Court Opinion

ID: 9706461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:44:10.519087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:22.952438
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting.
In this case employees and former employees of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (du Pont), suffering from painful and fatal asbestos engendered diseases, wish to bring common-law actions against du Pont and its physicians for intentional infliction of injuries. All the plaintiffs worked at various du Pont manufacturing plants in New Jersey for periods of twenty *189years or more. The workers allege that during the course of their employment, their employer, du Pont, through the company physicians, “knew, or in the exercise of reasonable medical care should have known, of the dangers inherent in the use and exposure of plaintiffs to asbestos products, dust and fibers resulting from the use of said asbestos products.” Plaintiffs further allege that du Pont “with full knowledge of the consequences of asbestos use and exposure, did by design, resolve, determination and thereby with intent directly conceal information of such life threatening use and/or exposure from the plaintiffs, thereby intentionally and willfully concealing from the plaintiffs the nature and extent of such dangers to their health.” Plaintiffs’ second count alleges that du Pont and its doctors “with deliberate intent to induce plaintiffs to continue to work under hazardous conditions, did conspire to and did fraudulently conceal from plaintiff[s] knowledge of diseases known by these defendants to be caused by ingestion of asbestos fibers and dust.”
The defendants contend that plaintiffs’ claims are barred because the Workers’ Compensation Act provides the exclusive remedy for plaintiffs’ occupational diseases. Defendants also argue that the N.J.S.A. 34:15-8 “intentional wrong” exception to the exclusiveness of the Workers’ Compensation Act’s remedy is not available because neither du Pont’s nor du Pont’s doctors’ conduct as alleged amounts to a “deliberate intent” to harm plaintiffs.
The Court today recognizes that in order for an injured worker suffering from an occupation-related disease to bring a common-law action against his employer based upon “intentional wrong”, thereby escaping the exclusivity provision of the Workers’ Compensation Act under N.J.S.A. 34:15-8, the worker must prove that the employer’s actions were “substantially certain” to cause the resultant disease. The Court also interprets the “intentional wrong” exception to the exclusive remedy of the Compensation Act as encompassing intentional wrongs committed by employers as well as a worker’s co-employees.
*190I agree with these propositions of law. However, I think that the Court errs in applying its standard to the facts of this case. While the Court professes to endorse the “substantially certain” standard in construing the “intentional wrong” exception, its rejection of plaintiffs’ common-law cause of action in the context of this case in effect requires that an employee demonstrate a much higher degree of knowledge on the part of the employer than “substantial certainty.” The effect of the Court’s decision is to impose a level of knowledge of resultant harm that is virtually akin to a showing of subjective intent or actual purpose to inflict injury. I take issue with the Court’s application because, as I view the record, plaintiffs have presented a cause of action that genuinely and fairly raises the issue of whether or not defendants in this case possessed and concealed information indicating that exposure to asbestos was “substantially certain” to cause the occupational diseases that have debilitated the plaintiffs. I would thus reverse the lower court’s disposition of plaintiffs’ “initial intentional concealment and exposure” claims and permit that cause of action to proceed to a plenary trial.
The Court also upholds plaintiffs’ claims against du Pont and its physicians for fraudulent failure to disclose the plaintiffs’ contraction of asbestos engendered diseases and consequent aggravation of those diseases. I concur in the majority’s disposition of this claim. However, I reiterate my view that the Legislature, in providing for co-employee immunity in the 1961 amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act, N.J.S.A. 34:15-8, did not intend to relieve company physicians of legal responsibility for their negligence or other tortious conduct. I would grant plaintiffs’ an independent cause of action for a company doctor’s malpractice consisting of professional negligence, as well as for fraudulent misconduct.
I.
In addressing plaintiffs’ claims focusing upon the asserted intentional infliction of injuries, the majority embraces a “sub*191stantial certainty” test. It rejects the notion that in order to obtain remedial relief and redress beyond the narrow strictures of the Workers’ Compensation Act the employees must prove du Pont and its doctors subjectively desired to harm its workers.
