Kaya v. Partington

681 A.2d 256, 1996 R.I. LEXIS 211, 1996 WL 437115

• Court: Supreme Court of Rhode Island
• Decided: August 1, 1996
• Docket: 94-523-Appeal
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION

WEISBERGER, Chief Justice.

This case comes before us on the appeal of the plaintiff, John C. Kaya (Kaya), from a summary judgment entered in the Superior Court in favor of the defendants, the city of Providence; John J. Partington, commissioner of public safety for the city of Providence; Colonel Bernard E. Gannon, chief of the Providence police department; and Stephen T. Napolitano, treasurer of the city of Providence. We affirm the summary judgment in favor of the city of Providence and all other defendants. The facts of the case insofar as pertinent to this appeal are as follows.

On May 2, 1993, plaintiff, a thirteen-year veteran of the Providence police department who had attained the rank of sergeant, was injured by an unknown assailant while attempting to make an arrest. The plaintiff was dispatched to an area opposite 187 Benefit Street in Providence’s East Side along with several other police officers when Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) security officers requested assistance from the Providence police department. A group of several hundred young people was gathered around a bonfire, singing and chanting, near the entrance to an abandoned railroad tunnel located in the area. The police had reason to believe that these youths, most of whom were costumed and several of whom were filming the event, were participating in a “satanic ritual.” Upon arriving at the scene the police, including plaintiff, attempted to disperse the group. The crowd grew hostile and violent. The situation became unruly, with many in the crowd shouting obscenities and throwing debris at the officers. In the midst of this melee, several of the officers were seriously injured, including Kaya, who was struck in the face with a chunk of asphalt while attempting to arrest a female participant.

In accordance with G.L.1956 chapter 19 of title 45, and predicated on his work-related injury, plaintiff received “injured-on-duty” (IOD) benefits. The plaintiff was released by his physician and has returned to the full performance of his duties as a police officer.

Kaya subsequently brought this action for damages, claiming that defendants negligently failed to provide him, as well as other ranking officers on the scene, with blue shirts as part of their uniforms, as opposed to the white shirts issued. Kaya alleges that his white shirt made him a “more susceptible and likely target of violent assault” and that he was “specially targeted for such assault by virtue of his uniform.”¹ In addition, plaintiff alleges that he did not have any protective riot gear at the time he approached the disturbance and subsequently sustained his injuries. Kaya specifically contends that defendants acted negligently, willfully, and intentionally by failing to provide a blue shirt and riot gear.

The defendants’ motion for summary judgment was granted. The plaintiff filed a timely appeal and contends that the trial justice erred in granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment. We disagree.

The issue presented in this case is whether a police officer can maintain an action in tort against a municipality and his or her superior officers for injuries sustained in the course of his or her employment and whether IOD benefits constitute the exclusive remedy of a police officer injured in the line of duty.

Police officers in Rhode Island are statutorily entitled to compensation for injuries incurred in the performance of their duties. General Laws 1956 chapter 19 of title 45 entitled, “Relief of Injured and Deceased Fire Fighters and Police Officers,” provides for such compensation and benefits. This statute automatically triggers IOD benefits upon the occurrence of a line-of-duty illness or injury without requiring the police officer to show fault on the part of the respective city, town, fire district, or state. Labbadia v. State, 513 A.2d 18, 21 (R.I.1986). The IOD statute provides that any police officer in Rhode Island who is injured in the performance of his or her duties may recover the benefits under the statutory scheme. Section 45-19-l(a). These benefits include a mandate for payment of medical and related expenses for police officers injured in the line of duty as well as the full salary to which they would be entitled had they not been so incapacitated. Id. In addition, the statute provides that all such medical expenses related to this injury will be covered if he or she retires in a disabled condition as a result of the injury and he or she suffers a recurrence of the injury that caused his or her retirement. Id. Section 45-19-l(b) provides that “the term ‘police officer’ shall mean and include any chief or other member of the police department of any city or town regularly employed at a fixed salary or wage.”

Section 45-19-1 is a separate and distinct compensation statute from the Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA) which originally covered police officers.² Section 45-19-1 is unlike the WCA in that it requires that their full salaries be paid to police officers by the municipality that employs them. Under the WCA injured workers receive only a percentage of their salaries, G.L.1956 § 28-33-17, and coverage under the WCA is optional on the part of the individual employee, G.L.1956 § 28-29-17. Furthermore, when an employee elects coverage under the WCA, he or she is deemed to have waived his or her common-law rights against the employer and its employees, officers, directors, and agents. Boucher v. McGovern, 639 A.2d 1369, 1375 (R.I.1994) (exclusive-remedy provision of WCA immunized driver, as coem-ployee of passenger, from claims for contribution or indemnity).

