Tanks v. Lockheed Martin Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 July 2005
• Docket Number: No. 05-60028.,05-60028.
• Citation: 417 F.3d 456
• Parties: Erica Willis TANKS, as Administrator of the Estate of Thomas Willis, as Personal Representative of Thomas Willis, for the Benefit of All Heirs of Thomas Willis, and as natural daughter of Thomas Willis, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP.; et al., Defendants, LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP.; LOCKHEED MARTIN Aeronautical Systems Support Co., doing business as Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company-Marietta, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

417 F.3d 456

Erica Willis TANKS, as Administrator of the Estate of Thomas Willis, as Personal Representative of Thomas Willis, for the Benefit of All Heirs of Thomas Willis, and as natural daughter of Thomas Willis, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP.; et al., Defendants, LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP.; LOCKHEED MARTIN Aeronautical Systems Support Co., doing business as Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company-Marietta, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 05-60028.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

July 14, 2005.

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William Fredric Blair (argued), Troy Farrell Odom, Blair & Bondurant, Brandon, MS, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Luther T. Munford (argued), Fred L. Banks, Jr., LaToya Cheree Merritt, Phelps Dunbar, David L. Ayers, Joseph Collins Wohner, Jr., Mark David Jicka, Charles Clark, Watkins & Eager, Jackson, MS, for Defendants-Appellants.

Jeremiah A. Collins, Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, DC, John L. Maxey, II, Maxey Wann, Jackson, MS, for Intern. Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, Amicus Curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Before WIENER, DeMOSS, and PRADO, Circuit Judges.

WIENER, Circuit Judge:

Defendants-Appellants Lockheed Martin Corp. and Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Support Co. ("Lockheed") took this interlocutory appeal, certified by the district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), seeking reversal of the district court's partial summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Appellant Erica Tanks. The district court held that, under the discrete facts and circumstances of this case, the "exclusive remedy" provision of the Mississippi Workers' Compensation Act ("MWCA" or "the Act"),¹ which generally precludes an employee from recovering from his employer on a state law tort cause of action, does not preclude Tanks from pursuing against Lockheed her state tort cause of action based on the workplace death of her father, Thomas Willis ("Willis" or "decedent"). The district court nevertheless certified, for interlocutory appeal, the question whether the MWCA provides the exclusive remedy for Tanks's state law claims. Our grant of Lockheed's appeal on the single issue thus certified limits our review to that question.

As an initial matter, we disagree with the district court's view that the question it certified to us is an open one under these circumstances, and thus decline to certify it further to the Supreme Court of Mississippi. Deciding this question as we believe the Supreme Court of Mississippi has and would, we conclude that, under the current state of the applicable Mississippi jurisprudence, Willis's death—which was a result of the willful act of a co-worker while both men were on the job—is compensable under the MWCA. This in turn makes compensation under the MWCA Tanks's exclusive remedy against Lockheed. We therefore reverse the non-exclusivity ruling of the district court vis-à-vis Tanks's state law tort claims, render a partial summary judgment for Lockheed, dismissing Tanks's state law claims, and remand this case for proceedings on the federal claims advanced in her Third Amended Complaint.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

This case arises from a horrific tragedy that occurred in July 2003, at Lockheed's plant in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. At the time, the decedent was an assemblyman who had been employed by Lockheed for more than 33 years; a co-worker, Douglas Paul Williams, was also an assemblyman in that plant and had been employed by Lockheed for 19 years. Willis, who was black, and Williams, who was white, regularly worked in close proximity to each other. Both perished at Lockheed's plant from gunshot wounds inflicted by Williams in the course of a shooting spree during which Williams killed or wounded several of his co-workers before turning one of his guns on himself. In addition to the decedent, a number of other Lockheed employees—some black, some white—were shot by Williams during the course of his rampage: Some of the other victims died from their gunshot wounds; others survived. Like the decedent and Williams, all the other victims were Lockheed employees who were at the plant and at work at the time that they were shot.