The subjective standard, which is disapproved by the Court, is not totally wanting in support. It is the so-called “narrow rule” endorsed by Professor Larson and the authorities cited by him. 2A A. Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation, § 68.13 at 13-22 to 13-27 (1983). Ante at 170-172. Professor Larson believes that in order for an act to lose its “accidental” quality and fall outside the exclusive remedy of Workers’ Compensation the act must amount to a “deliberate infliction of harm comparable to an intentional left jab to the chin.” Id. at 13-27. As noted by the Court, Professor Larson’s test unsatisfactorily limits its scope to acts committed for the purpose of achieving certain consequences and ignores acts that are “only” known to produce certain consequences. Recognizing that “the Legislature could not have intended that the system of workers’ compensation would insulate actors from liability outside the boundaries of the Act for all willful and flagrant misconduct short of deliberate assault and battery,” ante at 177, the Court prudently rejects the “narrow rule” and incorporates “knowingly” committed acts within the definition of intentional wrong. See also Perlin, “The German and British Roots of American Workers’ Compensation Systems: When is an ‘Intentional Act’ ‘Intentional’?” 15 Seton Hall L. Rev. 849 (1985) (contending that British and German historical roots of the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation system support a “broad” interpretation of the “intentional wrong” exception to the exclusivity of the Compensation Act’s remedies).
Although the Court correctly discredits the “subjective desire” approach, it is difficult to discern from the Court’s opinion any parameters or details of the standard it employs. In part, this conceptual ambiguity is attributable to the majority’s extensive reference to authority that reflects much narrower *192criteria for allowing a common-law cause of action. The Court adverts to Bryan v. Jeffers, 103 N.J.Super. 522 (App.Div.1968), and its state and federal progeny1 despite that case’s ruling that “intentional wrong” in the compensation statute means “deliberate intention” and excludes concepts of constructive intent. Similarly, the out-of-state cases cited by the Court either adopt a pure subjective-purpose test or concern complaints that did not allege the type of “knowledge” that the plaintiffs here allege. One case cited by the Court explicitly adopts and applies a subjective-purpose test, rejecting the plaintiff’s complaint because the plaintiff did “not allege that the employer was motivated by a desire to harm him.” Burke v. Interlake, Inc., 600 F.Supp. 59, 61 (D.Conn.1984).
Moreover, other cases mentioned by the Court use a subjective-purpose standard, but, as Bryan and its progeny did, couch the standard as a “deliberate intent to injure.” See Prescott v. United States, 523 F.Supp. 918, 928 (D.Nev.1981), aff’d, 731 F.2d 1388 (9th Cir.1984) (under Nevada law, need “deliberate intent to kill”); Houston v. Bechtel Assocs., Professional Corp., 522 F.Supp. 1094, 1096 (D.D.C.1981) (“nothing short of specific intent to injure” falls outside scope of Federal Workers’ Compensation scheme, relying on Professor Larson’s treatise); Tysenn v. Johns-Manville Corp., 517 F.Supp. 1290, 1293 (E.D.Pa.1981) (refused to extend Pennsylvania’s judicially-created intentional-tort exception beyond assault by an employer or other “deliberate, egregious conduct”); Phifer v. Union Carbide Corp., 492 F.Supp. 483, 485 (E.D.Ark.1980) (“only if an employer commits acts with an actual, specific and deliberate intent to injure the employee will the employee have a common-law action in tort”). Another case found in the Court’s opinion *193employs a “substantial certainty” test, but involves a complaint that alleges intent only with respect to employer actions, and not with respect to results. See Shearer v. Homestake Mining Co., 557 F.Supp. 549 (D.S.D.1983), aff’d, 727 F.2d 707 (8th Cir.1984) (no showing that defendant knew or believed ceiling would collapse as a result of violating safety standards). Finally, the Court points to Kofron v. Amoco Chem. Corp., 441 A.2d 226 (Del.1982), where the Delaware Supreme Court refused to find any intentional tort-exception, including purposely-committed torts, to the Delaware Workers’ Compensation Act’s exclusivity provisions.2
