Johnson v. Great W. Cas. Co.
| Decision Date | 11 August 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14 C 7858,14 C 7858 |
| Parties | DAVID M. JOHNSON, Plaintiff, v. GREAT WEST CASUALTY COMPANY, TANYA JENSEN, BLANE J. BRUMMOND, and UNKNOWN DEFENDANTS, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
In this lawsuit, the plaintiff, David M. Johnson, sets forth a variety of federal and state law claims arising from a contested workers' compensation proceeding. Pending before the Court is the defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 14) under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b). Concluding that the plaintiff's state law claims are subject to the exclusivity provisions of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act ("IWCA") and that the complaint fails to state a plausible federal claim, the motion to dismiss is granted in its entirety.
Although the product of evident fervor, the prolix complaint in this case, which runs 37 pages and 148 paragraphs, is difficult to decipher, due largely to its frequently unnecessary andinappropriate use of legal jargon, omission of important facts, and disdain for basic punctuation. The gist of the complaint, however, can be discerned notwithstanding these impediments. In brief, Johnson claims that he was injured on May 3, 2013, while driving for his employer, Melton Truck Lines, in Alabama. Melton subsequently terminated Johnson's employment on or about June 13, 2013. Thereafter, Johnson filed a workers' compensation claim with Defendant Great West Casualty Company ("Great West"), Melton's workers' compensation insurer.
There are, it seems, a number of states in which Johnson might be able to pursue a workers' compensation claim, including: (1) Alabama, where the alleged injury occurred; (2) Oklahoma, where Melton maintains its principal place of business and where Johnson was supervised; (3) Ohio, where Johnson received his initial orientation; and (4) Illinois, where Johnson resided during the relevant time period, where Melton recruited him for employment, and where his commercial driver's license was issued. Johnson also alleges that he accepted Melton's offer of employment in Illinois, and that accordingly his employment contract should be deemed to have been made in Illinois.
Eschewing a claim in either Alabama or Oklahoma, which are reported to offer some of the lowest workers' compensation rates in the country,2 Johnson first filed a workers' compensation claim against Melton in Illinois on July 5, 2013. That claim remains pending.3Defending Melton in that proceeding, Great West took the position that the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission ("IWCC") did not have jurisdiction over Johnson's claim because he was not hired until he had completed his orientation training and other administrative prerequisites in Ohio. Perhaps for this reason (though the complaint does not say), Johnson brought a claim before the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation ("OBWC") on June 3, 2014. That claim was quickly denied, and the denial by the OBWC, which concluded that there were not sufficient contacts with the state to support jurisdiction, was affirmed on review by a hearing officer of the Ohio Industrial Commission on August 13, 2014.
Great West's opposition to Johnson's Illinois and Ohio claims appears to be the root of this lawsuit.4 Johnson contends that Great West defended against these workers' compensation claims by making "patently false" misrepresentations about which state's workers' compensation agency had jurisdiction over the claim, and which state's law governed the rules of decision in the workers' compensation proceedings.5 Compl., Dkt. 1 ¶ 46. Johnson alleges that the actions of Great West, Jensen, and Brummond in contesting his workers' compensation claim give rise to claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") Act, as wellas state law claims under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, Bad Faith, two counts of Negligent Misrepresentation, Tortious Interference with Contract, Tortious Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and Civil Conspiracy.6 The defendants have filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Johnson has not stated a claim entitling him to any relief from this Court.7
Although it sets forth eight "counts," there is a single premise to the complaint: Johnson maintains that he has been harmed by false statements and invalid arguments made by Great West in opposing his workers' compensation claim. In advancing this premise, Johnson betrays a misunderstanding of an adversarial system of dispute resolution. As Great West notes in its reply brief, it is "the essential role of a court or tribunal to assess the claims and defenses brought before it and to evaluate and discipline, as appropriate, supposedly vexatious, unreasonable or sanctionable positions taken." Reply, Dkt. 26, at 1. And under Illinois law,8 the exclusive remedy for "unreasonable or vexatious" efforts to avoid and delay payment of workers' compensation benefits is an award of additional compensation under the IWCA. 820 ILCS 305/19(k). The arguments Johnson raises, then, are the province of the IWCC, not a federal court.
The Illinois' Workers' Compensation Act displaces any "common law or statutory right to recover damages from [one's] employer [or] his insurer . . . for injury or death sustained by any employee while engaged in the line of his duty as such employee." 820 ILCS 305/5(a).9 For these types of accidental on-the-job injuries, the workers' compensation procedure provides the only way to recover. The IWCA exclusivity provision also bars tort claims arising out of vexatious or malicious conduct in delaying workers' compensation claims. See Robertson v. Travelers Ins. Co., 95 Ill. 2d 441, 448-49, 448 N.E.2d 866, 869-70 (1983) ().
Claims alleging an insurer's bad faith or vexatious delay in the processing or defense of a workers' compensation claim are covered under IWCA section 19(k), which allows claimants to recover additional compensation equal to 50% of the amounts due, as well as a daily penalty for the delay. See 820 ILCS 305/19(k); see also 820 ILCS 305/19(l) (). Because the IWCA's statutory scheme already anticipates that this type of dispute may occur in workers' compensation proceedings, and provides a venue for litigating against an insurer's or an employer's use of bad faith, frivolous defenses to workers' compensation claims, the exclusivity provision prevents the courts from hearing these types of claims. Robertson, 95 Ill. 2d at 450, 448 N.E.2d at 871 ().
Johnson's allegations supporting his claims for bad faith, negligent misrepresentation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress assert that Great West engaged in improper conduct to enable it to delay and defeat his workers' compensation claim. As such, they clearly fall within the claims that are subject to the IWCA's exclusivity provisions.10 Johnson maintains that Robertson applies only to the tort of bad faith failure to pay a claim, Resp., Dkt. 24, at 8, but that is not so. In Robertson, the plaintiff sought to recover, in a common law action, damages on the basis that an insurer handled his workers' compensation claim in a "maliciously deceptive" manner, which allegedly resulted in severe emotional distress. 95 Ill. 2d at 446, 448 N.E.2d at 869. Such claims, the Illinois Supreme Court held, are the exclusive province of the IWCA. Id. at 450. Johnson's claims, like those in Robertson, are that Great West has been "maliciously deceptive" in opposing his claim, and his claims are therefore also subject to IWCA's exclusivity provision. Moreover, nothing in Robertson suggests that the scope of that provision is limited to "bad faith" claims; to the contrary, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the exclusivity provisions of the IWCA should be interpreted broadly, holding that "a common law action should not, without other evidence of legislative intent be held to survive the Act's exclusivity provisions merely because the remedy provided in the Act for the injury alleged applies to other kinds of injuries as well." Id. at 447; see also Perfection Carpet v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 259 Ill. App. 3d 21, 32, 630 N.E.2d 1152, 1156 (1994).
It is perhaps not as pellucid that Johnson's tortious interference claims are subject to the IWCA's exclusivity provisions. The focus of those claims is the alleged disruption of Johnson's employment relationships, present and future, rather than the denial of his workers' compensation claim. But this seeming distinction is illusory, because Johnson alleges that Great West's means for disrupting his employment relationships was to oppose his workers' compensation claim, thereby "depriving . . . Plaintiff of medical treatment for the disability" he incurred as a result of his alleged injury. Compl., Dkt. 1 ¶ 123; see also id. ¶ 131 (). Thus, these claims, too, are based on claims that the defendants vexatiously opposed and delayed Johnson's receipt of workers' compensation benefits, and so are also subject to IWCA's...
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