Means v. Glover
| Decision Date | 04 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | 1190660 |
| Citation | 342 So.3d 539 |
| Parties | Raymon MEANS, Jr. v. Donnie GLOVER, Matt Brown, Miguel Pizzuto, Bart Sanders, Kelley Grenon, and Mitchell Jones |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Oscar W. Adams III of Adams Law, PC, Birmingham; and Ralph B. Mayes of Omega Law, LLC, Birmingham, for appellant.
Grady A. Reeves, Matthew M. Baker, and John G. Reeves of Cervera, Ralph, Reeves, Baker & Hastings, LLC, Troy, for appellees.
Raymon Means, Jr., an employee of Sanders Lead Company, Inc., was burned in a workplace accident when molten lead splashed out of a kettle following an explosion. In an effort to recover outside Alabama's Workers’ Compensation Act, Means sued, among others, several of his co-employees and an independent contractor, alleging that they had engaged in willful conduct that caused his injuries. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of those defendants, leading to this appeal. We affirm the judgment.
Sanders Lead operates a facility in Troy that recycles used automotive batteries. As part of the recycling process, Sanders Lead extracts lead plates from batteries, melts those plates down, refines the molten metal to remove impurities, and pours the refined lead into ingot molds. The company then sells these lead ingots back to battery manufacturers.
During the recycling process, a powdery material consisting of lead, aluminum, and other metals is produced. This material, known as aluminum dross, is then subjected to further processing to reclaim as much lead as possible. At the time of Means's accident, Sanders Lead was implementing a new method of processing aluminum dross by diluting the dross in a kettle of molten lead and then slowly adding sodium hydroxide to the mixture, causing a reaction in which the aluminum and other undesired metals would rise to the top. Those metals were then drawn off, allowing Sanders Lead to reclaim the lead that had been in the dross.
This new method of processing aluminum dross was introduced to Sanders Lead by Miguel Pizzuto, a chemical engineer and metallurgist who owns a lead-processing business in Mexico and who acts as a consultant to businesses in the industry.1 About a week before Means's accident, Pizzuto discussed the new method in a meeting with Sanders Lead's vice president of operations, Bart Sanders, and the company's casting and alloy manager, Kelley Grenon. Sanders ultimately approved a trial of the method suggested by Pizzuto. By the time of Means's accident, the company had successfully processed seven batches of aluminum dross using Pizzuto's method.
When Means arrived for his afternoon shift on July 8, 2015, his supervisor, Mitchell Jones, instructed him to begin processing another batch of aluminum dross. Means began doing so, and, when it came time to add sodium hydroxide to the batch, he used a forklift with a squeeze attachment to pour sodium hydroxide from 55-gallon barrels into the kettle. It appears, however, that the sodium hydroxide was added to the kettle too quickly and that, as it reacted with the aluminum in the mixture, flammable hydrogen gas began to build up. That hydrogen gas exploded, splashing molten lead out of the kettle and onto Means where he sat in the forklift. Means was wearing some protective gear but suffered second-degree burns and had to be transported to a Birmingham hospital for treatment.
