Court Opinion

ID: 9640889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:17:40.294693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:33.507356
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur.
The respondent is a corporate employer which can act only through natural persons. The order of dismissal applied to it only, and was certified as final in accordance with Rule 74.01(b), leaving the action pending against individual defendants. Then the plaintiffs may maintain tort actions against all of the individuals who may have injured them willfully, recklessly or negligently. See Hollrah v. Freidrich, 634 S.W.2d 221 (Mo.App.1982).
The showing that an individual employee of the common employer had committed an intentional tort against the plaintiffs would not negate liability of the corporate employer for workers’ compensation benefits. See Hill v. John Cheezik Imports, 797 S.W.2d 528 (Mo.App.1990); see also Stanislaus v. Parmalee Industries, Inc., 729 S.W.2d 543 (Mo.App.1987) for a general discussion of co-worker liability. Thus, the petition shows on its face a prima facie claim for workers’ compensation benefits. A civil action against the corporation should not proceed until there is an express finding of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission, rejecting workers’ compensation liability. I have a hard time conceiving of a situation in which there could be such a finding, because of intentional infliction of injury. I am aware of no case in which workers’ compensation was denied because an intentional act was authorized by formal corporate action. But I would let the Commission make the initial finding.
*162The workers compensation statutes provide mutual benefits and burdens. In return for providing compensation which is both assured and insured, the employer is relieved of the burden of civil actions for damages. Claimants, concerned because of the modest scale of compensation benefits when compared to some civil recoveries, have often tried to get around the interdiction of civil actions by astute pleading. See e.g. Wood v. Union Electric Company, 786 S.W.2d 613 (Mo.App.1990). Employers should be free from this kind of harassment until it is authoritatively determined that workers’ compensation is not available. Otherwise the mutuality of the compensation statutes is skewed.
The judgment is properly affirmed.