-1 [the IOD statute], the legislature had intended to abrogate the collateral source rule, it would have said so in express terms”). But it is quite another to conclude that the Legislature intended for the IOD statute’s implied exclusivity to bar an express and independent statutory cause of action created by the General Assembly — such as the express remedies provided by the WDA to the surviving spouses of deceased public-safety officers. In this situation, I would limit Kaya to its facts and not extend its holding to bar independent statutory claims or remedies. Indeed, just as the WCA did not fully remedy the problems that the Fair Employment Practices Act and the Civil Rights Act were intended to address, see Folan v. State Department of Children, Youth, and Families, 723 A.2d 287 (R.I.1999) (refusing to allow the WCA’s express exclusivity provisions to bar independent statutory causes of action), so too the IOD benefit provisions for the spouses of deceased firefighters do not fully remedy the problems that the WDA is intended to address, including an award of monetary damages to surviving spouses for the deceased public-safety officer’s pain and suffering and lost earning power.
As it now stands, however, an implied exclusivity rule in the IOD statute has been deemed to preclude some but not all of the express WDA remedies that are allowed via an independent statutory cause of action. Absent an irreconcilable conflict between these two statutes, I would not interpret the Legislature as having intended that the IOD statute would impliedly bar some, but not all, of the express remedies allowed by the WDA — especially when it would seem possible to construe both statutes to give effect to all of their respective provisions.
For these reasons, I concur in so much of the Court’s opinion as allows this plaintiff, a surviving spouse of a deceased public-safety officer, to sue any and all potentially responsible parties under the WDA for any and all remedies available to her thereunder (subject to whatever other defenses may be available to these defendants). I respectfully dissent, however, from so much of the Court’s opinion as prevents her from doing so. Thus, I agree with that portion of the Court’s opinion concluding that the IOD statute does not prevent the surviving spouse from suing all allegedly responsible parties who may have caused or contributed to her husband’s death, but I dissent from that portion of the Court’s opinion that precludes the surviving spouse from suing under the WDA to recover for her deceased husband’s pain and suffering and lost earning power. I further concur with the Court’s caveat that, in the surviving spouse’s suit against the municipality, “the City should get credit against any recovery for the monthly IOD stipend if plaintiff has elected to claim it.” In doing so, however, I note that in Aldcroft, 106 R.I. at 316-17, 259 A.2d at 412-13, we held “that if, in enacting [the IOD statute], the legislature had intended to abrogate the collateral source rule [also a common-law doctrine], it would have said so in express terms.” Therefore, I would not allow any of the other defendants in this case to receive any credit if the plaintiff has elected to claim her IOD benefits under § 45-19-12.

. General Laws 1956 § 28-29-20 provides as follows:
“Rights in lieu of other rights and remedies. — The right to compensation for an injury under chapters 29 — 38 of this title, and the remedy therefor granted by those chapters, shall be in lieu of all rights and remedies as to that injury now existing, either at common law or otherwise against an employer, or its directors, officers, agents, or employees; and those rights and remedies shall not accrue to employees entitled to compensation under those chapters while they are in effect, except as otherwise provided in §§ 28-36-10 and 28-36-15.” Section 28-29-21 provides:
"Wrongful death law inapplicable. — In all cases where an employer and employee shall have elected to become subject to the provisions of chapters 29 — 38 of this title, the provisions of § 10-7-1 et seq. shall not apply while those chapters are in effect.” The IOD contains no such provisions.

. Indeed, pursuant to G.L.1956 §§ 45-19-1.1 through 45-19-1.6, the municipal employer is entitled to indemnification from third parties who are liable to pay damages to the public-safety officer for any IOD compensation payable to that officer under § 45-19-1 and from any officer who has received any such damages to the extent that any IOD benefits have been paid to the officer. See, e.g., Manzotti v. Arnica Mutual Insurance Co., 695 A.2d 1001 (R.I.1997).