In the Iowa Supreme Court
No. 23–0603
Submitted November 14, 2024—Filed May 23, 2025
Nedzad Mehmedovic as the administrator of the Estate of Hus Hari Buljic and as the administrator of the Estate of Sedika Buljic; Honario Garcia, individually and as administrator of the Estate of Reberiano Leno Garcia; and Arturo de Jesus Hernandez and Miguel Angel Hernandez as coadministrators of the Estate of Jose Ayala,
Appellants,
vs.
Tyson Foods Inc., Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., John H. Tyson, Noel W. White, Dean Banks, Stephen R. Stouffer, Tom Brower, Tom Hart, Cody Brustkern, John Casey, Bret Tapken, James Hook, Doug White, Mary Jones, and Debra Adams,
Appellees.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, John J.
Sullivan, judge.
Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their lawsuit alleging common law claims
based on the deaths of four workers after the workers allegedly contracted
COVID-19 at work. Affirmed in Part, Reversed in Part, and Case Remanded.
McDermott, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all justices
joined.
G. Bryan Ulmer, III, (argued) and Mel C. Orchard, III, of The Spence Law
Firm, LLC, Jackson, Wyoming; Thomas P. Frerichs and Luke D. Guthrie of
Frerichs Law Office, P.C., Waterloo; and John J. Rausch of Rausch Law Firm,
PLLC, Waterloo, for appellants. 2
David Yoshimura (argued) and Nicholas Klinefeldt of Faegre Drinker Biddle
& Reath LLP, Des Moines, for appellees Hart, Brustkern, Casey, Tapken, and
Hook.
Eric B. Wolff (argued) of Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle, Washington; Kevin J.
Driscoll and Eric G. Hoch of Finley Law Firm, P.C., Des Moines; and Christopher
S. Coleman, Jessica L. Everett-Garcia, Margo R. Casselman, and Samantha J.
Burke of Perkins Coie LLP, Phoenix, Arizona, for appellees Tyson Foods Inc.,
Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., Tyson, White, Banks, Stouffer, Brower, White, Jones,
and Adams. 3
McDermott, Justice.
Several estates filed suit against Tyson Foods Inc. and several of its
corporate executives and plant supervisors, alleging gross negligence and fraud
when four former workers at Tyson Foods’s pork processing plant in Waterloo
died after contracting COVID-19. The district court concluded that Iowa’s
Workers’ Compensation Act (IWCA) provided the exclusive remedy for the estates’
claims and dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The estates
appeal, arguing that their claims fall within an exception in the IWCA and that
their claims should proceed.
I.
A.
Because this case involves an appeal from the denial of a motion to
dismiss, we accept the facts as alleged in the petition as true. Meade v. Christie,
974 N.W.2d 770, 772 (Iowa 2022).
In early January 2020, Chinese state media reported the first known death
from a respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus that became known as
COVID-19. Tyson Foods has extensive meatpacking operations and business
interests in China. By February, Tyson’s Chinese operation halted some of its
plants and reduced or slowed operations at others to stem the spread of
COVID-19 and protect workers. Tyson formed a company-wide COVID-19 task
force after observing COVID-19’s effect on its Chinese operations and workforce.
Tyson’s Chinese operation soon implemented several COVID-19 protection
polices in its Chinese plants, including providing masks and other appropriate
personal protective equipment to employees, using infrared temperature
monitors to check employees’ temperatures twice a day, installing air filtration
systems, establishing quarantine observation areas for workers who were 4
potentially infected, restricting access to facilities by symptomatic employees,
and preventing employees from gathering in cafeterias and breakrooms.
Tyson’s largest pork processing plant in the United States was located in
Waterloo, employing nearly 3,000 workers and processing close to 20,000 hogs
every day. It operated under a wholly owned subsidiary called Tyson Fresh Meats
Inc. By March, COVID-19 had made its way to Waterloo. President Trump issued
a national emergency declaration, and Governor Reynolds followed with a
statewide emergency proclamation. Days after those proclamations, Tyson told
its corporate employees to begin working from home. The Waterloo plant
remained operating at full capacity.
Days after ordering its corporate employees to work from home, Tyson sent
an email to its Waterloo plant workers ordering them to keep coming to work
despite what it referred to as “stories about ‘shelter in place.[’] ” When plant
workers were symptomatic, they were told that they couldn’t go home until they
received a positive COVID-19 test. One worker approached his supervisors at the
Waterloo plant and said that he was symptomatic and was awaiting a test result.