In her original diversity-jurisdiction tort complaint filed in district court, and again in her Third Amended Complaint, Tanks related numerous factual allegations detailing Williams's longstanding and widely-known bigotry against his African-American "co-workers." Her complaints are entirely devoid, however, of allegations of any demonstrated racial animus or overt acts against African-Americans, either co-workers or non co-workers, anywhere outside the Lockheed plant site. Stated differently, Tanks's allegations of Williams's hatred, prejudice, and bigotry towards blacks exclusively address his co-workers and his workplace. For example, she alleged that Williams harbored racial hatred towards his African-American "co-workers"; that he was known to be violent towards his "co-workers"; that Lockheed was aware of Williams's animus towards his "co-workers and Lockheed's management at the Plant"; that Williams "came to work and parked in the employee parking lot with loaded firearms in his truck"; that he informed Lockheed of his hatred towards his "co-workers," warning that, if his being required to work with blacks were not alleviated, "violent consequences could occur"; that he had made threatening remarks to African-American "co-workers"; that he and a fellow white "co-worker" had attempted to intimidate their African-American "co-workers"; that Williams instigated racial taunts and abuse towards his African-American "co-workers"; and on and on. In essence, all of Tanks's allegations that implicate Williams's overt racism and anti-black animus are made exclusively in the context of the workplace and his "co-workers," black and white. These allegations are obviously intended to support Tanks's state tort claims (and, eventually, federal discrimination claims) against Lockheed, grounded in, inter alia, negligence, gross negligence, willful and wanton inaction in the face of longstanding knowledge of Williams's condition and the threat to the safety of co-workers on the job.

After limited discovery, Lockheed moved for partial summary judgment on the pleadings and several uncontested facts submitted by it, including its compliance with its MWCA duty to insure its liability for workers' compensation benefits. Lockheed argued that Williams's injury is compensable under the MWCA, and, consequently, that Lockheed is entitled to immunity from Tanks's other state tort law claims on the basis of the Act's exclusive remedy provision. The district court nevertheless agreed with Tanks that Willis's death was not compensable under the Act and denied summary judgment. Lockheed moved for reconsideration or, in the alternative, certification of the question for interlocutory appeal. The district court denied reconsideration but certified the action for interlocutory appeal. In granting the motion for interlocutory appeal, the district court identified as a material legal question under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) the compensability of Willis's fatal injury under the MWCA, characterizing the state of the law as unsettled, and noting the centrality of the question to the claims and this court's authority to certify such a question to the Supreme Court of Mississippi.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

The district court certified its decision for interlocutory appeal, and we granted Lockheed's motion for leave to appeal the district court's denial of its motion for summary judgment pursuant to our authority under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). Although we ordinarily review a district court's summary judgment ruling de novo,² our appellate jurisdiction under § 1292(b) extends only to controlling questions of law, thus, we review only the issue of law certified for appeal.³ We therefore determine de novo whether the district court properly interpreted the MWCA, using the same method of interpretation as would the Mississippi Supreme Court.⁴

B. Interpreting the MWCA

The district court denied Lockheed's motion for summary judgment, concluding that, even though Mississippi case law interpreting the MWCA is unclear, the decedent's injuries were not compensable under the Act. Therefore, reasoned the court, the MWCA's exclusive remedy provision did not bar Tanks from pursuing other state law remedies. We agree with the district court's thorough discussion of Mississippi case law,⁵ including its determination that an earlier line of decisions, beginning with Mutual Implement & Hardware Insurance Co. v. Pittman⁶ in 1952, appears to conflict with a later line, commencing with Miller v. McRae's⁷ in 1984. We shall not retrace the district court's careful analysis except to reiterate briefly the rules that undergird our decision.

1. Elements of Proof: Compensability for Co-Worker Assault under the MWCA

Under the MWCA and the Mississippi jurisprudence that has evolved over the past six decades, if the injury (here, death) is compensable under the Act, compensation under the MWCA is the exclusive state law tort remedy available to the employee or his successors.⁸ Courts determine whether a plaintiff is entitled to compensation under the MWCA or whether his other tort claims are barred by the MWCA's exclusivity provision, by inquiring only "whether the injury is compensable under the act."⁹ The sole issue before us, then, is whether Willis's injury, i.e., his death from the intentional shooting at the hands of a co-worker while both were at work, is compensable under the Act.

Under § 71-3-7 of the MWCA, an employer is liable to pay compensation for the disability or "death of an employee from injury . . . arising out of and in the course of [his] employment, without regard to the fault as to the cause of the injury. . . ."¹⁰ In the definitional section of the Act (§...