Court Opinion

ID: 9549467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:19:11.194253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:22.628755
License: Public Domain

*1172HODGES, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The majority holding in my view is contrary to the actual language of our statute, is contrary to our case law, and is contrary to accepted parameters of judicial decision because it amounts to judicial legislation.
It is a firmly established principle of Colorado law in workmen’s compensation cases that coemployees are precluded from suing one another for negligent actions causing injury in the course of their employment. The many cases enunciating this principle and its rationale are set forth in Kandt v. Evans, 645 P.2d 1300 (Colo.1982). See also Ellis v. Rocky Mountain Empire Sports, Inc., 43 Colo.App. 166, 602 P.2d 895 (1979); Nelson v. Harding, 29 Colo.App. 76, 480 P.2d 851 (1971); Sieck v. Trueblood, 29 Colo.App. 432, 485 P.2d 134 (1971); see also Hamblen v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 101 F.Supp. 799 (D.Colo.1951).
The majority holding which carves out an exception to the established case and statutory law when the coemployee is a doctor, is promulgating a new policy in workmen’s compensation law which I believe was never intended by our General Assembly. The majority has been persuaded to apply the so called “dual capacity” doctrine which has been enunciated in several California cases. This doctrine would extend personal liability to a coemployee when his work role is separate and distinct from the work done in the ordinary course of the employment.1 This doctrine is contrary to Colorado precedent and statutory law in my view.
When a doctor is in full-time employment by a company to care for and treat other employees he is clearly, by common sense definition, a coemployee with all other employees under our statutory law. He is acting in the capacity assigned to him as an employee, just as any other employee performs the work for which he was hired. This view is supported by a leading scholarly analysis and in the majority of states.2
The immunity given all coemployees is a rational one under our workmen’s compensation statutes. Our Workmen’s Compensation Act is based on a compromising of rights, whereby the employer relinquishes normal defenses and becomes automatically liable, and the employee relinquishes previous common law remedies. Kandt v. Evans, supra.
The stated reasons of the majority for excepting a company doctor from immunity are unconvincing. To say that an employee who is a company doctor is not an integral part of his employer’s business and thus not covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act and its immunity strains logic. A significant percent of a modern company’s employees function outside the production area and do work which is separate and distinct from the work done in the so called ordinary course of employment. It is clear, however, that the majority could not truly view this as the salient distinction for otherwise the Workmen’s Compensation Act would have little continuing validity — it would cover too few of a company’s employees.
The point made by the majority that workplace accidents are frequently not based on fault, but on an increasingly complex technology, can similarly be made for medical accidents. Also, the majority’s reasoning that the company doctor (or his carrier) can afford to pay and thus should be personally liable, is a denial of standard constitutional principles of equal protection, and should be shunned by a court of law. Finally, the Workmen’s Compensation Act is not fault-based, and thus to reason that doctors alone should be judged on fault, is also contrary to the Act and to fundamental principles of fairness.
*1173In brief, with reference to the “dual capacity” doctrine, “the company doctor does not have two capacities. He has one: company doctor.” 2 A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 72.61(b), at 14-203 (1982).
The majority has adopted this exception on admittedly “sound policy considerations." It is more proper for the General Assembly to make such a policy decision, if it so desires. The defendant’s motion to dismiss should not have been denied.
I am authorized to say that Justice RO-VIRA joins in this dissent.

. See Hoffman v. Rogers, 22 Cal.App.3d 655, 99 Cal.Rptr. 455 (1972).

. See, e.g., 2 A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 72.61(b) at 14-200-14-207 (1982); Hayes v. Marshall Field & Co., 351 Ill.App. 329, 115 N.E.2d 99 (1953); Proctor v. Ford Motor Co., 36 Ohio St.2d 3, 302 N.E.2d 580 (1973); Babich v. Pavich, 270 Pa.Super. 140, 411 A.2d 218 (1979); cf., Garcia v. Iserson, 33 N.Y.2d 421, 309 N.E.2d 420, 353 N.Y.S.2d 955 (1974); but see, e.g., Stevens v. Kimmel, 394 N.E.2d 232 (Ind.App.1979); Hoffman v. Rogers, supra.