Court Opinion

ID: 9517461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:17:36.682863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:01.517952
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring specialty)-
I join in the majority opinion’s holding. I concur specially only to ally myself with the recent well-researched, well-reasoned opinion in Shearer v. Homestake Mining Co., 557 F.Supp. 549 (D.S.D.1983), wherein Chief Judge Bogue correctly predicted that if presented with the issue this court would reject the expansive reading given to the intentional acts exception by the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia in Mandolidis v. Elkins Industries, Inc., 246 S.E.2d 907 (W.Va.1978). The majority opinion does indeed reject the Mandolidis approach, although without specifically citing that decision, and I join in that holding.
Chief Judge Bogue points out the consequences that would follow from the adoption of the Mandolidis approach:
If the “intentional tort” exception was expanded as plaintiffs request, the focus would be upon the degree of risk of injury and the state of knowledge of the employer and the employee regarding the dangerous conduct or condition which caused the injury. This result undermines the balance of interests maintained by the worker’s compensation system. First, it would thwart the goal of the system to provide employers relative immunity from liability at law. Second, it would deny many employees the swift and certain compensation they now receive under the system. The system originally required employees to surrender their right to a potentially larger recovery in a common law action for the wilful or reckless misconduct of employers, in return for expeditious recovery under worker’s compensation. Employees disappointed with worker’s compensation recovery would be encouraged to seek additional compensation in a common law action, increasing the role of the courts in resolving industrial accident disputes.
Shearer v. Homestake Mining Co., supra, at 555.
It can be argued, of course, that the intentional acts exception as set forth in our worker’s compensation statutes should be expanded to encompass willful and wanton misconduct. See Note, “Workers’ Compensation: Expanding the Intentional Tort Exception to Include Willful, Wanton, and Reckless Employer Misconduct,” 58 .Notre Dame Law Review 891 (1983). Such an expansion, however, should be made only after the empirical economic data implicated in that decision have been examined. Just as worker’s compensation insurance coverage is not an inconsiderable cost of doing business, so also would be the additional cost of insuring (if indeed such coverage is available) against the liability arising from the narrowing of the scope of the exclusive remedy provided by our worker’s compensation statutes. In a word, these are costs that should be determined and weighed by the legislature. It should be noted that the intentional tort exception was not added to SDCL 62-3-2 until 1977. See 1977 S.D.Sess.Laws, ch. 422. Thus we are not faced in the instant case with a history of legislative inaction as we were in Walz v. City of Hudson, 327 N.W.2d 120, 123 (S.D.1982) (Wollman, J., concurring specially). If the legislature deems it advisable as a matter of social policy to broaden the statutory exception along the lines of the Mandolidis holding, so be it. Given the comparative recency of the legislature’s considered, deliberate use of the word “intentional” in SDCL 62-3-2, however, the judiciary should not be quick to expand upon the accepted, traditional meaning of that word.