He was told to go back to work. Days later, that test result came back positive.
This went against Tyson’s flu season policy requiring that symptomatic workers
go home.
The plant continued to allow sick workers to stay at work. One worker who
vomited on the production line was allowed to continue to work. Another worker
who tested positive was told to keep working after the test result came back. One
supervisor specifically directed his employees to show up to work even if they
were exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. This supervisor intercepted a worker who
was attempting to leave work to get tested and told the worker to get back to
work, saying, “[W]e all have symptoms—you have a job to do.” The supervisor 5
also referred to COVID-19 as the “glorified flu,” telling his workers not to worry
because “everyone is going to get it.”
In April, COVID-19 transmission at the plant surged. Supervisors and
managers began to avoid the plant floor,
delegating their managerial duties to
nonmanagerial staff. Supervisors cancelled
regularly scheduled safety meetings with workers.
Tyson began to log the workers calling in sick with
COVID-19 symptoms. (See chart, right.) Although
these began to be tracked as “COVID-19
symptoms,” Debra Adams, the associate director
of occupational health for Tyson Fresh Meats, told
Mary Jones, the occupational nurse at the plant,
to have the nursing staff change its coding from
“COVID-19 symptoms” to “flu-like symptoms.”
The sick-call log showed a nearly exponential
increase in absenteeism among Waterloo plant
workers, shown here.
The rising absenteeism was becoming apparent to the workers. Around
this time, supervisors gathered the plant’s interpreters in a closed-door meeting.
Most of the workers, including the ones represented by the estates in this case,
did not speak English. In this meeting, supervisors told the interpreters to
reassure the plant’s workers that there was no outbreak, that the county health
department “cleared” the plant of COVID-19, and that there had not been any
confirmed cases. The supervisors also told the interpreters that they couldn’t
discuss COVID-19 with the workers further. After this meeting, the supervisors 6
removed most of the interpreters from the plant floor. The supervisors held two
other closed-door meetings after this, when more confirmed cases arose and the
county health department became involved.
On April 6, Tyson closed its Columbus Junction processing plant after
twenty-nine employees tested positive the day before. The company suspended
Columbus Junction’s operations indefinitely and moved the plant’s hogs to
Waterloo for processing. Tyson also had its subcontractors from the Columbus
Junction plant—janitors and cafeteria workers—travel to Waterloo to work while
Columbus Junction remained closed. These subcontractors were not tested for
COVID-19 before starting at the Waterloo plant.
On that same day, Tyson installed stations at the Waterloo plant to check
workers’ temperatures before entering the building. But the screenings failed to
exclude individuals who were taking fever-reducing medications. What’s more,
the thermometers were not calibrated correctly, resulting in obviously inaccurate
results. Supervisors gave workers torn rags and fabric as optional facemasks.
Around this time, the plant’s operations garnered the attention of local
officials. The county health department attempted to work with the plant, but
Tyson, its executives, and its supervisors refused to cooperate. Eventually, on
April 10, health department officials and the sheriff were allowed inside the
plant. They were shocked. The plant was operating at full speed, with a crowded
floor and no personal protective equipment. These officials asked Tyson to close
the plant, but Tyson refused.
Two days later, nearly two dozen plant floor workers were admitted to the
emergency room with COVID-19 symptoms. Among them was Isidro Fernandez,
who died fifteen days later. The day after Isidro Fernandez was admitted to the
hospital, so was Jose Ayala, another plant floor employee. In Ayala’s medical 7
records, doctors noted that he worked at Tyson, “where numerous cases of
COVID have been confirmed recently.” Ayala died from COVID-19 complications
about a month later.
Shortly after Fernandez and Ayala were admitted to the hospital, local
officials asked Tyson to suspend the plant’s operations. Tyson refused for a
second time. On April 16, on a day when 500 employees called in sick, Tyson
publicly denied that its Waterloo facility had a COVID-19 outbreak. The next
day, elected officials got involved. Twenty officials sent Tyson a letter asking it to
close the plant and informing it that they’d been made aware that Tyson wasn’t
distributing personal protective equipment, workers from shuttered Columbus
Junction were being transferred to the Waterloo facility, social distancing was
not enforced, and because of language barriers, the workers didn’t understand
that they couldn’t come to work if they were sick. Tyson refused to close the plant
for a third time.
