Brock v. Dunne
| Decision Date | 11 September 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. ED105739,ED105739 |
| Parties | DANNY BROCK, Respondent, v. PETER DUNNE, IN HIS CAPACITY AS DEFENDANT AD LITEM FOR MARK EDWARDS, DECEASED, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court of St. Louis County
Honorable Nancy Watkins McLaughlin
This appeal concerns a claim of negligence filed by an employee against a fellow employee. Danny Brock ("Brock") filed a petition in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County against his supervisor at the time of his injury, Mark Edwards ("Edwards"), claiming that Edwards's actions of removing a safety guard from a laminating machine and ordering Brock to clean the machine—while it was still running and without the safety guard equipped—constituted negligence, and that Brock suffered an injury as a result. After Brock filed his petition against Edwards, but before the trial began, Edwards passed away. Pursuant to § 537.021.1, RSMo 2012, the trial court ordered that Peter Dunne be substituted and named a party in place of Edwards as a defendant ad litem ("DAL"). After a trial, a jury verdict was issued in favor of Brock. Nonetheless, DAL claims on appeal that Brock failed to make a submissible case for numerous reasons, including that he was immune from liability pursuant to § 287.120.1 of the Workers' Compensation Act.1 The injury occurred on April 30, 2013. Consequently, § 287.120.1, RSMo 2012 was the effective statute that controls. Section 287.120.1 underwent significant changes when it was amended in 2012, including the express inclusion of "employees" in the immunity statute. After reviewing all of the parties' arguments, we find no error by the trial court, as Brock made a submissible case that satisfied the requirements for a negligence claim, including the finding that § 287.120.1 did not immunize DAL from Brock's negligence claim, as Edwards committed affirmative negligent acts that purposefully and dangerously caused Brock's injury. Thus, we affirm the judgment.
Factual and Procedural Background
This case stems from an injury that occurred on April 30, 2013. Brock was working at JMC Manufacturing ("JMC") at the time of the injury. Brock was assigned to work at JMC beginning in January of 2013 by a temporary employment agency, Patriot Personnel. On the morning of April 30, 2013, Brock was working on a lamination machine with the lamination line supervisor, Edwards, and two other co-workers when he was injured. While cleaning the lamination machine, Brock's hand was snatched and crushed by two rollers. This occurrence and Brock's resulting injury led to the litigation at issue on appeal.
The laminating machine that injured Brock was produced by Black Brothers Co. ("Black Bros.") and owned by JMC. JMC used this machine to apply a heavy coating of glue to pieces of wood that are fed through the machine onto moving rollers. There are two rollers on the top side of the machine—above where wooden boards are moved through the machine—and twoadditional rollers on the bottom side, which transport the board through the machine. Glue is applied from the top pair of rollers to the material being laminated below it. Due to this process, glue will occasionally fall onto the bottom rollers. There is also a metal grate (i.e., the safety guard) attached to the machine by hinges, which can be lifted to provide access to the bottom rollers. The gap between the rollers create a "pinch point," where certain objects can become stuck if the safety guard is removed from the machine.
On the morning of April 30, 2013, Edwards was feeding a board into the machine when he spotted glue on one of the bottom rollers. Edwards removed the safety guard while the machine was still powered on. According to Brock, Edwards then instructed Brock to grab a wet rag out of a bucket to squeeze water onto the roller with glue and use a brush underneath the roller to scrape the glue off of it; Edwards stated that he told Brock to clean the roller off, but without any specific instructions to accomplish the task. Once the safety guard was removed, the rollers and its "pinch points" were exposed and accessible to the workers. Brock followed Edwards's instructions to clean the roller. Brock claims that Edwards was standing right next to him during the process and never told him that he was doing anything unsafe or that he should stop attempting to clean the roller. As Brock was using the rag to squeeze water over the top side of the roller, and simultaneously scraping the glue on the bottom side of the roller with a brush, the rag was swallowed by the pinch point, which also pulled Brock's thumb into the pinch point and crushed it. Brock testified that he was in excruciating pain and that his thumb "was literally hanging by the skin." Brock was taken to the hospital by an ambulance soon after the injury occurred.
