List Industries, Inc. v. Dalien

107 So. 3d 470, 2013 WL 238202, 2013 Fla. App. LEXIS 925
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedJanuary 23, 2013
DocketNo. 4D11-2802
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 107 So. 3d 470 (List Industries, Inc. v. Dalien) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
List Industries, Inc. v. Dalien, 107 So. 3d 470, 2013 WL 238202, 2013 Fla. App. LEXIS 925 (Fla. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

COX, JACK S., Associate Judge.

In this worker’s compensation immunity case, an employer appeals a $2.7 million jury verdict and final judgment in favor of an employee who suffered an amputation of a significant portion of his dominant hand while operating a piece of machinery. The accident occurred on August 23, 2005, and is controlled by section 440.11(l)(b)(2), Florida Statutes (2005).

List Industries, Inc., the employer, manufactures steel lockers. In its facility, it uses a variety of different industrial machines to cut, bend, and form the parts used in the manufacturing process. Phi-teau Dalien was an employee operating a large machine called a Press Brake. The Press Brake was built in the 1960s and had never been modified in any substantial way. The Press Brake uses 60 tons of force to bend and shape steel. The operator inserts a sheet of steel into a horizontal slot in the machine. When the steel is properly positioned, the operator activates the machine by using a foot pedal. Activation by the foot pedal causes the Press Brake to push the die into the steel, causing it to bend into the shape of the die. The employee’s activation of the foot pedal while his hand was in the die is the process that caused the injury.

The employer contends that the trial court erred in denying its motion for directed verdict since the employee failed to present “clear and convincing evidence” of each of the three indispensible elements in Section 440.11(l)(b)(2), Florida Statutes (2005). We agree and reverse.

2003 was an important year in this area of the law. That year, the Florida Legislature effectively overruled the case of Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So.2d 683 (Fla.2000), when it amended Section 440.11 to codify the “intentional tort exception” to an employer’s workers compensation immunity recognized by the Supreme Court in Turner. In the revised statute, the Legislature mandated that the plaintiff/employee prove the “intentional tort exception” by clear and convincing evidence. Moreover, it replaced a “substantial certainty” standard with the “virtually certain” standard by requiring that “employer knew based upon similar accidents or on explicit warnings specifically identifying a known danger, was virtually certain to result in injury or death to the employee.” See Pendergrass v. R.D. Michaels, Inc., 936 So.2d 684, 689 n. 1 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006).

The change from “substantial certainty” to “virtually certain” is an extremely different and a manifestly more difficult standard to meet. It would mean that a plaintiff must show that a given danger will result in an accident every — or almost every — time.

Pendergrass further reminds us that while remedial legislation is generally in-terpretéd liberally in favor of the errors to be corrected, the Florida Legislature has specifically rejected such an interpretátion for the Worker’s Compensation Law. Id. at 688; § 440.015, Fla. Stat. (2005).

Because this accident occurred in 2005, this version of the statute controls this case:

Exclusiveness of liability.—

[472]*472(1) The liability of an employer prescribed in s. 440.10 shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability, including vicarious liability, of such employer to any third-party tort-feasor and to the employee, the legal representative thereof, husband or wife, parents, dependents, next of kin, and anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages from such employer at law or in admiralty on account of such injury or death, except as follows:
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(b) When an employer commits an intentional tort that causes the injury or death of the employee. For purposes of this paragraph, an employer’s actions shall be deemed to constitute an intentional tort and not an accident only when the employee proves, by clear and convincing evidence, that:
1. The employer deliberately intended to injure the employee; or
2. The employer engaged in conduct that the employer knew, based on prior similar accidents or on explicit warnings specifically identifying a known danger, was virtually certain to result in injury or death to the employee, and the employee was not aware of the risk because the danger was not apparent and the employer deliberately concealed or misrepresented the danger so as to prevent the employee from exercising informed judgment about whether to perform the work.

§ 440.11, Fla. Stat. (2005). On its face, the statute requires the employee to prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that the employer’s actions constituted “an intentional tort and not an accident.” Proof by clear and convincing evidence of a non-intentional tort is not sufficient to avoid the employer’s statutory immunity.

In adopting the Worker’s Compensation Law, the Legislature made its intent clear:

Legislative Intent. — It is the intent of the Legislature that the Worker’s Compensation Law be interpreted so as to assure the quick and efficient delivery of disability and medical benefits to an injured worker and to facilitate the worker’s return to gainful reemployment at a reasonable cost to the employer. It is the specific intent of the Legislature that workers’ compensation cases shall be decided on their merits. The workers’ compensation system in Florida is based on a mutual renunciation of common-law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike. In addition, it is the intent of the Legislature that the facts in the workers’ compensation case are not to be interpreted liberally in favor of either the rights of the injured worker or the rights of the employer. Additionally, the Legislature hereby declares that disputes concerning the facts in workers’ compensation cases are not to be given a broad liberal construction in favor of the employee on the one hand or of the employer on the other hand, and the laws pertaining to workers’ compensation are to be construed in accordance with the basic principles of statutory construction and not liberally in favor of either employee or the employer. It is the intent of the Legislature to ensure the prompt delivery of benefits to the insured worker.

§ 440.015, Fla. Stat. (2005).

Assuming an employer’s compliance with the requisite provisions of Chapter 440, the statute gives an employer “immunity from civil suit by the employee, except in the most egregious circumstances.” Bakerman v. The Bombay Co., Inc., 961 So.2d 259, 262 (Fla.2007); see also Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So.2d 683, 686 (Fla.2000) (describing employer’s immunity “from common-law negligence suits for employers covered by the statute”); Lovering v. Nickerson, 72 So.3d 780, 781 (Fla. 5th [473]*473DCA 2011) (describing employers’ immunity as one “from liability”). The system is “based on a mutual renunciation of common-law rights and defenses by employers and employees alike.” Bakerman, 961 So.2d at 261 (quoting § 440.015, Fla. Stat. (2006)). A civil personal injury lawsuit by an employee against an employer under section 440.11 was intended to be the rarest of exceptions to the immunity granted to the employer.

This employee certainly proved that the employer’s conduct was negligent. A negligence claim is supported by the facts. Safety guards for the machine were not used. The foot pedal was covered with grease and debris. No videos were used to educate the employee.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
107 So. 3d 470, 2013 WL 238202, 2013 Fla. App. LEXIS 925, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/list-industries-inc-v-dalien-fladistctapp-2013.