The next day, another worker, Sedika Buljic, died from COVID-19
complications. Around the same time, another worker at the plant, Reberiano
Garcia, was admitted to the hospital with COVID-19. He died about a month
later.
Because of Tyson’s refusal to close the plant, Iowa lawmakers filed an
official complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) against Tyson. Governor Reynolds held a conference call with several
Tyson executives the next day, where Tyson officials downplayed the seriousness
of the outbreak at the Waterloo plant and exaggerated the efficacy of its safety
measures. After the call, Tyson announced internally that it would begin to wind
down its operations because it lacked a healthy labor force. The company
announced the shutdown publicly the next day, yet it kept the plant open for 8
three more days to process the remaining hogs. It was not until two days before
the plant closed that Tyson began requiring plant floor workers to comply with
standard COVID-19 guidelines, such as wearing a facemask.
Around the time Tyson announced the Waterloo plant’s closure, the plant
manager (one of the supervisor defendants) organized a betting pool. Those
partaking could place wagers on how many employees would test positive for
COVID-19 over the coming months.
By the time the plant’s shutdown was announced, Tyson executives began
a public relations campaign. One of the executives (named as a defendant here)
gave multiple interviews stating that the majority of the plants didn’t have any
COVID-19 cases and that the plants with the most cases were likely due to
transmissions within the community more broadly.
When the dust settled, the Waterloo plant was the largest reported
workplace outbreak in the country. Over 1,000 employees had tested positive,
and at least five employees died. Because Tyson was not following the contact
tracing program required by the Centers for Disease Control, many family
members and community members were unaware that they were exposed to
COVID-19 by a Tyson employee. The director of the Black Hawk County Health
Department attributed ninety percent of the county’s total COVID-19 cases to
the Waterloo facility.
B.
The estates of three deceased workers—Buljic, Garcia, and Ayala—filed
suit in June 2020. The estate of a fourth deceased worker from the Waterloo
plant—Fernandez—joined the lawsuit about a month later. All four estates bring
the same claims against the same defendants and raise the same arguments. 9
The lawsuit names fourteen defendants. The defendants can be broadly
classified into three groups:
• Corporate defendants: Tyson Foods Inc. and Tyson Fresh Meats Inc.
• Executive defendants: John Tyson (chairman of Tyson Foods), Noel
White (CEO of Tyson Foods), Dean Banks (president of Tyson Foods),
Stephen Stouffer (president of Tyson Fresh Meats), Tom Brower (senior
vice-president of health and safety), Doug White (corporate safety
manager of Tyson Fresh Meats), and Debra Adams (associate director
of occupational health of Tyson Fresh Meats).
• Supervisor defendants: Tom Hart (Waterloo plant manager), James
Hook (human resources director), Cody Brustkern (manager), John
Casey (manager), and Mary Jones (occupational nurse).
The estates allege causes of action (1) for fraudulent misrepresentation
and vicarious liability against the corporate defendants, (2) for gross negligence
against the executive defendants, (3) for gross negligence and fraudulent
misrepresentation against the supervisor defendants, and (4) for gross
negligence and breach of duty against Adams and Jones, specifically. The estates
also seek punitive damages against all defendants.
After the estates filed the lawsuits, the defendants removed the suits to
the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. The federal
district court ultimately ordered that the case be remanded to the Iowa state
district court. Fernandez v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 509 F. Supp. 3d 1064, 1084
(N.D. Iowa 2020); Buljic v. Tyson Foods, Inc., No. 20–CV–2055–LRR, 2020 WL
13042580, at *16 (N.D. Iowa Dec. 28, 2020). The defendants appealed the
remand order to the Eighth Circuit. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the decision, 10
and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Buljic v. Tyson Foods,
Inc., 22 F.4th 730, 742 (8th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 773 (2023) (mem.).
When the case returned to the district court, the defendants moved to
dismiss the petition. The district court granted the motion as to all defendants.
On the gross negligence claims against the executive and supervisor
defendants, the district court concluded that the IWCA provided the exclusive
means of recovery for the workers’ deaths and that the petition failed to establish
a right to pursue claims under the statute’s carveout for gross negligence claims.
The district court reasoned that each coemployee’s gross negligence needed to
be specifically set forth in the petition such that each coemployee had actual,
not constructive, knowledge of the peril or that injury would likely result. The
district court also concluded that the petition improperly “lumped” the
defendants together by referring to them in categories without specifying “what
duty or claim each defendant is alleged to have owed to each Plaintiff.”