As required by federal law, Sanders Lead submitted an accident notice to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA"). That notice indicated that Means was injured while recovering lead from aluminum dross through a process "developed with a metallurgist; Vice President of Operations, Bart Sanders; Kelley Grenon and staff from the Casting and Alloying Department." It further identified Grenon as "Casting and Alloying Department Supervisor" and Jones as "Casting and Alloying Shift Supervisor." OSHA later conducted an investigation of Means's accident, and, as part of that investigation, Grenon and Jones submitted statements in which they denied knowing that adding sodium hydroxide to a mixture containing aluminum could cause an accident like the one that injured Means. Grenon further stated that he had been told about the new method of processing aluminum dross by the company's "advisor," and that he had learned that they were going to try it and had been instructed on the method at a meeting not long before the accident. Grenon also said that the company's "metallurgical consultant" did not mention that adding too much sodium hydroxide too quickly to a mixture containing aluminum was dangerous. It is undisputed that the references to the company's "metallurgist," "advisor," and "metallurgical consultant" refer to Pizzuto. The OSHA investigation resulted in two citations being given to Sanders Lead; the case was closed in November 2015 after Sanders Lead changed its procedures and paid a fine.2
The following month, Sanders Lead initiated an action in the Pike Circuit Court to determine the workers’ compensation benefits Means was entitled to recover under the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act ("the Act"), § 25-5-1 et seq., Ala. Code 1975. That same month, OSHA records indicate that Means requested a copy of the report on his accident. It is not clear exactly when Means received a copy of the OSHA report, but discovery requests that Means served upon Sanders Lead during the course of the workers’ compensation action indicate that he was in possession of that report by August 2016. Those discovery requests sought information from Sanders Lead about the decision to implement the new method of processing aluminum dross, including information about who had participated in any meeting at which the method was discussed and what those participants knew about the hazards the method entailed.
Sanders Lead objected to those discovery requests, arguing that it had already conceded that Means's injury was compensable under the Act and that the only issues to be decided involved the extent of Means's impairment and the benefits he was therefore due. Citing the OSHA report, Means responded by noting that the requested discovery would help him determine if additional claims against co-employees should be added to the action under § 25-5-11, Ala. Code 1975, which provides an exception to the exclusive-remedy provisions of the Act when an employee's injuries are caused by a co-employee's "willful conduct."
In October 2016, the trial court ruled that Means was not entitled to the requested discovery, explaining that it was not relevant to the pending action, which had been initiated solely to determine the workers’ compensation benefits to which Means was entitled. See Rule 26(b)(1)(i), Ala. R. Civ. P. ().
It is not clear from the record how or when the workers’ compensation action initiated by Sanders Lead was resolved, but on June 2, 2017, Means initiated a separate action in the Pike Circuit Court against two Sanders Lead employees -- safety manager Donnie Glover and safety engineer Matt Brown -- and fictitiously named parties, alleging, among other things, that their conduct had been willful and had caused his accident and injuries. As later amended, Means specifically alleged (1) that Glover and Brown knew or should have known that pouring sodium hydroxide into a kettle of molten lead and aluminum had the potential to cause an explosion and serious injury or death, and that they therefore had a duty to stop Sanders Lead from implementing that process, and (2) that Glover and Brown had failed to install a safety windshield on the forklift he was operating at the time of his accident, which constituted willful conduct subjecting them to liability under § 25-5-11.
At the same time that he filed his complaint, Means served interrogatories on Glover and Brown requesting, among other things, that they identify (1) any Sanders Lead employees who had known that adding sodium hydroxide to aluminum dross could create flammable hydrogen gas and (2) who had attended the meeting at which the new method of processing aluminum dross was discussed. In answering the interrogatories on November 29, 2017, Glover and Brown indicated that, to the best of their knowledge, no one at Sanders Lead had known that adding sodium hydroxide to aluminum dross could result in an explosion and that, if there had been any meeting discussing a new process that involved mixing sodium hydroxide with molten lead containing aluminum, they were not part of that meeting and were unaware of it.
Means's counsel deposed Glover on September 13, 2018. Means states that it was at this deposition that he learned for the first time that Pizzuto, Sanders, Grenon, and Jones were defendants who had previously been fictitiously named. Accordingly, on September 27, 2018, Means amended his complaint to substitute those individuals ("the substituted defendants") for previously identified fictitiously named defendants and to assert claims against them under § 25-5-11 based on (1) their roles in implementing the process that injured him and (2) their alleged failure to install a safety windshield on the forklift he was operating at the time of his accident. Means also asserted a separate negligence and wantonness claim against the independent contractor Pizzuto.
The substituted defendants moved the trial court to dismiss the claims asserted against them, arguing that all...
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