Curt Peters and Cheri Peters v. Wady Industries, Inc., and Patrick Terrio

489 S.W.3d 784, 2016 Mo. LEXIS 189
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJune 7, 2016
DocketSC94442
StatusPublished
Cited by82 cases

This text of 489 S.W.3d 784 (Curt Peters and Cheri Peters v. Wady Industries, Inc., and Patrick Terrio) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Curt Peters and Cheri Peters v. Wady Industries, Inc., and Patrick Terrio, 489 S.W.3d 784, 2016 Mo. LEXIS 189 (Mo. 2016).

Opinions

Patricia Breckenridge,' Judge

Curt and Cheri Peters filed a personal injury action against Patrick Terrio, alleging that Mr. Peters was injured at work because Mr. Terrio, a supervisory co-employee, was negligent. The trial court dismissed the Peterses’ claims against Mr.’ Terrio, finding they failed to allege Mr. Terrio owed Mr. Peters a duty outside of their employer’s nondelegable duty to provide a safe workplace. The Peterses appealed, asserting that their petition alleges sufficient facts to support a common law negligence action against Mr. Terrio.

At the time of Mr, Peters’ work-related injuries, immunity from common law liability as provided for under section 287.120, RSMo Supp. 2005,1 of the workers’ compensation law was limited to employers, and an injured employee could maintain a cause of action recognized by common law against a co-employee. At common law, co-employees are liable to their fellow employees for breaches of a duty owed independently of the master-servant relationship. Inherently, if a co-employee is assigned to perform an employer’s nondelegable duties, performance of that duty derives solely from the master-servant relationship, and a co-employee cannot be liable for a breach of such a duty. Because- the Peterses pleaded facts establishing only duties that are a part of the employer’s nondelegable duty to provide a safe workplace, their petition failed to state a negligence cause of action against Mr. Terrio. Therefore, this Court affirms the trial court’s judgment dismissing the Peterses’ claims against Mr. Ter-rio. .

Factual and Procedural Background

Mr. Peters and Mr. Terrio were employed by Tramar Contracting, Inc., a company that specializes in providing services and products to general contractors in the construction industry. Among its services, Tramar delivers dowel baskets, which are 200-pound rebar paver baskets used in concrete construction, manufactured by Wady Industries. Wady Industries shipped the dowel baskets to Tramar stacked, one on top of the other, without warning, bracing, or other precautionary measures. Upon arriving at Tramar, the dowel baskets were.kept in this stacked manner in a staging area until they were needed. Once needed, the baskets were moved from the staging area to a specified construction site in the same stacked manner in which they were shipped by Wady Industries.

■ Mr. Terrio, a project manager for Tra-mar, had received warnings from other employees about the potential safety hazards posed by the stacked dowél baskets. Despite these warnings, on September -24, 2008,. Mr. Terrio ordered that, the dowel baskets be delivered to a construction site on a Tramar flatbed truck while kept in the stacked manner in which they were sent to Tramar. A row of baskets fell from the flatbed truck onto Mr. Peters, [788]*788causing permanent and catastrophic injuries.2

Mr. and Ms. Peters filed suit against Wady Industries and Mr. Terrio. Among other claims in their petition, Mr. Peters asserted a claim for negligence against Mr. Terrio, and Ms. Peters asserted a loss of consortium claim based on Mr. Peters’ injuries.3 In the claims against Mr. Terrio, the Peterses alleged that Mr. Terrio was negligent in that he breached his duty to exercise reasonable care in the following ways:

a. [Mr. Terrio] allowed the baskets to be transported on a flatbed truck while stacked at a level that exceeded a safe height;
b. [Mr. Terrio] failed to insure that the baskets were properly braced or secured for transportation and unloading;
c. [Mr. Terrio] failed to provide sufficient help; ...
d. [Mr. Terrio] failed to provide adequately trained help; ...
e. [Mr. Terrio] failed to provide a proper area for the unloading of the baskets;
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f. [Mr. Terrio] failed to heed the warnings of employees about the stacked baskets;
g. [Mr. Terrio] allowed the unsafe course to become standard operating procedure;
h. [Mr. Terrio] ordered and directed plaintiff Curt Peters to load, stack, transport, and unload the baskets in the aforementioned unsafe manner; [and]
i.[Mr. Terrio] ordered and directed plaintiff Curt Peters to load, transport, and unload the baskets in the aforementioned manner in violation of OSHA Regulations including 29 CFR 1926.250(a)(1).

In his answer to the petition, Mr. Terrio raised several affirmative defenses, including that the Peterses’ claims are barred by Missouri’s workers’ compensation laws, section 287.010, et seq., and asserted that the Peterses failed to state a cause of action. Mr. Terrio also filed a motion to dismiss the Peterses’ claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Specifically, Mr. Terrio argued that the Peterses’ claims fall within the exclusive purview of workers’ compensation laws because the Peterses did not allege any conduct by Mr. Terrio that lies outside of Tramar’s non-delegable duties to provide a safe workplace. The trial court sustained Mr. Ter-rio’s motion to dismiss, finding that the Peterses failed to allege that Mr. Terrio owed a duty independently of Tramar’s nondelegable duty to provide a safe workplace. The court entered judgment dismissing the Peterses’ claims against Mr. Terrio.4

The Peterses appealed to the court of appeals, and the majority affirmed the trial court’s dismissal. The dissenting judge certified the case for transfer to this Court. Mo. Const, art. V, sec. 10.

Standard of Review

This Court reviews a trial court’s grant of a motion to dismiss de novo. [789]*789Conway v. CitiMortgage, Inc., 438 S.W.3d 410, 413 (Mo. banc 2014). Mr. Terrio filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, arguing that the exclusive remedy for the Peterses’ claims is provided by Missouri’s workers’ compensation laws, section 287.010 et seq., and that the Peterses failed to allege Mr. Terrio breached a duty he personally owed to the Peterses. Applicability of the workers’ compensation laws is an affirmative defense and not a matter of the trial court’s jurisdiction. McCracken v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, 298 S.W.3d 473, 479 (Mo. banc 2009). Although not a jurisdictional claim, Mr. Terrio’s motion to dismiss raised the claim that the Peterses failed to state a cause of action against him. See Leeper v. Asmus, 440 S.W.3d 478, 482 (Mo.App. 2014).

“A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim tests the adequacy of a plaintiffs petition.” Conway, 438 S.W.Sd at 413-14. “When considering whether a petition fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, this Court must accept all properly pleaded facts as true, giving the pleadings their broadest intendment, and construe all allegations favorably to the pleader.” Bromwell v. Nixon, 361 S.W.3d 393, 398 (Mo. banc 2012). The Court reviews the petition to see if the facts alleged, given their broadest intendment, meet the elements of a cause of action that is recognized or that might be adopted. State ex rel. Henley v.

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Bluebook (online)
489 S.W.3d 784, 2016 Mo. LEXIS 189, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/curt-peters-and-cheri-peters-v-wady-industries-inc-and-patrick-terrio-mo-2016.