The district court also dismissed the fraudulent misrepresentation claims
against the corporate and supervisor defendants. According to the district court,
“the gist of [the estates’] claims is that each decedent was infected in the
workplace with COVID-19, that they died as a result of the infection, and that
each suffered a workplace injury.” The fraud claims, in the district court’s view,
were effectively gross negligence claims repackaged under a different label. As a
result, the fraud claims, too, were preempted by the IWCA’s exclusivity
provisions.
Because the district court concluded that it lacked subject matter
jurisdiction based on the IWCA’s exclusivity provisions, it didn’t reach any of the
defendants’ other arguments, including whether the defendants had immunity
from the estates’ claims under Iowa Code § 686D.4 (2021), the “COVID-19 11
Response and Back-to-Business Limited Liability Act.” The estates filed a motion
to enlarge the district court’s ruling under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.904(2)
and to further amend the petition. The district court denied the motion. This
appeal followed.
II.
The estates argue that the district court erred in its conclusions that
(1) the petition’s allegations were insufficient to satisfy the gross-negligence
exception in the IWCA and (2) that the petition failed to provide notice to all
defendants of the claims against them.
Iowa’s workers’ compensation system “rests on the policy judgment ‘that
the disability of a work[er] resulting from an injury arising out of and in the
course of his [or her] employment is a loss that should be borne by the industry
itself . . . and not suffered alone by the work[er] or the employer.’ ” Loew v.
Menard, Inc., 2 N.W.3d 880, 883 (Iowa 2024) (alterations and omission in
original) (quoting Baker v. Bridgestone/Firestone, 872 N.W.2d 672, 676 (Iowa
2015)). Workers surrender their right to sue their employer for damages on the
condition that regardless of fault, the employer promptly compensates workers
for injuries that arise out of and in the course of employment. Tripp v. Scott
Emergency Commc’n Ctr., 977 N.W.2d 459, 464 (Iowa 2022).
Iowa Code § 85.20 makes the workers’ compensation system the exclusive
path for recovery against employers and coemployees for most work-related
injuries, stating:
The rights and remedies provided in this chapter, chapter 85A, or chapter 85B for an employee, or a student participating in a work-based learning opportunity as provided in section 85.61, on account of injury, occupational disease, or occupational hearing loss for which benefits under this chapter, chapter 85A, or chapter 85B 12
are recoverable, shall be the exclusive and only rights and remedies of the employee or student, the employee’s or student’s personal or legal representatives, dependents, or next of kin, at common law or otherwise, on account of such injury, occupational disease, or occupational hearing loss against any of the following:
1. Against the employee’s employer.
2. Against any other employee of such employer, provided that such injury [or] occupational disease . . . arises out of and in the course of such employment and is not caused by the other employee’s gross negligence amounting to such lack of care as to amount to wanton neglect for the safety of another.
Iowa Code § 85.20(1)–(2) (2020).
The district court concluded that because the petition “lumped” the
defendants into categories in setting forth the allegations, the allegations failed
to “give sufficient notice as to what duty or claim each defendant is alleged to
have owed to each Plaintiff” and failed to plead how each coemployee “had actual
knowledge of the peril to be apprehended or that injury is a probable result of
the danger” to bring the gross-negligence exception into play. The district court
concluded that these pleading deficiencies left it without subject matter
jurisdiction in this case.
The district court’s ruling somewhat blurs the conceptual differences
between subject matter jurisdiction and a plaintiff’s failure to sufficiently plead
its allegations. With subject matter jurisdiction, a court’s concern is whether the
case before it, as a general class of cases, falls under its inherent power to decide
the case and provide the type of relief sought. De Stefano v. Apts. Downtown, Inc.,
879 N.W.2d 155, 164 (Iowa 2016). Whether a petition has sufficiently pleaded
allegations, on the other hand, centers around fair notice. Schmidt v. Wilkinson,
340 N.W.2d 282, 283 (Iowa 1983); see Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.421(1)(f). Although
related, these are two different questions. “Subject matter jurisdiction,” we have 13
said, “is not dependent on whether the petition has established a meritorious
claim.” Powell v. Khodari-Intergreen Co., 303 N.W.2d 171, 174 (Iowa 1981).
We start with whether the petition provided sufficient notice. Under our
ordinary notice pleading standards, a plaintiff’s petition survives a motion to
dismiss if it simply contains factual allegations that give the defendant
“fair notice” of the claim so the defendant can adequately respond to the petition.