The Court further obscures the meaning of its “substantial certainty” test by what appears to be an inconsistent assessment of the record in determining its sufficiency to support the causes of action set forth in plaintiffs’ complaint. With respect to plaintiffs’ claims alleging an aggravation of the disease based on fraudulent, conspirational concealment, the Court concludes that the record is evidentially sufficient to permit the issues to be submitted to a jury. However, with respect to the workers’ claims alleging initial asbestos exposure with knowledge and concealment of the consequences, the Court apparently believes the record is insufficient to allow this cause of action to be tried. It seems, according to the Court’s disposition, that knowledge of the .degree of risk involved in inducing or allowing afflicted workers to continue working in poisonous plant atmosphere presents triable issues on the theory of conspiracy and fraudulent concealment. It is unclear why a triable issue is *194not also presented as to whether these same doctors, and thus du Pont, had knowledge to a substantial certainty associated with the initial asbestos exposure in the plants, aside from whether this knowledge reached the level of any specific intent or purpose to inflict harm, or fraud in concealing that harm.
Despite this entwinement between plaintiffs’ intentional initial exposure and concealment claims and intentional- or fraudulent-aggravation claims based on subsequent or continuing exposure, the Court insists on treating the two sets of claims disparately, dismissing the former set of claims while allowing the latter set to go forward. Although the California Supreme Court made a similar distinction between initial exposure-concealment and aggravational exposure-concealment in JohnsManville Prods. Corp. v. Contra Costa Superior Court, 27 Cal.3d 465, 612 P.2d 948, 165 Cal.Rptr. 858 (Cal.1980), that court’s rulings were made against a completely different statutory background from that faced by this Court. A provision of the California workers’ compensation statute specifically covers, and in fact provides an increased recovery for, an employer’s “serious and willful” misconduct. The California Court found that when the California Legislature enacted this provision in 1917, it intended the provision to be a substitute for the pre-existing right of an employee to bring an action at common law for “serious and willful” conduct. Id., 612 P.2d at 950, 951, 165 Cal.Rptr. at 860, 861. Thus, the California court’s dismissal of the intentional exposure claim was not based on a failure to satisfy some “intent” standard, but on a provision of the California Code expressly including such claims within the workers’ compensation scheme.3 This Court, in mimicking the Contra Costa result, reaches an incorrect conclusion in this case, and blurs the contours of the “substantial certainty” *195standard. The Court compounds this confusion by its affirmance of the summary dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims without any focused attention to the details of plaintiffs’ allegations or explication of the “substantial certainty” standard. A careful analysis of the “substantial certainty” standard and a conscientious application of that standard to plaintiffs’ claims reveal why plaintiffs’ claims should not be dismissed.
II.
The “substantial certainty” test adopted by the Court is not limited to instances of a subjective desire to harm. The Court explicitly states that its standard does not insulate employers from common-law liability for “all willful and flagrant misconduct short of deliberate assault and battery.” Ante at 177. The Restatement 2nd of Torts, which the Court cites in support of its ruling, ante at 178, states:
All consequences which the actor desires to bring about are intended, as the word is used in this Restatement. Intent is not, however, limited to consequences which are desired. If the actor knows that the consequences are certain, or substantially certain, to result from his act, and still goes ahead, he is treated by the law as if he had in fact desired to produce the result.
[.Restatement 2nd of Torts, § 8A, comment b. (emphasis added).]
