A year after hearing oral arguments on three appeals related to the employer intentional-tort statute, R.C. 2745.01, where Ohio lawmakers attempted to redefine the common-law claim, the Supreme Court of Ohio determined that R.C. 2745.01 does not violate the Ohio Constitution and does not conflict with the General Assembly’s legislative authority to compensate for workplace injuries or occupational diseases through compulsory employer contributions into a statewide workers’ compensation fund. In the first of the three cases argued, Klaus v. United Equity, Inc., ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2010-Ohio-1014, __ N.E.2d ___, Ulmer & Berne LLP successfully defended a grain operator before the trial court but the Third Appellate District found a “genuine issue of material fact” existed as to whether the operator believed that the worker’s injury was “substantially certain to occur,” even though the worker admitted that the injury was an accident. After determining in Kaminski v. Metal & Wire Prods. Co., ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2010-Ohio-1027, __ N.E.2d ___, and Stetter v. R.J. Corman Derailment Servs., L.C., ____ Ohio St.3d ___, 2010-Ohio-1029, ___ N.E.2d ___, that the statute was constitutional, the Court reversed and remanded Klaus, directing the Court of Appeals to consider whether the worker’s injury came within R.C. 2745.01’s definition of “substantially certain”: i.e., that the employer acted “with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death.”
In brief, the Ohio Constitution provides that the workers’ compensation system is the exclusive remedy for workplace injuries. In 1982, the Supreme Court carved out an exception when it concluded that the Constitution did not restrict a common-law claim against the employer for an “intentional tort.” Before April 2005, when R.C. 2745.01 took effect, the common law divided employer intentional torts into two categories: (1) those situations where the employer had actual intent to injure a worker and (2) other situations where the employer had knowledge that an injury was substantially certain to occur. A worker could bring either type of intentional tort action against an employer and receive workers’ compensation benefits, but the compensation system prevented the worker from suing for the employer’s mere negligence or recklessness. In exchange for the loss of the right to sue, the workers’ compensation system provided benefits where either the employer or the worker was at fault. Unfortunately, trial and appellate courts construed the “substantially certain” employer intentional tort with inconsistent analysis and results, and many courts watered down the intentional-tort concept to a mere negligence standard, thereby defeating the purpose of the Workers’ Compensation Act. As a result, employers found themselves paying twice for the same negligently caused injury: once through the compensation system and again through the court system.
Since 1982, the General Assembly repeatedly tried to rein in the common-law “substantially certain” employer intentional tort, but each time the Supreme Court found the restraints unconstitutional. As a result, a number of trial and appellate courts continued to apply a negligence standard. This encouraged litigation: workers who collected workers’ compensation benefits for a workplace injury regularly filed suit against the employer and recovered, increasing the cost of doing business in Ohio.
Lawmakers saw this increasing litigation as a detriment to employers’ continued existence in the state and a strong deterrent to resurgence of industrial employers in Ohio. In response, lawmakers adopted R.C. 2745.01 in 2005 to curb what they saw as a potential economic disaster. To do so, lawmakers defined the term “substantially certain” as acting “with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death.”
In holding the statute constitutional, the Court acknowledged that R.C. 2745.01 does not eliminate a common-law cause of action. Rather, it simply limits Ohio workers’ ability to sue to those common-law employer intentional torts committed “with specific intent to cause an injury,” subject to two rebuttable assumptions: where the employer either (1) deliberately removed a safety guard, or (2) made a deliberate misrepresentation about a toxic or hazardous substance, and the worker sustained an injury as a result. Thus, the Court reinforced the exclusivity of the workers’ compensation system for injuries incurred through negligence or recklessness, and employers no longer will pay compensation to an injured worker twice. This means that worker litigation against employers will significantly decrease which, in turn, will help save Ohio jobs.
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