Schmidt, 340 N.W.2d at 283; see Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.421(1)(f). A petition meets the
fair notice requirement if it informs the defendant of the events that give rise to
the claim and of the claim’s general nature. Soike v. Evan Matthews & Co.,
302 N.W.2d 841, 842 (Iowa 1981).
In our view, the petition’s groupings provided each defendant with fair
notice of the claims against them. Plaintiffs are not forbidden from defining and
referring to a group of defendants collectively under a particular moniker for ease
of reference in a petition. See Kyle K. v. Chapman, 208 F.3d 940, 944 (11th Cir.
2000) (“The fact that defendants are accused collectively does not render the
complaint deficient.”). Indeed, we note that even the defendants referred to
themselves as “supervisory defendants” and “executive defendants” at the
motion to dismiss hearing. The petition contains sufficient facts to inform each
defendant of the events giving rise to the claim and the claim’s general nature in
compliance with our rules of civil procedure.
Turning to subject matter jurisdiction. Iowa’s district courts have
“exclusive, general, and original jurisdiction of all actions . . . except in cases
where exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction is conferred upon some other court,
tribunal, or administrative body.” Iowa Code § 602.6101. In the IWCA, the
legislature conferred original jurisdiction on an administrative body (i.e., the
workers’ compensation commissioner) to hear and decide cases involving 14
workplace injuries. See id. § 85.3(2). Except in cases involving a coemployee’s
gross negligence; there, district courts maintain their jurisdiction. Id. § 85.20(2);
Taylor v. Peck, 382 N.W.2d 123, 126 (Iowa 1986). Thus, whether subject matter
jurisdiction exists over the common law tort claims against the executive and
supervisor defendants turns on whether the estates have pleaded facts sufficient
to meet the gross negligence exception.
The defendants assert that the pleading standard to meet this exception is
high, and that the plaintiffs failed to meet it. Although gross negligence under
§ 85.20(2) presents a high evidentiary burden for plaintiffs to meet, Johnson v.
Interstate Power Co., 481 N.W.2d 310, 321 (Iowa 1992) (en banc), the sufficiency
of a pleading alleging gross negligence is still subject to our ordinary notice
pleading standard. We may dismiss a claim “only if the petition shows no right
of recovery under any state of the facts.” Southard v. Visa U.S.A. Inc., 734 N.W.2d
192, 194 (Iowa 2007) (quoting Comes v. Microsoft Corp., 646 N.W.2d 440, 442
(Iowa 2002)).
To show gross negligence under § 85.20(2), a plaintiff must establish three
elements: “(1) knowledge of the peril to be apprehended; (2) knowledge that
injury is a probable, as opposed to a possible, result of the danger; and (3) a
conscious failure to avoid the peril.” Thompson v. Bohlkem, 312 N.W.2d 501, 505
(Iowa 1981) (en banc).
Under the first element, we have said that knowledge of the peril requires
that the defendant “actually knew” of the peril or hazard. Walker v. Mlakar,
489 N.W.2d 401, 404 (Iowa 1992) (en banc). Constructive knowledge of the peril
is insufficient to establish gross negligence. Id. Knowledge of the peril does not
mean a person must know that a specific injury will occur, but instead only that
a condition is dangerous enough that it could produce an injury. Id. 15
As to the executive defendants, the petition includes many allegations
showing that they were aware of the COVID-19 outbreak at the Waterloo plant.
Among other allegations, the petition charges that the executive defendants
“were regularly briefed on positive COVID-19 cases at Tyson Foods facilities and
the number of Waterloo Facility employees with symptoms of COVID-19, and
they learned that the virus had been detected at the Waterloo Facility within days
of the first confirmed case.” The petition describes in multiple places the lethal
risks that the virus poses to humans and the high risk of transmission between
people working in close proximity to one another. The estates, in our view, have
alleged sufficient facts to show that the executive defendants had knowledge of
the peril.
As to the supervisor defendants, the petition similarly makes many
allegations asserting they, too, had knowledge of the peril. Among other
allegations, the petition states that the supervisor defendants were aware that
the representations of the plant being clear of COVID-19 were false and that the
supervisors themselves began to avoid the plant floor because of the outbreak.
The petition also recites supervisors’ statements to interpreters directing them
to mislead workers about the dangers of the virus and its spread within the plant.
We conclude that the estates have likewise alleged sufficient facts to show that
the supervisor defendants had knowledge of the peril.
