Satilla Community Service Board v. Satilla Health Services, Inc.

573 S.E.2d 31, 275 Ga. 805, 2002 Fulton County D. Rep. 3540, 2002 Ga. LEXIS 1062

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: November 25, 2002
• Docket: S02G0252
• Status: Published

Opinions

Fletcher, Chief Justice.

We granted Satilla Community Service Board’s (the “Board”) petition for certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals of Georgia erred by using a principle it labeled “identical reciprocal implied contractual indemnification” to find an implied contractual duty to indemnify and, thereby, avoid the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy bar.* ¹ Because we find no support in Georgia law for “identical reciprocal implied contractual indemnification” and the Board was otherwise entitled to summary judgment, we reverse.

Patricia Fields killed Marie Rowell, one of the Board’s employees. Fields was a mental health patient of Satilla Health Services, Inc. (“SHS”) and Dr. John Michaels. Rowell’s estate and child sued C. David Joyner, as the guardian of Fields’s property, for wrongful death and pain and suffering.

Joyner filed a third-party claim against SHS and Michaels, alleging Michaels’s negligence contributed to Fields’s stabbing of Rowell, and SHS was responsible for Michaels’s negligence under respondeat superior. SHS and Michaels, in turn, sued the Board as a fourth-party defendant, claiming negligence, breach of a contract between the Board and SHS,² and a right to contractual indemnifica-

tion. Joyner, then, filed breach of contract and negligence claims against the Board, contending that Fields was a third-party beneficiary of the contract between the Board and SHS.

The following diagram shows the various claims in this case:

[[Image here]]

The trial court denied the Board’s motion for summary judgment, and the court of appeals reversed in part and affirmed in part, holding that the Board was entitled to summary judgment on the negligence claims, but not on the contract claims. We now examine whether the trial court should have granted summary judgment to the Board on the contract claims, as well.

1. “Workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy of employees against employers for work-related injuries.”³ An employer who has paid workers’ compensation to one of its employees is immune from liability for claims of contribution and indemnification arising from that employee’s tort action, unless there is a contractual, statutory, or special relationship between the employer and the third-party that would require contribution or indemnification.⁴

Because the Board paid workers’ compensation benefits for Rowell’s death, it is not obligated to contribute to or indemnify a third-party for damages arising from Rowell’s death, absent a contractual, statutory, or special relationship between the Board and that third-party. Here, there is no statutory or special relationship that would require the Board to indemnify SHS or Michaels for damages arising from Rowell’s death.

Additionally, the Board is under no contractual obligation to indemnify SHS or Michaels. The contract between the Board and SHS does not expressly require the Board to indemnify SHS or Michaels. Rather, it expressly requires SHS to indemnify the Board without requiring the Board to indemnify SHS. Despite the parties having specifically addressed indemnification obligations in their agreement, the court of appeals found that the Board had an implied duty to indemnify SHS and Michaels, under a theory it labeled “identical reciprocal implied contractual indemnity.” The court cited no authority to support this legal principle, and the parties have cited no Georgia case that recognizes such a doctrine. Furthermore, we have found no authority in Georgia law to hold, under the facts of this case, that the Board had an implied obligation to indemnify SHS and Michaels.

Because the Board has neither an express nor implied contractual duty to indemnify SHS and Michaels for any damages arising from Rowell’s death, the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy doctrine bars their claims for indemnification against the Board. Accordingly, the trial court should have granted the Board summary judgment on SHS and Michaels’s claims.

2. Joyner asserts that his claim on behalf of Fields does not seek to hold the Board secondarily liable. Instead, once the Board was added to the action as an impleaded party, Joyner filed a direct claim for breach of contract. After a party has been properly impleaded into an action based on a claim for secondary liability, OCGA §§ 9-11-14 and 9-11-18 permit certain direct claims to be brought against the impleaded party.⁵

As discussed above, however, the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy provision rendered the Board immune from secondary liability, except in a few instances that are not applicable here. Joyner cannot bring a direct claim against the Board because it was not a properly impleaded defendant, and Joyner cannot bring an impleader claim against the Board because he is not seeking to make the Board secondarily liable for any damages Rowell recovers from Joyner.⁶ Therefore, the trial court should have dismissed without prejudice Joyner’s contract claim against the Board. To the extent any of SHS and Michaels’s claims can be construed as seeking to hold the Board directly liable, those claims also should be dismissed.

3. In summary, the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy provision bars the claims against the Board to the extent those claims seek to hold the Board secondarily liable. Because the Board was not made a party to this action based upon a viable claim for secondary liability, any claims for direct liability cannot be brought under OCGA §§ 9-11-14 and 9-11-18.⁷ Accordingly, the trial court should have granted the Board summary judgment on SHS and Michaels’s claims for secondary liability and dismissed without prejudice Joyner’s claims and any of SHS and Michaels’s claims that sought direct liability. Because our analysis has resolved all claims that were brought against the Board in this case, we do not need to address the remaining certiorari questions.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur.

1 See Satilla Commun’y Serv. Bd. v. Satilla Health Serv., 251 Ga. App. 881 (555 SE2d 188) (2001).

2 We recognize that the contract is between the Board and Satilla Park Hospital, which apparently is a subdivision of fourth-party plaintiff SHS. For ease of reference, however, we refer to SHS and the Board as the parties to the contract.

3 Georgia Dept. of Human Res. v. Joseph Campbell Co., 261 Ga. 822, 822-823 (411 SE2d 871) (1992).

4 Flint Elec. Membership Corp. v. Ed Smith Constr. Co., 270 Ga. 464, 465 (511 SE2d 160) (1999); Joseph Campbell, 261 Ga. at 823; Sargent Indus. v. Delta Air Lines, 251 Ga. 91, 92 (303 SE2d 108) (1983).

5 See also Cohen v. McLaughlin, 250 Ga. 661, 662-664 (301 SE2d 37) (1983).

6 Cohen, 250 Ga. at 662.

7 Compare Cohen, 250 Ga. at 663 (trial court has discretion to dismiss or proceed with direct claim against properly impleaded third-party defendant when underlying action is settled).