Wakefield v. Kyle

12 So. 3d 468, 2009 La. App. LEXIS 818, 2009 WL 1313309
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 13, 2009
Docket44,317-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 12 So. 3d 468 (Wakefield v. Kyle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wakefield v. Kyle, 12 So. 3d 468, 2009 La. App. LEXIS 818, 2009 WL 1313309 (La. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

CARAWAY, J.

| ,In this action, the employee cumulated claims against the employer and co-employees asserting an intentional tort by a co-employee occurring in the workplace. The employee also asserted actions for negligence by the employer and an employee regarding injuries she suffered from the battery by the other employee. Plaintiffs children and parents joined in the action seeking loss of consortium. The employer and one co-employee filed exceptions of no cause of action and no right of action, and the trial court dismissed certain claims. The plaintiffs appeal, and for the following reasons, we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

As a result of an on-the-job altercation between two employees, Christina Wake-field, individually, and as the natural tutrix of her minor children, Lilly and Christopher Foster, instituted this suit for damages against a coworker, Vavondalyn Smith Kyle, her employers, TA Operating, LLC and TA Operating Corporation 1 *470 (hereinafter collectively “TA Operating”), and her supervisor, Jerry Harvey.

Wakefield’s petition alleged that while she was on the job at TA Travel Center in Tallulah on April 9, 2007, Kyle approached her. A verbal and physical altercation over an earlier work-related issue ensued. Wakefield alleged that she alerted Harvey during the altercation and he eventually separated them.

Wakefield moved into a closed office, but Kyle continued to call her |2names and attempted to open the office door. When Wakefield exited the office, Kyle struck her in the head with a bolt cutter. Wake-field’s injury required 16 stitches. Kyle then physically restrained Wakefield until Harvey and another employee again intervened to separate the two employees. Wakefield was pregnant with her son Christopher at the time of the incident.

The earlier incident which allegedly prompted Kyle’s confrontation with Wake-field involved Wakefield’s reporting Kyle for leaving work the day before, on April 8. Wakefield admittedly told Harvey that Kyle “had broken shift.”

Regarding TA Operating and Harvey, Wakefield also alleged as follows:

9.

Petitioner alleges that the incident and harm to petitioner, Christina Ann Wakefield, Lilly Ann Foster and Christopher Lee Foster, were the sole result of the joint and concurring intentional conduct and omissions of the defendants, Vavondalyn Smith Kyle, TA Operating Corporation, TA Operating, LLC and Jerry Harvey in the following ways:
1) [I]n that defendant, TA Operating Corporation and TA Operating, LLC, acting through its employees and servants, negligently hired an unreasonably hostile and uncontrollable employee, defendant, Vavondalyn Smith Kyle,
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3) [I]n that defendants, TA Operating Corporation, TA Operating, LLC, and Jerry Harvey, failed to protect petitioners, Christina Ann Wakefield and Christopher Lee Foster, from the unreasonably hostile and unreasonably uncontrollable employee, defendant, Va-vondalyn Smith Kyle.

Subsequently, Wakefield amended her petition to add her parents, George and Sharon Wakefield, as party plaintiffs, “re-allegfing] all ^allegations of the original petition herein by reference.”

On May 22, 2008, TA Operating and Harvey filed peremptory exceptions of no cause and/or no right of action on the grounds that Wakefield’s sole remedy for the claims made against them was under the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act. The defendants also urged that Wake-field’s parents did not “have standing to assert any cause of action and therefore have no right of action in these proceedings.” Defendants also sought to dismiss the minor children from the action based upon the lack of allegations of facts sufficient to show that they had a cause of action against defendants.

After considering the arguments and briefs submitted by counsel, the trial court gave oral reasons granting part of the relief sought by defendants. The judgment ordered:

[T]hat the Peremptory Exceptions of No Cause of Action and/or No Right of Action filed on behalf of TA Operating, LLC, TA Operating Corp. and Jerry Harvey, be and are hereby sustained insofar as they pertain to plaintiffs’ alleged negligence cause of action....

The ruling rested on the grounds that plaintiffs’ exclusive remedy was under the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act. *471 The court also sustained the defendants’ exception of no right of action as to the claims of George and Sharon Wakefield. The court ordered “that in all other respects, the Peremptory Exceptions of No Cause of Action and/or No Right of Action” filed by defendants were denied. The judgment expressly determined that there was no just reason for delay and designated the judgment as a final judgment for purposes of an immediate appeal.

l4Wakefield appeals the rulings relating to the dismissal of the defendants’ claims and her parents from the suit.

Discussion

The function of the peremptory exception of no cause of action is to question whether the law extends a remedy to anyone under the factual allegations of the petition. Cleco Corp. v. Johnson, 01-0175 (La.9/19/01), 795 So.2d 302; Louisiana Paddlewheels v. Louisiana Riverboat Gaming Com’n, 94-2015 (La.11/30/94), 646 So.2d 885. The exception is tried on the face of the pleadings and the court accepts the facts alleged in the petition as true, determining whether the law affords relief to the plaintiff if those facts are proved at trial. Cleco Corp., supra; Barrie v. V.P. Exterminators, Inc., 625 So.2d 1007 (La. 1993). In reviewing a trial court’s ruling sustaining an exception of no cause of action, the court of appeal and this court should subject the case to de novo review because the exception raises a question of law, and the lower court’s decision is based only on the sufficiency of the petition. Cleco Corp., supra; Mott v. River Parish Maintenance, Inc., 432 So.2d 827 (La.5/23/83).

The burden of showing that the plaintiff has failed to state a cause of action is upon the exceptor. The public policy behind the burden is to afford the party his day in court to present his evidence. Blackett v. City of Monroe, 33,339 (La.App.2d Cir.9/7/00), 766 So.2d 768. The exception is triable on the face of the pleadings, and for the purpose of determining the issues raised by the exception, the court must presume that all well-pleaded facts in the petition are true. All reasonable inferences are made in favor of |5the nonmoving party in determining whether the law affords any remedy to the plaintiff. La. C.C.P. arts. 927, 931; Blackett, supra. If a petition fails to state a cause of action, but the grounds of the objection can be removed by amendment, the plaintiff should be allowed to amend his demand. La. C.C.P. art. 934.

A proper analysis of a no right of action exception requires a court to determine whether the plaintiff belongs to the class of persons to whom the law grants the cause of action asserted in the suit. La. C.C.P. art. 927; Howard v. Administrators of Tulane Educ.

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Bluebook (online)
12 So. 3d 468, 2009 La. App. LEXIS 818, 2009 WL 1313309, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wakefield-v-kyle-lactapp-2009.