The “substantial certainty” test thus imports into the concept of “intentional act” conduct undertaken with knowledge that certain consequences are “substantially certain” to occur.4
The claims dismissed by the Court allege just such knowledge. It is true that merely alleging deliberate acts, without raising a genuine issue as to defendant’s “purposeful” or “knowing” state of mind with respect to those acts, will not survive a summary-judgment motion. But here plaintiffs’ complaints allege that defendant du Pont exposed workers to asbestos “with full knowledge of the consequences” of such *196exposure. Read in its most favorable light as is required on a summary judgment motion, Judson v. Peoples Bank & Trust Co. of Westfield, 17 N.J. 67, 73-75 (1954), plaintiffs’ claims maintain that du Pont, through its doctors, knew with “substantial certainty” that the level of asbestos exposure in its plants would at some time produce the diseases that eventually did materialize. Nevertheless, the Court assumes that plaintiffs have alleged something less than “substantial certainty,” even though at oral argument plaintiffs’ counsel specifically endorsed the “substantial certainty” standard and thus implied that plaintiffs do indeed plan to meet a “substantial certainty” standard.
The Court’s view of the record is unnecessarily and unfairly strict. The affidavits of du Pont’s doctors deny only that the doctors subjectively desired to injure plaintiffs; they do not dispute or contradict plaintiffs’ allegations respecting a claim under the “substantial certainty” standard. On the other hand, plaintiffs have already presented in the record one du Pont plant physician’s deposition testimony that he learned of asbestos’ dangers sometime between 1965 and 1976. Additionally, the record reveals that du Pont’s Head of Pathology from 1958 to 1963 has stated in an unexecuted affidavit that during his tenure he did, on numerous occasions, in his professional and medical capacity, advise corporate medical officers of du Pont of the dangers and risk of employees’ asbestos exposure.
Moreover, in order to prove du Pont’s knowledge on these matters, plaintiffs are not limited to direct statements by du Pont personnel revealing their state of mind. With regard to proving intent, “it is correct to tell the jury that, relying on circumstantial evidence, they may infer that the actor’s state of mind was the same as a reasonable person’s state of mind would have been.” W. Prosser & W. Keeton, The Law of Torts, § 8 at 36 (5th ed. 1984). The plaintiffs in this case could prove du Pont’s knowledge by producing evidence with respect to the state of available medical knowledge of asbestos’s dan*197gers over the years,5 du Pout’s previous experiences with workers exposed to asbestos, the concentrations of asbestos at the New Jersey plants, and other similar factors bearing on whether a reasonable doctor in the position of the du Pont doctors would have known that the conditions at the du Pont plants would be substantially certain to engender the ailments inflicted upon these plaintiffs.6 Cf. Evers v. Dollinger, 95 N.J. *198399 (1984) (plaintiff suffering from cancer can use expert medical testimony to show degree to which doctors negligence increased the risk of plaintiff contracting the cancer).
Despite these considerations, which demonstrate the availability of evidence and the existence of genuine issues of fact, the Court has affirmed defendants’ partial summary judgment on this claim without any satisfactory analysis. Several ineluctable aspects of plaintiffs’ proofs caution against granting du Pont summary judgment. The New Jersey Supreme Court, per Justice Brennan, observed in Judson v. Peoples Bank & Trust Co. of Westfield, supra, 17 N.J. at 76 that:
Where * * * the opposing party * * * must probe the conscience of the moving party (or its officers, when, as here, a corporation) to prove his case, or in any case where the subjective elements of willfulness, intent or good faith of the moving party are material to the claim or defense of the opposing party, a conclusion from papers alone that palpably there exists no genuine issue of material fact will ordinarily be very difficult to sustain. * * * Indeed, subjective elements aside, a note of caution has been sounded as to any case where the opposing party must prove his claim or defense from what he can draw from the other party.