On January 16, 2015, Brock filed a petition in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, seeking damages from Edwards and Black Bros. resulting from his workplace injury. Edwards passed away on May 27, 2016, and pursuant to § 537.021.1, the trial court ordered Peter Dunne to be substituted and named as a party in Edwards's place as a defendant ad litem (herein "DAL"). Eventually, Brock settled with Black Bros., and he dismissed his claims against the manufacturer of the lamination machine on January 17, 2017.
Brock and DAL proceeded to trial on April 3, 2017. After a five-day trial, the jury returned a verdict of $1,050,000 in total damages. The jury was instructed on comparative negligence and assigned ninety percent of fault to DAL and ten percent of fault to Brock. The trial court reduced the $1,050,000 verdict by the amount of Brock's settlement with Black Bros. ($80,000) and then reduced the remaining damages by ten percent (the percentage of fault attributable to Brock). The trial court entered a judgment on the verdict in the amount of $873,000. DAL then filed motions for a new trial and judgement notwithstanding the verdict ("JNOV"), which the trial court denied on June 23, 2017. This appeal follows.
DISCUSSION
The judiciary's role is to enforce the laws enacted by the General Assembly and effectuate the legislature's intent. Doe v. McCulloch, 542 S.W.3d 354, 362 (Mo. App. E.D. 2017). First, we look to the plain language of the statute; "[w]hen the words are clear, there is nothing to construe beyond applying the plain meaning of the law." Bateman v. Rinehart, 391 S.W.3d 441, 446 (Mo. banc 2013). However, we will rely on rules of statutory construction to resolve any ambiguities if the legislative intent is undeterminable from the plain meaning of thestatutory language. BASF Corp. v. Dir. of Revenue, 392 S.W.3d 438, 444 (Mo. banc 2012). Additionally, this Court will not insert new words into statutes, and we presume that "each word, clause, sentence, and section of a statute" will be given meaning and that the legislature did not insert superfluous language. Macon Cty. Emergency Servs. Bd. v. Macon Cty. Comm'n, 485 S.W.3d 353, 356 (Mo. banc 2016).
The relevant portion of § 287.120.1 reads:
Every employer subject to the provisions of this chapter shall be liable, irrespective of negligence, to furnish compensation under the provisions of this chapter for personal injury or death of the employee by accident or occupational disease arising out of and in the course of the employee's employment. Any employee of such employer shall not be liable for any injury or death for which compensation is recoverable under this chapter and every employer and employees of such employer shall be released from all other liability whatsoever, whether to the employee or any other person, except that an employee shall not be released from liability for injury or death if the employee engaged in an affirmative negligent act that purposefully and dangerously caused or increased the risk of injury. The term "accident" as used in this section shall include, but not be limited to, injury or death of the employee caused by the unprovoked violence or assault against the employee by any person.
§ 287.120 ().
A Brief History of § 287.120.1 and the Workers' Compensation Act
Our Court held in State ex. rel Badami v. Gaertner, 630 S.W.2d 175, 180 (Mo. App. E.D. 1982) (en banc) that an employee "has immunity under the workmen's compensation law where his negligence is based upon a general non-delegable duty of the employer," but "he does not have immunity where he does an affirmative act causing or increasing the risk of injury." Rather, for an employee to bring a negligence claim against a fellow co-employee, our Court found "[s]omething extra [was] required beyond a breach of his duty of general supervision andsafety." Id. at 179. This has been commonly referred to as the "something more" test.2 As the Supreme Court of Missouri has observed, "as initially articulated" in State ex rel. Badami, the "something more" test "closely followed the common law." Peters v. Wady Indus., Inc., 489 S.W.3d 784, 797 (Mo. banc 2016). Although the test has evolved since its inception, the standard for satisfying the "something more" test "has not proven susceptible of reliable definition, and Missouri courts have essentially applied the rule on a case by case basis...." State ex rel. Larkin v. Oxenhandler, 159 S.W.3d 417, 421 (Mo. App. W.D. 2005). In 2002, the Supreme Court of Missouri stated that "[a] simple allegation of negligent driving by a co-employee ... [was] not 'something more' than an allegation of a breach of the duty to maintain a safe workingenvironment." State ex rel. Taylor v. Wallace, 73 S.W.3d 620, 622-23 (Mo. banc 2002), overruled on other grounds by McCracken v. Wal-Mart Stores E., LP, 298 S.W.3d 473 (Mo. banc 2009). The Court reasoned...
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