Cases in Controversy

• Jurisdiction: Utah,United States
• Citation: Vol. 1 No. 3 Pg. 32
• Pages: 32
• Publication year: 1996

CASES IN CONTROVERSY Vol. 1 No. 3 Pg. 32 Utah Bar Journal Winter, 1996

Sullivan v. Scoular Grain: Injured Employees Further Forced to Bear Burden of Boss's Neglect

Alan W. Mortensen, J.

The Utah Supreme Court decision of Sullivan v. Scoular Grain, 853 P.2d 877 (Utah 1993), represents a further blow to injured employees' rights. Under Utah common law, an employee had the right to fully recover damages in tort against an employer for the employer's breach of the duty to provide a safe workplace and to properly supervise an employee's labors. See, e.g., Scudder v. Kennecott Copper Corp., 881 P.2d 890, 894 (Utah 1994), re-hearing pending. But with the imposition of the workers' compensation system, employees lost their right to prove and be compensated for the negligence of employers and fellow employees. An employee who suffers an industrial injury is compensated under the workers' compensation scheme without inquiry into the employer's actions. The off-cited policy determination behind the workers' compensation scheme "'is to provide a speedy and certain compensation for workmen and their dependents and to avoid the delay, expense and uncertainty which were involved prior to the act; and the concomitant purpose of protecting the employer from the hazards of exorbitant and in some instances perhaps ruinous liabilities.'" Lantz v. National Semiconductor Corp., 775 P.2d 937, 938 (Utah Ct. App. 1989) (citing Adamson v. Okland Constr. Co., 508 P.2d 805, 807(1973)).

One exception exists to the exclusive remedy of the workers' compensation act. See Utah Code Ann. § 35-1-60 (1988) (Utah's Exclusive Remedy Provision). In Bryan v. Utah International, 533 P.2d 892, 894 (Utah 1975), the Utah Supreme Court recognized an exception for injuries intentionally caused to employees by employers. The subsequent decision by the Utah Court of Appeals in Lantz demonstrates that this "intentional injury" exception provides no substantive relief to employees. In order for an injured employee to recover in tort against an employer, the employee must prove more than just a "substantial certainty that injury will follow." 755 P.2d at 940. The Court of Appeals noted:

Even if the alleged conduct goes beyond aggravated negligence, and includes such elements as knowingly permitting a hazardous work condition to exist, knowingly ordering claimant to perform an extremely dangerous job, willfully failing to provide a safe place to work, or even willfully and unlawfully violating a safety statute, this still falls short of the kind of actual intention to injure that robs the injury of accidental nature.

Id. (quoting 2A A. Larson, The LAW OF Workmen's Compensation § 68.13 (1988)). As a result of the lantz decision, an employee must prove the employer "had an actual deliberate intent to injure him ...." Id. This high standard of proof effectively eliminates an employee's remedy to recover for an employer's tortious conduct. Id. at 939 n.3 ("We note that no...