In contrast the IOD statute is not optional. It is a mandatory compensation act and must be complied with as the exclusive remedy provided to police officers who become ill or injured in the line of duty. It presents no alternative legal course of action to the police officer with respect to the city or the town that employs that officer. Section 45-19-1.1 establishes a means for reimbursement to the city or the town of the above moneys expended only when the injury or the sickness of the officer “was caused under circumstances creating a legal liability in some person other than the employer.” However, the IOD statute does not preclude an officer from seeking recovery of damages, including compensation for pain and suffering, from a third party. Those rights remain intact. It is notable that § 45-19-1 does not provide for such compensation payments by the municipality to the officer.

There have been several amendments since the original enactment in 1944 of § 45-19-1, which then only required municipalities to pay police officers incapacitated during the performance of their duties for the duration of the incapacity. Included among these were changes allowing for other categories of public-safety employees to receive these injury benefits. For example, crash-rescue crewmembers having been previously covered by the WCA were added in 1972 with the enactment of P.L.1972, ch. 212, § 1. Labbadia, 513 A.2d at 20. In Labbadia, this court addressed Labbadia’s attempt to recover both under the IOD and the WCA. Id. at 20. Labbadia, a crash-rescue crewmember, sought double compensation because it appeared that when the Legislature provided for members of his occupation to be included under § 45-19-1, it did not specifically exclude them from § 28-29-2. Labbadia, 513 A.2d at 22. In denying Labbadia’s appeal, this court recognized that the change of remedies for crash-rescue crewmembers “enhanced the rights and remedies of crash-rescue crewmembers injured in the fine of duty.” Id. at 21. In Labbadia we stated that “[sjection 45-19-1 was intended to provide greater work-related injury benefits to certain public employees whose jobs require them to serve the state or its municipalities, often in dangerous situations.” 513 A.2d at 21. This court went on to explain the impact of this statute on those categories of workers who assume the risk of harm every single work day by the very nature óf their employment. Specifically, we stated:

“This provision gives police officers, firefighters, and crash-rescue crewmembers greater rights than they would have under either common law (where, for instance, they would have to show fault on the part of the employer as well as overcome certain defenses) or the WCA (where, even though the employee is relieved from proving fault, the employee receives only the percentage of salary provided in G.L.1956 (1979 Reenactment) § 28-33-17).” Labbadia, 513 A.2d at 21.

We hold that § 45-19-1 is the exclusive remedy for police officers injured in the line of duty with respect to their employers. The IOD remedy, like workers’ compensation benefits, allows a recovery without showing of fault and is not subject to the various tort defenses (contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, lack of foreseeability, lack of a duty or breach -of a duty, lack of notice, and intervening causes) that would be available to any alleged tortfeasor, including a municipality, to defeat the claims of a police officer seeking damages under the State Tort Claims Act. (G.L.1956 chapter 31 of title 9). It is noteworthy that Kaya was injured as a direct result of an intentional battery by an unknown assailant. Even if a negligence claim against the city could be established by Kaya, the city’s negligence would arguably constitute a remote cause of his injury. However, none of the defenses listed above would be available to the city under the IOD statute to defeat such a claim. However, plaintiff is not precluded by the IOD from bringing suit against the intentional tortfeasor.

The plaintiff makes much of the exclusivity provision of the WCA and the absence of such an explicit provision in the IOD statute. The WCA was established to provide expeditious relief to injured workers under a no-fault system of benefits replacing a cumbersome and often lengthy tort system. Labbadia, 513 A.2d at 21. The specific legislative intent was to establish the WCA as the exclusive remedy available to injured workers, completely replacing all other remedies then available. Id. Section 28-29-20, the exclusivity provision of the WCA, states:

“The right to compensation for an injury under chapters 29 — 38 of this title, and the remedy therefor granted by those chapters, shall be in lieu of all rights and remedies as to that injury now existing, either at common law or otherwise against an employer, or its directors, officers, agents, or employees; and those rights and remedies shall not accrue to employees entitled to compensation under those chapters.”