Turning to the second element—that the defendants had knowledge that
the injury was a probable, and not just a possible, result of the danger—the
estates recite the petition’s allegations about the executive and supervisor
defendants’ knowledge of the danger. The petition alleges that the executive and
supervisor defendants knew that the virus had a high rate of transmission
between people working within close proximity of one another. The estates allege 16
that these defendants knew that injury was probable because hundreds of
employees were calling in sick with COVID-19 symptoms—a statistic the
defendants tracked and recorded in daily logs. The petition alleges that these
defendants knew that the probability of transmission—and thus the resulting
probability of injury—was high. In response to the risk, the estates recite that
the defendants instituted (even if inadequately) temperature readings at the
plant and provided materials for employees to use for face masks. The estates
also point to the alleged betting pool among supervisors and managers at the
plant about how many employees would test positive for the virus. Finally, the
estates point to the allegation that supervisor defendants took special steps to
protect themselves from transmission by, among other things, refusing to
venture onto the plant’s floor. In our view, the petition sufficiently alleges that
the executive and supervisor defendants knew the injury was a probable, and
not just a possible, result of the danger.
As to the third element—that the defendants showed a conscious failure
to avoid the peril—the estates point to the petition’s allegation that the supervisor
defendants disregarded the danger by cancelling regularly scheduled safety
meetings and directing supervisors and interpreters to falsely deny that the virus
had been detected in the plant. They further recite the false claim that the county
health department had “cleared” the plant of the virus. The estates also point to
allegations that the executive and supervisor defendants permitted—indeed,
required—employees with symptoms to continue working in close proximity to
other employees. This requirement to keep working included symptomatic
employees who had been tested and were merely awaiting test results. The
petition also describes how executive defendants, despite closing the company’s
Columbus Junction plant because of the virus’s outbreak there, kept the 17
Waterloo plant operating at full capacity without protective measures in place.
Finally, they point to the allegation that executive defendants ordered two
supervisors to stop tracking COVID-19 cases among the workers. Once again,
as a matter of pleading sufficiency, we conclude that the petition adequately
asserts that the defendants showed a conscious failure to avoid the peril.
In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the court accepts the facts alleged in the
petition as true, McGill v. Fish, 790 N.W.2d 113, 116 (Iowa 2010), and views the
allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Haupt v. Miller, 514 N.W.2d
905, 911 (Iowa 1994) (en banc). At this stage of the proceedings—on review of a
motion to dismiss—we assume the truth of the factual allegations in the petition
and make no determination about the strength of the estates’ evidence to support
those allegations. Our focus is whether the estates have sufficiently pleaded a
cause of action for gross negligence under § 85.20(2). We conclude they have.
We thus hold that the district court erred in dismissing the estates’ gross
negligence claims against the executive and supervisor defendants.
The estates further argue that the district court erroneously dismissed
their fraudulent misrepresentation claims against the corporate and supervisor
defendants. The district court concluded that the fraud claim was, in effect,
merely a restyled version of the estates’ gross negligence claim and thus likewise
barred under the IWCA’s exclusivity provisions.
Fraudulent misrepresentation is an “intentional” tort, meaning that it is
committed by a party acting with a mental state intending to commit the act in
question. The elements of a fraud claim include, among other things, proof that
the defendant intended to deceive the plaintiff. Dier v. Peters, 815 N.W.2d 1, 7
(Iowa 2012). 18
As a general matter, the IWCA’s exclusivity provisions do not apply to
intentional tort claims against coemployees. See, e.g., Smith v. Iowa State Univ.
of Sci. & Tech., 851 N.W.2d 1, 20 (Iowa 2014) (holding that a claim for intentional
infliction of emotional distress was not preempted under the IWCA); Wilson v.
IBP, Inc., 558 N.W.2d 132, 137 (Iowa 1996) (en banc) (holding that “claims for
breach of fiduciary duty and defamation, as intentional torts, fall outside the
scope of the remedies available under the workers’ compensation act” and thus
were not preempted); see also Beard v. Flying J, Inc., 266 F.3d 792, 803 (8th Cir.
2001) (recognizing that under Iowa law, “intentional torts committed by
co-workers remained actionable despite the workers’ compensation system” and
thus holding that a battery claim was not preempted). An intentional tort fits
within—indeed, goes beyond—the gross-negligence exception in § 85.20(2) as
“amounting to such lack of care as to amount to wanton neglect for the safety of
another.” Stated simply, if wanton neglect for a coworkers’ safety takes an action
outside the statute, then logically an intentional act by a coemployee that injures
a worker should fall outside the statute too. Consistent with our prior cases, we
conclude that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction of the common
law fraud claims alleged against the supervisor employees.