Later, in Ruvolo v. American Cas. Co., 39 N.J. 490 (1963), the Court reiterated that
where a case may rest upon opinion or expert testimony, a court should be particularly slow in granting summary judgment____ The same hesitancy should exist where the court is necessarily required to resolve questions of intent and mental capacity. Ordinarily in such situations justice is best served by plenary trial on the merits. And the need for caution is especially urgent where a party must rely for his case largely on what he can draw out of his adversary’s witnesses.
[Id. at 500 (citations omitted).]
The warnings against granting summary judgment expressed in Judson and Ruvolo apply with particular force to this case, where plaintiffs’ proofs against a corporation derive in large part from doctors whose professional careers may be jeopardized by their adverse testimony. The Court has thus acted quite improvidently in dismissing plaintiffs’ intentional-exposure and concealment claims. See, e.g., Boudeloche v. Grow Chem. Casting Corp., 728 F.2d 759 (5th Cir.1984); Blankenship *199v. Cincinnati Milacron Chems., Inc., 69 Ohio St.2d 608, 433 N.E.2d 572, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 857, 103 S.Ct. 127, 74 L.Ed.2d 110 (1982).
There is added reason for consternation over the majority’s abrupt dismissal of plaintiffs’ intentional-exposure and concealment claims. Both courts below dismissed this claim by ruling that a worker could not sue an employer at common law for any work-related injury regardless of the employer’s intent, a rationale that today’s decision correctly repudiates. However, no further exploration or analysis of the evidence that could be marshaled to support this claim has been made. Thus, plaintiffs’ important and very significant intentional-exposure and concealment claims will have passed through three levels of the New Jersey judiciary without any thorough consideration of their merits. These claims deserve better treatment. Where complicated issues with farreaching effects are involved, a Court should exercise caution in granting summary judgment without an adequately developed record. See Jackson v. Muhlenberg Hosp., 53 N.J. 138 (1969).
Finally, the public policy of this State, as most recently expressed by the Legislature in the “Worker and Community Right to Know” Act, N.J.S.A. 34:5A-1 to -31, supports the conclusion that the intentional-tort exception to the exclusivity of the Workers’ Compensation remedy includes both initial and aggravated concealment of known dangers from hazardous substances such as asbestos. This statute states that
[t]he Legislature finds and declares that the proliferation of hazardous substances in the environment poses a growing threat to the public health, safety, and welfare; ... and that individuals have an inherent right to know the full range of the risks they face so that they can make reasoned decisions and take informed action concerning their employment and their living conditions.
[N.J.S.A. 34:5A-2 (emphasis added).]
To effectuate the purposes of the “Right to Know Act” employers are required to submit to the Department of Health a survey of the hazardous materials present in the work place environment, N.J.S.A. 34:5A-7, and to educate and inform their employees about these substances. N.J.S.A. 34:5A-13. The majority believes that the Legislature in enacting the “Right to *200Know Act” made “a studied decision to address the problems associated with hazardous substances in the workplace in some manner other than simply expanding the system of worker’s compensation.” Ante at 181. However, the majority does not refer to any legislative history or findings to support its naked conclusion that the “Right to Know Act” was intended as the exclusive hazardous substance “remedy.” A more reasoned view is that the “Right to Know Act” furnishes an additional avenue of protection, supplementing those available under the Workers Compensation Act and the basic common law. See Lally v. Copygraphic, 85 N.J. 668 (1981) (worker alleging retaliatory firing attributable to the filing of a workers’ compensation claim has a common-law right of action for wrongful discharge in addition to the penal and administrative remedies provided by the Workers’ Compensation Act). The underlying standard of conduct prescribed by the “Right to Know Act” is disclosure to the public and to workers of the presence of known hazardous substances. Recognition that the intentional-tort exception of N.J.S.A. 34:15-8 confers an independent common-law cause of action for the concealment of known hazardous substances clearly effectuates the goals and policies of the “Right to Know Act.”
In reaching its disposition of plaintiffs’ intentional initial-exposure and concealment claims, the Court is quite properly concerned with the “intentional wrong” exception swallowing up the general rule that Worker’s Compensation is the exclusive remedy for work-related injuries. Ante at 177. However, a favorable disposition of plaintiffs’ intentional initial-exposure and concealment claims will not result in a deluge of similar claims, nor undermine the “occupational disease” coverage of the Compensation statute. As with their intentional aggravation claim, plaintiffs still would have a very substantial burden to meet in proving their claims of intentional exposure. In view of the difficulty of this task, many workers may prefer their Workers Compensation remedy and its accompanying convenience and ease of proof. However, the odds against an injured *201worker’s eventual success do not justify a denial of a cause of action altogether. See Ruvolo v. American Cas. Co., supra, 39 N.J. at 501. The Legislature has decided that under certain narrow circumstances an injured worker’s remedy does not lie exclusively in the Workers’ Compensation insurance scheme. Fairness and justice dictate that those workers who may meet the Legislature’s criteria be given the opportunity to prove it.
Naturally, the disposition of each complaint and allegation under the “substantial certainty” test is “case” specific, depending on the facts. On these facts, however, I think plaintiffs have presented a genuine issue as to defendant’s knowledge of the consequences of exposure to asbestos. I would thus remand for a full trial on that issue.
III.
In contrast to its disposition of plaintiffs’ first claim, the Court denies defendants’ summary judgment with respect to plaintiffs’ additional claims and holds that “plaintiffs’ allegations that defendants fraudulently concealed knowledge of already-contracted diseases are sufficient to state a cause of action for aggravation of plaintiffs’ illnesses.” While I agree with this ruling, I also think that doctors should not enjoy co-employee immunity under the Workers’ Compensation Act since they owe an independent duty to plaintiffs as patients, and consequently should be held independently liable for their negligently-performed services. I accordingly dissent from so much of the Court’s ruling as brings doctors employed by du Pont within the protective umbrella of the Compensation Act’s co-employee immunity. In dissenting from this portion of the Court’s ruling, I rely substantially on my dissenting opinion in Boyle v. Breme, 93 N.J. 569, 570 (1983). I take this opportunity to add one more objection to granting company physicians this immunity.
Doctors, in contrast to other “co-employees,” owe to the workers they treat an independent duty that originates outside *202of the employment relationship. Medical practitioners, licensed by the State, owe prime responsibility to the public to uphold their sworn oaths as healers. Any duty owed to an employer or co-employee as a co-employee is necessarily of a secondary nature.
Employees who are professionals owe a special duty to abide not only by federal and state law, but also by the recognized codes of ethics of their professions. That duty may oblige them to decline to perform acts required by their employers.
[Pierce v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 84 N.J. 58 (1980).]
This Court should not interpret a statute as immunizing a doctor’s breach of that primary and special duty absent a clear expression by the Legislature that it intended the statute to have that effect.
In enacting the 1961 amendments to N.J.S.A. 34:15-8 granting co-employees immunity for negligent acts, the Legislature did not express or effectuate an intention to include doctors within the scope of that privilege. Indeed, granting doctors “co-employee immunity” does not further the underlying purpose of the 1961 amendment, but does undermine New Jersey’s public policy in deterring negligent conduct and fully compensating negligently-inflicted injuries. The “co-employee immunity” amendment was designed to abolish “eause[s] of action in tort against a fellow employee ... [that] ha[d] frequently resulted in burdening the employer indirectly with common law damages superimposed upon workmen’s compensation liability by reason of either a legal, moral or practical obligation to indemnify the sued ... employee.” Miller v. Muscarelle, 67 N.J.Super. 305, 321 (App.Div.1961). Allowing recovery against employers through respondeat superior undermined the Worker’s Compensation system’s function as the exclusive remedy for most work-related accidents, and more particularly as the exclusive source of liability for employers for most work-related injuries.
However, the respondeat superior doctrine, which spawned the 1961 amendments, would not apply to doctors. “Thq rela*203tionship between an employer and a company physician differs substantially from other employer-employee relationships to which the doctrine of master/servant would apply. Rather than directing and supervising the doctor’s work, the employer lacks control over the medical, patient-treating aspects of its house physician’s work.” Boyle v. Breme, supra, 93 N.J. at 573 (Handler, J., dissenting). While it is not the only point of inquiry, the extent of employer control over an employee’s employment responsibilities is a crucial element in the creation of a master-servant relationship. See Restatement 2nd of Agency, § 2; see also Pelliccioni v. Schuyler Packing Co., 140 N.J.Super. 190, 199 (App.Div.1976) (although element of control is not the be-all and end-all of ascertaining whether a master and servant relationship exists and each case must be determined on its own facts, it is generally the most important element). Other important factors employed in the calculus of the master-servant determination include the distinctiveness of the employee’s occupation and the degree of specialized skill inherent in the employee’s daily duties. Finally, in deciphering an employment situation, a court will also look at the identity of the party supplying the equipment, the length of employment, the method of payment, the subjective beliefs of the actors, and whether or not the employee’s work is part of the employer’s regular business. See Restatement 2nd of Agency, §§ 2, 220; Miklos v. Liberty Coach Co., 48 N.J.Super. 591, 602 (App.Div.1958). In this case of doctors employed by companies, the lack of employer control and direction, the medical profession’s skill and distinct occupational personality, and the fact that medical services are not a product marketed by du Pont militate strongly towards viewing doctors as independent contractors. Cf. Tutino v. Ford Motor Co., 111 N.J.L. 435 (C. & E. 1933) (employer not liable for injury to worker caused by negligence of physician and nurse whom employer employed). But cf. Rutherford v. Modern Transp. Co., 128 N.J.Super. 504 (Law Div.1974) (plaintiff truck driver could not maintain a separate negligence cause of action as an independent contractor be*204cause the economic situation, in which plaintiff received all work and pay from defendant despite being “employed” by another company, made him an employee of defendant for purposes of Workers’ Compensation statute).
Since employers would not be liable for the negligence of the doctors they employ, applying the co-employee immunity to company physicians does not comport with the underlying purpose of the 1961 amendments in protecting employers from double liability. No public policy is advanced by including doctors within N.J.S.A. 34:15-8’s co-employee immunity. On the other hand, the Boyle rule perniciously allows company-employed physicians to operate undeterred at a level of performance beneath that which is expected of other members of the medical profession at the expense of workers’ lives and limbs.
IV.
In conclusion, I concur with the Court’s holding that employers may be sued at common law for “intentional wrongs” and that conduct undertaken with knowledge to a substantial certainty that harm to workers will occur is the appropriate standard in defining an “intentional wrong.” Under that standard plaintiffs have stated a valid cause of action for intentional aggravation of their diseases.
In my view plaintiffs have also presented meritorious claims based on intentional initial exposure to asbestos. I believe that plaintiffs’ complaints in the context of the record before us present a valid cause of action concerning du Pont’s knowledge that exposure to asbestos would be substantially certain to result in disease. I therefore dissent from the Court’s dismissal of these claims.
I am also of the view that plaintiffs should be accorded an independent cause of action for du Pont’s physicians’ negligent malpractice. I therefore concur in the result, if not the reasoning, of the Court with respect to plaintiffs’ claims against the defendant-physicians.
*205Accordingly, I would remand the case for trial on both these issues.
For affirmance in part; reversal in part and remandment —Justices CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, POLLOCK, JACOBS and SULLIVAN — 5.
Concurring in part; dissenting in part — Justices HANDLER and O’HERN — 2.