It is true that when adopted by the Legislature, the IOD statute contained no such exclusivity provision. However, as with the WCA, the remedy provided for in the IOD statute must be exclusive. Although the IOD statute is not explicit on this score, similar sound public policy requires that the exclusivity of the remedy should apply not only with respect to the employer but also with respect to fellow officers, superior officers, and officers of the municipal corporation. The individual defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Our brother, Justice Flanders, in a very vigorous dissenting opinion, suggests that this court should not engage in interstitial amendment to the IOD statute by engrafting thereon an exclusivity provision similar to that contained in the WCA.

We have already adverted to our decision in Labbadia v. State, in which we held that by including crash-rescue crew-members within the benefits of the IOD statute, the Legislature impliedly excluded them from the WCA. In construing a statute, it is our obligation “to ascertain the intent behind [the] legislative enactment and to give effect to that intent.” State v. Delaurier, 488 A.2d 688, 693 (R.I.1985). In giving effect to legislative intent, we may depart from a mechanical application of statutory language or definitions, particularly in the event that application of mere semantics will defeat the purpose of the act. Id. at 693-94.

At the time the IOD statute was adopted, police officers and firefighters had no effective right of action against their state or municipal employers because of sovereign immunity. Any right of action that they might have- against persons whose conduct inflicted negligent injury upon them would have been gravely circumscribed by the firefighters’/police officers’ rule. See, e.g., Smith v. fully, 665 A.2d 1333 (R.I.1995); Aetna

Casualty & Surety Co. v. Vierra, 619 A.2d 436 (R.I.1993); Mignone v. Fieldcrest Mills, 556 A.2d 35 (R.I.1989); Roberts v. Rosenblatt, 146 Conn. 110, 148 A.2d 142 (1969); Wilson v. Florida Processing Co., 368 So.2d 609 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1979); England v. Tasker, 129 N.H. 467, 529 A.2d 938 (1987).

The IOD statute and the WCA are similar statutes, and though not identical in their provisions, the two are designed to achieve similar goals. In construing the provisions of statutes that relate to the same or to similar subject matter, the court should attempt to harmonize each statute with the other so as to be consistent with their general objective scope. State v. Ahmadjian, 438 A.2d 1070, 1081 (R.I.1981). ‘“This rule of construction applies even though the statutes in question [may] contain no reference to each other and [even though they] are passed at different times.’ ” Blanchette v. Stone, 591 A.2d 785, 786 (R.I.1991).

In our opinion it would create a result not intended by the Legislature for this court to hold that in addition to IOD benefits, police officers, firefighters, and crash-rescue crew-members should have a right to sue their municipal and/or state employers. It would be productive of near chaos if we should recognize a right of action for police officers, firefighters, and crash-rescue crewmembers to sue their superior officers and fellow employees. In a paramilitary organization nothing could be more detrimental to good order and discipline than the encouragement of civil actions by police, fire, and emergency personnel against their employers and their superior officers arising out of perceived shortcomings in preparing them for dangerous circumstances that they must encounter on a daily basis.³ It is for this reason, in our opinion, that IOD legislation was originally adopted as an exclusive substitute for the

speculative rights of action that they might have had against their employers and the community whose members they serve. This court will not construe a statute to reach an absurd result. Beaudoin v. Petit, 122 R.I. 469, 476, 409 A.2d 536, 540 (1979). In Krikorian v. Rhode Island Department of Human Services, 606 A.2d 671 (R.I.1992), this court, in construing Rhode Island’s Equal Access to Justice Act, determined that a nonprofit legal agency that represented a plaintiff in seeking medical-assistance benefits was entitled to a counsel fee even though the plaintiff had not incurred out-of-pocket expenses and had not compensated the agency for its services and' legal assistance. The literal terms of the statute G.L.1956 § 42-92-3 provided that “[t]he adjudicative officer shall award to a prevailing party reasonable litigation expenses incurred by the party in connection with that proceeding.” See Krikorian, 606 A.2d at 674. It was therefore argued that counsel fees should not be awarded in this instance to the nonprofit agency. This court responded as follows:

“It is a well-settled principle in this jurisdiction that this court is the final arbiter on questions of statutory construction. * * * In construing a statute, this court attempts to ascertain the intent of the Legislature by considering the act in its entirety and by viewing it in light of circumstances and purposes that motivated its passage. Legislative intent is determined ‘through an examination of the language of the statute itself, giving the words of the statute their plain and ordinary meaning.’ * * * However, we shall not construe a statute in such a way as to violate the intent of the Legislature in enacting the statute.

