1997 -NMSC- 3, Archer v. Roadrunner Trucking Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 December 1996
• Docket Number: No. 23340,23340
• Citation: 930 P.2d 1155,1997 NMSC 3,122 N.M. 703
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court
• Parties: , 1997 -NMSC- 3 Shirley Ann ARCHER, Plaintiff, v. ROADRUNNER TRUCKING, INC., a New Mexico corporation, and Paul Stehlik, Defendants.

Page 1155

930 P.2d 1155

122 N.M. 703, 1997 -NMSC- 3

Shirley Ann ARCHER, Plaintiff, v. ROADRUNNER TRUCKING, INC., a New Mexico corporation, and Paul Stehlik, Defendants.

No. 23340.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Dec. 23, 1996.

Sterling F. Black, Albuquerque, for Plaintiff.

Civerolo, Wolf, Gralow & Hill, Paul L. Civerolo, Nickay B. Manning, and Richard C. Civerolo, Albuquerque, for Defendants.

OPINION

RANSOM, Justice.

1. Shirley Ann Archer filed an action for loss of spousal consortium against Roadrunner Trucking, Inc. and Paul Stehlik in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. Archer's husband Douglas, an employee of Roadrunner Trucking, sustained a work-related injury while assisting fellow employee Stehlik in operating a forklift. Douglas received benefits for this injury under the New Mexico Workers' Compensation Act, NMSA 1978, §§ 52-1-1 to -70 (Repl.Pamp.1991 & Cum.Supp.1996). Archer then filed suit against Roadrunner and Stehlik for loss of spousal consortium which she alleges to be a claim separate from her husband's claim for workers' compensation, and thus not within the exclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act. Defendants argue that an action for loss of consortium is derivative of the injured spouse's right to recover, and thus prohibited by the Act.

2. Finding no controlling precedents concerning this issue of New Mexico law, the district court certified to this Court the question whether "the exclusivity provisions of the New Mexico Workers' Compensation Act [52-1-6(C), (D) and (E), 52-1-8 and 52-1-9] bar a separate common law cause of action for loss of consortium by the Worker's spouse when the claim is separate from the Worker's claims under the Act and is part of a separate case?" We accepted this certification pursuant to Rule 12-607 NMRA 1996 (providing authority to answer by formal written opinion questions certified to our Court by federal courts).

3. The exclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act. The Workers' Compensation Act is sui generis and in derogation of the common law. Williams v. Amax Chem. Corp., 104 N.M. 293, 294, 720 P.2d 1234, 1235 (1986) overruled on other grounds by Michaels v. Anglo Am. Auto Auctions, Inc., 117 N.M. 91, 93, 869 P.2d 279, 281 (1994). The act creates rights that do not exist at common law, and precludes application of rights that do exist at common law. The legislature makes clear its intention that the Act provide the exclusive remedy for an injured employee:

C. Every worker shall be conclusively presumed to have accepted the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act if his employer is subject to the provisions of that act and has complied with its requirements, including insurance.

D. Such compliance with the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act, including the provisions for insurance, shall be, and construed to be, a surrender by the employer and the worker of their rights to any other method, form or amount of compensation or determination thereof or to any cause of action at law, suit in equity or statutory or common-law right to remedy or proceeding whatever....

E. The Workers' Compensation Act provides exclusive remedies. No cause of action outside the Workers' Compensation Act shall be brought by an employee or dependent against the employer or his representative, including the insurer, guarantor or surety of any employer, for any matter relating to the occurrence of or payment for any injury or death covered by the Workers' Compensation Act.

Section 52-1-6. To reinforce this concept, the Act provides that

all causes of action, actions at law, suits in equity, and proceedings whatever, and all statutory and common-law rights and remedies for and on account of such death of, or personal injury to, any such employee and accruing to any and all persons whomsoever, are hereby abolished except as provided in the Workers' Compensation Act.

Section 52-1-8. Additionally, Section 52-1-9 provides that "[t]he right to the compensation provided for in this act, in lieu of any other liability whatsoever, to any and all persons whomsoever, for any personal injury accidentally sustained or death resulting therefrom, shall obtain in all cases" covered by the Act.

4. Loss of consortium. New Mexico only recently has recognized a common-law action for spousal loss of consortium. See Romero v. Byers, 117 N.M. 422, 424, 872 P.2d 840, 842 (1994). The common-law action for "[l]oss of 'consortium' consists of several elements, encompassing not only material services but such intangibles as society, guidance, companionship, and sexual relations." Id. at 425, 872 P.2d at 843 (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 309 (6th ed. 1990)). In other words, "[l]oss of consortium is simply the emotional distress suffered by one spouse who loses the normal company of his or her mate when the mate is physically injured due to the tortious conduct of another." Id.