But the corporate defendants raise a separate argument: Tyson Foods and
Tyson Fresh Meats were the entities alleged to have employed the deceased
workers; they are not coemployees. The corporate defendants argue that the
exception in § 85.20(2) for gross negligence applies only to coemployees and not
to employers, and thus the intentional tort claims against them were properly
dismissed.
In response, the estates argue that in Nelson v. Winnebago Industries, Inc.,
619 N.W.2d 385 (Iowa 2000) (en banc), we recognized a right for an injured 19
employee to bring an intentional tort claim against an employer notwithstanding
the IWCA’s exclusivity provisions. In Nelson, we discussed the general rule that
an employer is not liable for a coemployee’s intentional torts. Id. at 387–88. This
rule is based on the idea that when coemployees, on their own, intentionally
injure one of their coworkers, the employer can’t be said to have acted
intentionally in causing the injury, so the injury as to the employer must be
treated as covered under the workers’ compensation system. Id.
But we went on to discuss two scenarios when that justification might fall
away. Id. The first is when a coemployee is the actual employer or the employer’s
alter ego, since in that case the employer itself effectively performs the
intentionally tortious act. Id. at 387. The second is when the employer has
commanded or expressly authorized a coemployee to commit the intentional tort.
Id. at 387–88. In Nelson, the plaintiff did not allege that either scenario applied
in his case, and we thus held that the plaintiff’s injury as it related to the
employer was subject to the IWCA. Id. The estates in this case argue that the
second scenario is in play here: that the corporate entities commanded or
expressly authorized the alleged fraud perpetrated against the decedent workers.
As the corporate defendants point out, the problem with the estates’
arguments—and perhaps more accurately, the problem with our discussion in
Nelson that the estates advance—is that it directly conflicts with the text of the
statute. Again, § 85.20 makes the workers’ compensation system “the exclusive
and only rights and remedies” for work injuries (1) “[a]gainst the employee’s
employer” and (2) “[a]gainst any other employee of such employer, . . . provided
that such injury . . . is not caused by the other employee’s gross negligence.”
Iowa Code § 85.20(1)–(2). The gross-negligence exception to the Act’s exclusivity
appears only in subsection (2)’s reference to coemployees, not in 20
subsection (1)’s reference to employers. This suggests that any claim for a
work-related injury against an employer, regardless of the type of claim, finds its
remedy only through the workers’ compensation system.
“Iowa’s workers’ compensation system is a creature of statute, being both
conceived and constructed by legislative action.” Tripp, 977 N.W.2d at 464.
Where the legislature by statute confers original jurisdiction not with the district
court but “upon some other . . . administrative body”—as it has with the
IWCA—we lack subject matter jurisdiction. Iowa Code § 602.6101. Although our
discussion in Nelson has been mentioned in other cases, the estates cite no case,
and we are aware of none, where we have permitted a plaintiff to pursue an
intentional tort claim for work-related injuries against an employer. Under a
straightforward reading of the text, employees whose injuries are covered under
workers’ compensation have no right to pursue direct tort claims (whether based
on gross negligence, intentional torts, or otherwise) to recover for those injuries
against their employers.
Our discussion in Nelson is at odds with the statutory text and, as a result,
at odds with our power to exercise subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate such
a claim against an employer. We thus recant our discussion in Nelson suggesting
that intentional tort claims against an employer for a work-related injury fall
outside the scope of the IWCA. Because the district court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction over the tort claims alleged against the corporate defendants, we
affirm the district court’s dismissal of Tyson Foods and Tyson Fresh Meats from
this case.
C.
Adams and Jones argue that the estates waived any objection to the
district court’s dismissal of the estates’ “breach of duty” claims against them. 21
Issues decided in the district court but not raised on appeal are waived. Morris
v. Steffes Grp., Inc., 924 N.W.2d 491, 498 (Iowa 2019). The estates never
contested the dismissal of the breach-of-duty claims in their opening brief, reply
brief, or at oral argument. We thus affirm the district court’s dismissal of the
breach-of-duty claims against Adams and Jones.
D.
An appellate court may affirm a district court ruling on any ground urged
by the successful party in the district court and again on appeal, even if the
district court didn’t rely on that ground in its ruling. Veatch v. City of Waverly,
858 N.W.2d 1, 7 (Iowa 2015). The defendants argued in the alternative in the
district court, and argue again on appeal, that the estates’ lawsuit is barred
under Iowa Code § 686D.4, the “COVID-19 Response and Back-to-Business
Limited Liability Act.”
The Back-to-Business Act provides liability protections in defined
circumstances for injuries based on exposure to COVID-19. As relevant here, the
Back-to-Business Act provides that
[a] person who possesses or is in control of a premises . . . who directly or indirectly invites or permits an individual onto a premises, shall not be liable for civil damages for any injuries sustained from the individual’s exposure to COVID-19, whether the exposure occurs on the premises or during any activity managed by the person who possesses or is in control of a premises.
Iowa Code § 686D.4 (2021).
But this liability provision contains three exceptions. The liability
protections do not apply if the person possessing or in control of the premises
(1) “recklessly disregards a substantial and unnecessary risk that the individual
would be exposed to COVID-19,” (2) “exposes the individual to COVID-19 22
through an act that constitutes actual malice,” or (3) “intentionally exposes the
individual to COVID-19.” Id. § 686D.4(1)–(3).
The estates contest whether the defendants’ Back-to-Business Act
argument has been preserved on appeal, whether the Act applies to all
defendants or only the corporate defendants, and whether the Act applies
retrospectively to the estates’ claims. They further argue that the petition’s
allegations fall within the Act’s exceptions to the liability protections. The
defendants, in response, reject all the estates’ challenges to the Act’s application,
and they argue that the petition fails to sufficiently plead any of the three
exceptions to avoid the statute’s protections. Assuming, without deciding, that
the protections in the Act apply in this case, we turn to whether the petition
presents a claim that falls within one of its exceptions.
The first exception states that a person otherwise covered by the Act loses
protection if the person “recklessly disregards a substantial and unnecessary
risk that the individual would be exposed to COVID-19.” Id. § 686D.4(1). Citing
a definition for “recklessness” under Iowa’s repealed automobile guest statute,
the defendants contend that “reckless disregards” requires proof that a party
manifested “no care.” Nesci v. Willey, 75 N.W.2d 257, 259 (Iowa 1956). They
argue that the petition’s own reference to protective measures that the
defendants took—for instance, conducting temperature readings, providing face
coverings, and requiring employees who tested positive to quarantine for
fourteen days—affirmatively establishes that the defendants did not exercise a
“reckless disregard” for COVID-19-related risks in operating the plant.
In response, the estates propose that we follow the Restatement (Second)
of Tort’s definition of “reckless disregard.” The Restatement defines “reckless
disregard of safety” as when (1) someone performs or fails to perform a duty, 23
(2) they know or have reason to know facts that would cause a reasonable person
to realize that there is “an unreasonable risk of physical harm to another,” and
(3) that “risk [of harm] is substantially greater than that which is necessary to
make [the] conduct negligent.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 500, at 587
(Am. L. Inst. 1965).
We have often used this definition from the Restatement (Second). See,
e.g., Meyer ex rel. Leonard v. Behrens, 601 N.W.2d 76, 80 (Iowa 1999)
(per curiam) (quoting the Restatement (Second)’s definition and discussing
various contexts in which we have generally applied it). What’s more, the Back-
to-Business Act’s language—“substantial and unnecessary risk”—aligns with the
Restatement (Second) § 500’s requirement that the risk be “substantially greater
than that which is necessary to make [the] conduct negligent.” Compare
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 500, at 587, with Iowa Code § 686D.4(1). We see
no reason to stray from the Restatement (Second)’s definition in construing the
Back-to-Business Act’s first exception.
The petition, in our view, alleges sufficient facts to meet § 686D.4(1)’s
exception that the executive and supervisor defendants “recklessly disregard[ed]
a substantial and unnecessary risk that the individual would be exposed to
COVID-19.” As a result, we need not consider sufficiency of the pleadings under
either of the other two exceptions in § 686D.4. Because the estates have
sufficiently pleaded an exception to the Back-to-Business Act, we may not affirm
the dismissal on this alternative ground.
III.
We thus affirm the district court’s order dismissing all claims against the
corporate defendants and the breach-of-duty claims against Adams and Jones, 24
but we reverse the district court’s dismissal of the claims against the executive
and supervisor defendants.
Affirmed in Part, Reversed in Part, and Case Remanded.