 Arcell v. Ashland Chemical Co., 152 N.J.Super. 471 (Law Div.1977), Copeland v. Johns-Manville Products Corp., 492 F.Supp. 498 (D.N.J.1980), and Petruska v. Johns-Manville, 83 F.R.D. 39 (E.D.Pa.1979), cited ante at 170, all relied on Jeffers in finding the New Jersey Worker’s Compensation Act to be the exclusive remedy for alleged intentional torts, and these cases are similarly repudiated by today's decision. Ante at 172.

Blade v. Anaconda Aluminum Co., Inc., 452 N.E.2d 1036 (Ind.Ct.App.1983), ante at 172, is admittedly more relevant to this case. In Blade, a plaintiff killed in a furnace explosion alleged that defendant knew that his failure to maintain and install certain safety devices on the furnace would result in a furnace explosion. An Indiana intermediate appellate court, quoting the "substantial certainty” definition of intent, determined that "no facts were alleged which would support an inference that [defendant] intentionally injured Mr. Blade." Id. at 1038. I nevertheless view Blade as distinguishable in that plaintiffs here have sufficiently alleged facts that would support an inference of knowledge of harm on duPont's part. See discussion infra at 195-198.

The California Court upheld the cause of action for aggravational exposure by ruling, in effect, that willful aggravation of a work-related injury by a doctor is not the type of "hazard of employment” that comes within the exclusive purview of the compensation statute.

The New Jersey Criminal Code supports analogously this statutory understanding of "intent.” Under the Code "purposeful,” i.e. desired, and “knowing” homicides both satisfy the mens rea requirement for first degree murder. See NJ.S.A. 2C:11-3.

The first recognition of the hazards of asbestos exposure can be traced back to Pliny the Younger who some time in 61 to 114 A.D. is said to have commented on the sickness of slaves who worked with asbestos. I.J. Selikoff and D.H.K. Lee, Asbestos and Disease, at 20 (1978). The first significant scientific recognition of asbestos’ dangers came in the 1920’s in a British study of a case of asbestosis in a person who had worked for twenty years weaving asbestos textile products. Cooke, "Fibrosis of the Lungs Due to Inhalation of Asbestos Dust,” 2 Brit.Med.J. 147 (1924); Cooke, "Pulmonary Asbestosis,” 2 Brit.Med.J. 1024 (1927). In the 1930’s, several more studies on the hazardous quality of asbestos were published. One researcher reported in 1936 that of 71 workers in his study who been dismissed from asbestos plants in North Carolina, 16 had slightly advanced, 35 moderately advanced, and 20 markedly advanced asbestosis. Shull, "Asbestosis: A roentgenologic review of 71 cases," Radiology 27, 279 (1936). The U.S. Public Health Service also commissioned a study on the effects of asbestos exposure»' The resulting report published in 1938 fully documented the hazards of asbestos exposure, and recommended precautionary asbestos dust concentration levels. Dreessen, et al., A Study of Asbestos in the Asbestos Textile Industry, Public Health Bill No. 241 (1938) Research on asbestos continued in the 1950’s and 60's. In 1965, Selikoff, Churg, and Hammond published a landmark study that conclusively linked the occurrence of pulmonary asbestosis with the duration of asbestos exposure. Selikoff, Churg, and Hammond, “The Occurrence of Asbestos Among Industrial Insulation Workers," 132 Ann. New York Acad.Sc. 139 (1965). The statutory culmination of the extensive medical studies on asbestos was the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq., 84 Stat. 1590, which authorized the Secretary of Labor to establish standards for permissible concentrations of asbestos fibers. See generally Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Prods. Corp., 493 F.2d 1076, 1083-1085 (5th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 869, 95 S.Ct. 127, 42 L.Ed.2d 107 (1974) (tracing history of medical knowledge of asbestos-related occupational diseases).

Defendant’s awareness of asbestos’ vicious effects may have become “substantially certain" at a time after plaintiffs began working at defendant’s plant. In such a case, plaintiffs’ claim should not be barred but should be circumscribed to the damage suffered for the period of employment during which defendant possessed its knowledge.