«‡ * *

“Furthermore, when we consider the act in its entirety and view it in light of circumstances and purposes that motivated its passage, the only meaningful construction we discern is that the Legislature intended for attorney’s fee awards to be available to those attorneys or organizations that represent prevailing litigants who do not incur any out-of-pocket expenses.” Krikorian, 606 A.2d at 675.

A court need not lie supine in the face of legislative silence or ambiguity. Although members of the Supreme Court of the United States have spoken eloquently about strict statutory construction, it is notable that in D.A. Schulte, Inc. v. Gangi 328 U.S. 108, 66 S.Ct. 925, 90 L.Ed. 1114 (1946), the majority of the Court in an opinion by Justice Reed interpreted the Fair Labor Standards Act (which was silent on the subject) to preclude a compromise between an employee and an employer that diminished the employee’s recovery of liquidated damages on a claim for overtime compensation.

The Supreme Court of this State in Capobianco v. United Wire & Supply Corp., 77 R.I. 474, 77 A.2d 534 (1950), in construing the then-existing workmen’s compensation statute, filled in a gap that was necessary to authorize the Superior Court to hear and determine allegations of fraud or coercion in the procurement of an agreement prior to an appeal to this court. In commenting upon its construction of the statute to supply the missing element, we made the following comment:

“It would seem that we have here a classic instance of a legislative oversight which has resulted in an unintended gap in the statutory provision prescribing the procedure necessary to be followed in order to obtain a decision from which an appeal in its true sense could be taken to the superior court within the time limited by § 4. This being so it is not only the right but the duty of this court to fill in such gap so that the purpose of the act may be effectively carried out and so that appellate procedure thereunder may be made clear and definite. Only legislative direction to the contrary could bar judicial action in the premises. We are restrained by no legislative direction of that nature.” Id. at 482-88, 77 A.2d at 538.

During the present century the Supreme Court of the United States and other courts have resolved the most controversial issues by judicial decision in the face of legislative inaction. See, e.g., Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (one person, one vote); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) (adoption of the exclusionary rule); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) (ending segregation by race in the public schools); Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 45 S.Ct. 625, 69 L.Ed. 1138 (1925) (wherein the Court construed the First Amendment (beginning “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”) to be applicable to the states as well through the medium of the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment). The foregoing cases are simply a few examples of the forging of policy from the magnificent generalities contained in the Bill of Rights. Compared to the foregoing sweeping assertions of policy, our modest attempt to harmonize the provisions of the IOD statute and the WCA would be well within the area of a restrained judicial function.

For the reasons stated, the appeal of the plaintiff is denied and dismissed. The summary judgment entered in the Superior Court is affirmed. The papers in the case may be remanded to the Superior Court.

1 . Having attained the rank of sergeant, plaintiff was required to wear as part of his official uniform a white shirt, distinguishing him as a superior officer among fellow police officers at the scene who were all in blue. A police report filed by RISD security officers alleges that several students in the crowd were heard to shout, "Get the * * * in the white shirts, they're in charge.”

2 . The WCA was first enacted in 1912. At that time police officers were not excluded from the definition of “employee.” Labbadia v. State, 513 A.2d 18, 20 (R.I.1986) (citing P.L.1912, ch. 831, art. 5, §1). In 1917 the Legislature specifically excluded them. Id. (citing P.L.1917, ch. 1534, § 5). It was not until 1944 that police officers became statutorily entitled to benefits for incapacitation during the course of performing their duties via legislation that has evolved through a series of amendments to become the present-day G.L.1956 § 45-19-1. 513 A.2d at 20.

3 . The dissent quotes Tennyson's immortal "Charge of the Light Brigade." We are all repelled by the acts of the blundering commander or commanders who permitted the Light Brigade to charge to its doom in the face of Russia’s cannons. However, if sovereign immunity (a judicially devised rule of policy) had not barred British troops from bringing suit against their superior officers or the Crown itself, it may well have been that Britain and France would not have achieved victory in the Crimean War. It should also be noted that if General MacArthur had been called to account before one or more juries for his manner of conducting the Philippine defense at the beginning of World War II, he might not have been available to lead the Allied Forces in their triumphal return to Manila. It should also be considered, at least in passing, that if General Eisenhower had faced possible actions for damages, he might never have dared to order the Allied troops to invade Normandy in June of 1944.