5. Loss-of-consortium damages precluded. While the Workers' Compensation Act prohibits an employee or the employee's dependents from bringing a cause of action against the employer outside the Act for any matter relating to an injury covered by the Act, Archer asserts that the spouse of an injured employee is not a dependent, and may recover loss-of-consortium damages. She asserts that she has a property interest, separate from her husband, in recovering for loss of consortium. For the reasons stated below, we disagree.

6. --Statutory construction. The Act defines spousal dependents entitled to compensation under the Act as "the widow or widower, only if living with the deceased at the time of his death or legally entitled to be supported by him, including a divorced spouse entitled to alimony." NMSA 1978, § 52-1-17(B) (Repl.Pamp.1991). The definition of "dependent" does not specifically address Archer's situation. She is not seeking compensation under the Act as the widow of a deceased worker. ¹ On the other hand, this definition of "dependent" is not controlling if "the context otherwise requires." Id. Section 52-1-9 states that the right to compensation under the Act shall obtain "in lieu of any other liability whatsoever, to any and all persons whomsoever." The intent of the legislature is conclusively expressed by this language.

7. Our main goal in statutory construction is to give effect to the intent of the legislature. Roth v. Thompson, 113 N.M. 331, 332, 825 P.2d 1241, 1242 (1992). To accomplish this goal, we look to the "object the legislature sought to accomplish and the wrong it sought to remedy." Lopez v. Employment Sec. Div. of N.M. Dep't of Labor, 111 N.M. 104, 105, 802 P.2d 9, 10 (1990). Both this Court and the Court of Appeals have on many occasions explained the legislative intent in enacting the Workers' Compensation Act. The Act may be seen as a social contract between employer and employee in which the former agrees to pay under a no-fault system and the latter agrees to pursue only those benefits provided for under the Act. "Those benefits are designed to keep the injured workers and their families off the welfare rolls and to make industry bear the burden of workers' injuries. The interests will sometimes include the interest in recovering these minimal benefits in lieu of tort damages." Corn v. New Mexico Educators Fed. Credit Union, 119 N.M. 199, 203, 889 P.2d 234, 238 (Ct.App.1994) (citation omitted). "The Act, in effect, is designed to supplant the uncertainties of tort remedies and the burden of establishing an employer's negligence with a system of expeditious and scheduled payments of lost wages based on accidental injury or death in the course and scope of employment." Sanchez v. M.M. Sundt Constr. Co., 103 N.M. 294, 296-97, 706 P.2d 158, 160-61 (Ct.App.1985).

8. In Roseberry v. Phillips Petroleum Co., we were faced with this exact issue, although under a different version of the Act and before our adoption of loss of consortium. 70 N.M. 19, 369 P.2d 403 (1962). Without addressing the propriety of the loss-of-consortium claim, we held that a spouse was prohibited from bringing a third-party action against the employer when the injured employee had received compensation under the Act. Id. at 21-22, 369 P.2d at 405-06. We stated that:

The language of the New Mexico statute is very restrictive and all embracing. It expressly limits the liability of the employer and abolishes all rights and remedies of every person whomsoever against the employer except as provided by the Act. The basis upon which the Workmen's Compensation law rests is that it imposes upon the employer an absolute, though limited, liability, not based upon the principle of tort but upon compensation to the injured employee regardless of fault and free from the common-law defenses of assumption of risk, contributory negligence and negligence of a fellow-employee, in exchange for a release from the unlimited liability to which he was theretofore subject upon the theory of negligence.

It is clear to us that the injury for which appellant seeks recovery resulted from an accidental injury sustained by her husband arising out of and in the course of his employment. She is, therefore, seeking recovery against the employer for her damage which is dependent, nevertheless, upon the employee's compensable injury for which the employer is paying the compensation provided by law.

Id. at 21, 369 P.2d at 405 (citations omitted). This language from Roseberry is directly on point and still applicable, even though it predates Romero by three decades. In New Mexico, a spouse cannot recover for an injury which is derivative of a worker's injury that has been compensated under the Act.

9. --Other jurisdictions. Other jurisdictions that have considered this question have also held that the exclusivity provisions of a workers' compensation statute bar a claim for loss-of-consortium damages. See generally 2A Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation §...