City of St. Paul v. Sorenson, 41322
| Decision Date | 28 March 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 41322,41322 |
| Parties | (Ray W. Betts) CITY OF ST. PAUL, substituted as appellant, Appellant, v. Keith W. SORENSON, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
The cause of action specified by the terms of Minn.St. 176.061, subds. 5 and 7, whereby an employer who has paid workmen's compensation benefits to an employee whose injury was caused by the negligence of a third person can recover the payments so made from the wrongdoer, does not abate on the death of the employee.
Mordaunt, Walstad, Cousineau & McGuire, and S. W. Shaughnessy, Minneapolis, for appellant.
Dworsky, Rosen & Ravich, St. Pual, for respondent.
Heard before KNUTSON, C.J., and OTIS, ROGOSHESKE, SHERAN, and PETERSON, JJ.
Appeal from a judgment of the district court.
On September 17, 1964, an action was instituted by Ray W. Betts against Keith W. Sorenson to recover damages for personal injuries resulting from a collision. By stipulation dated February 28, 1967, it was established that the accident occurred December 29, 1963, and was caused solely by the negligence of Sorenson. The personal injuries sustained by Betts made medical treatment necessary and caused compensable disability for which the city of St. Paul became responsible under the Workmen's Compensation Act as Betts' employer. He died on January 2, 1966, but the accident was not a cause of his death.
Defendant has agreed that the claim of the city for the recovery of payments made by it pursuant to the Workmen's Compensation Act can be asserted in this action subject to the defense that the right of recovery has abated by virtue of Minn.St. 573.01, which provides that a cause of action arising out of injury to the person dies with the person. The trial court upheld the defense and the appeal is taken to test the correctness of this ruling.
The city contends that its statutory cause of action 1 for the recovery of money paid to Betts survives the death of the employee because, although § 573.01 provides that '(a) cause of action arising out of an injury to the person dies with the person of the party in whose favor it exists,' (subject to exceptions not now relevant), 2 all other causes of action do survive.
The question is whether the legislature in granting to the employer a cause of action for workmen's compensation benefits paid to an injured employee as it did by enacting the laws now embraced in § 176.061, subds. 5 and 7, intended that this cause of action should abate on the death of the employee. There is nothing in the statute which gives a clear answer, and there is no prior decision of this court dealing with the matter specifically.
Minn.St. 176.061 authorizes an employer who has assumed his obligation under the Workmen's Compensation Act to press an action against the third-party tortfeasor, recovering as damages the amounts paid pursuant to the act. There are strong considerations of fairness and policy underlying this statute. 3 We can see no logical reason why the legislature would make the employer's assertion of this cause of action contingent upon the continued life of the employee. The loss to the employer resulting from the third-party's negligence is the same, whether the employee be living or dead. The death of the employee after receipt of the workmen's compensation payments does not alter the fact that the employer has sustained a loss arising from the obligations imposed by the Workmen's Compensation Act, which became integrated in the contract of employment by force of law. This loss results directly and proximately from the wrong of another. The death of the injured employee does not add materially to the burden of the wrongdoer in so far as the conduct of his defense is concerned. To permit the employer to proceed with his case notwithstanding the death of the employee does not offend the policy against the splitting of a unitary cause of action so as to multiply litigation, at least in this case, because, the employee being deceased, the only cause of action remaining for damages sustained between the date of the accident and the date of death is that which resides in the employer. 4
The statutory cause of action awarded to the employer by § 176.061 is similar to that afforded at common law to an employer sustaining loss by reason of injury to an employee through the negligence of another. 5 In Jones v. Waterman SS. Corp. (3 Cir.) 155 F.2d 992, for example, it was held that a shipowner, compelled to make payments for maintenance and cure to a sailor injured as a result of a defendant's negligence, was entitled to assert a common-law cause of action for the payments made on the theory that the loss sustained resulted from an interference with the contract relationship existing between the employer and employee.
In Northern States Contracting Co. v. Oakes, 191 Minn. 88, 253 N.W. 371, 92 A.L.R. 1201, 6 we held that the increased workmen's compensation insurance premiums which plaintiff had to pay because of an employee's death were a loss too remote and indirect to be recoverable from the third person whose negligence caused the death. The employer was not asserting a right to recover workmen's compensation benefits paid. The employee was killed in the accident and had no dependents. But this language in that opinion is significant: (191 Minn. 89, 253 N.W. 371):
The oblique light which the Northern States Contracting case casts on our present problem comes from the circumstance that we recognized there, implicitly at least, that in some situations an employer does have a common-law cause of action against a third-party tortfeasor who causes injury to his servant for the direct and proximate damage caused by the third-party's negligence, and that this loss, in so far as it results from the burden imposed by the Workmen's Compensation Act, arises from the employment contract. The contractual basis of the employer's obligation in such a situation was also recognized in our recent case of Hagberg v. Colonial & Pac. Frigidways, Inc., 279 Minn. 396, 157 N.W.2d 33. See, also, 4 Williston, Contracts (Rev. ed.) § 1028A.
It is true that some courts have held that at common law the master had no cause of action based on the killing of his employee. This was, however, premised on a historical circumstance that has no significance these days, i.e., that the party causing the death of the servant was subject to prosecution as a felon, an offense punishable exclusively by the Crown. 7 In any event, the present action is not for damages attributable to the death of the employee; it is for recoupment of the sums paid to the employee Before his death.
The master's common-law cause of action for damages received through injury to his servant is much like the cause of action which common law gave to a husband against a wrongdoer who caused injury to the wife, 8 and, while we have no case in Minnesota dealing with the survivability of the former, we do have a decision holding that the husband's common-law action for injuries to his wife survives her death. In Fowlie v. First Minneapolis Trust Co., 184 Minn. 82, 237 N.W. 846, 78 A.L.R. 589, 9 it was held that a husband's cause of action for medical expenses and nursing incurred in attempting to cure his wife of the injuries negligently inflicted survives her death and the death of the wrongdoer.
The third-party tortfeasor contends that the plaintiff's cause of action abated upon the death of the employee, reasoning that the claim is one covered by § 573.01 in so far as it provides that a cause of action arising out of the injury to the person dies with the person of the party in whose favor it exists. As noted, the cause of action of the employer arises directly out of his status as an employer, a situation comparable to that of a husband vis-a-vis his wife, and in the Fowlie case we said with respect to the latter relationship (184 Minn. 84, 237 N.W. 847):
In any event, we are unable to conceive of any reason why the legislature would have intended to incorporate the statutory inhibitions appearing in § 573.01 when it enacted § 176.061, subds. 5 and 7. The tendency of legislatures has been to extend the survivability of causes of action rather than the reverse. See, Prosser, Torts (3 ed.) § 120, p. 923, and authorities cited in note 35. Paraphrasing Prosser's comments: Why should a fortuitous event, such as the death of an employee who has received workmen's compensation benefits, extinguish what would otherwise be the valid right of action in the employer provided in § 176.061, subds. 5 and 7? Other than the fact that it was the common-law rule that causes of action for injury to the person died with the person, we are unable to find any reasonable answer to that question.
The common-law rule was itself based on historical and procedural circumstances which have no real meaning today. We recognized this to be...
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