Court Opinion

ID: 9543133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:42:29.511512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:45.709780
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result offered in the majority opinion. I write separately to express my dissatisfaction with the majority decision in Poyser v. Newman & Company, Inc. 514 Pa. 32, 522 A.2d 548 (1987), from which Kuney v. PMA Insurance Co., 525 Pa. 171, 578 A.2d 1285 (1990) and now, the decision sub judice, emanate.
In Poyser, a clear majority of this Court, in interpreting the language of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, determined that an employee was barred from suing an employer whose intentional tortious conduct had harmed the employee. The majority opined that the employee’s exclusive remedy was *269workmen’s compensation. On the other hand, the Act itself provides that an employee may sue a fellow employee for an intentional tort under the “personal animus” exception to the exclusivity provision of the Act. Dolan v. Linton’s Lunch, 397 Pa. 114, 152 A.2d 887 (1959); 77 P.S. § 411(1)1 Thus the “personal animus” exception to the exclusivity provision of the Act is incongruous with the holding in Poyser; the same employee could not sue his employer if the employer had committed the identical intentional tort against him, that a co-employee had committed.
In my view, the dissent filed by Mr. Justice Larsen and joined by Mr. Justice Papadakos in Poyser, which emphasized the fact that the Workmen’s Compensation Act was intended to provide exclusive remedies for employer negligence and not intentional tortious acts committed by that same employer, is the preferred interpretation. Had I been a member of this Court at that time, I would have joined Mr. Justice Larsen.
However, the view expressed by Mr. Justice Larsen failed to gain majority support, and Poyser stands as the law of Pennsylvania. From Poyser, Kuney v. PMA Insurance Co., 525 Pa. 171, 578 A.2d 1285 (1990) naturally follows, to wit: since an employer cannot be held independently accountable to the employee for the employer’s intentional tortious acts, neither can the employer’s compensation insurance carrier. Under the Poyser reasoning, it would be ludicrous to immunize the employer and not his compensation insurance carrier.
Today, the majority takes the next logical step in the chain which began with the Poyser rationale. If employers, their *270compensation carriers and the carriers’ agents and employees are immune, a fortiori, the compensation carriers’ independent contractors2 are also immune. To hold otherwise, in light of the Poyser reasoning, would not only be inconsistent, but also contradictory, since the legislature has not seen fit to explicitly grant the right for an employee to sue either compensation insurance carriers or their agents.
I believe that this is an instance where the logical extension of a well intentioned interpretation may lead not only to absurdity but also to injustice. Nevertheless, absent corrective legislation, for now, Poyser remains the law of Pennsylvania and, as in the Kuney case, the case sub judice falls squarely within its ambit. For that reason alone, I am constrained to join in the result offered by the majority.

. Since the Act was written in order to resolve issues as between employer and employee, it is only rational that the legislature would have to explicitly except intentional tortious conduct of fellow employees since one could not expect an employer to bear the consequences of an intentional act of a fellow employee unless the employer in some way directly facilitated the intentional tortious conduct. It seems to me that there was no commensurate need to specifically exempt intentional tortious conduct of the employer since, as Mr. Justice Larsen aptly notes, "... the purpose of this kind of legislation 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., 504 Pa. 251, 254-255, 469 A.2d 158, 159-660 (1983). (emphasis his).

. I note that Mr. Justice Zappala categorizes the Vocational Rehabilitation Service and Dr. Williams as "agents” of the compensation insurance carrier, using a generalized concept of agency. However, I agree with Mr. Justice Larsen’s designation of these two appellees as independent contractors.