Moore v. RLCC Technologies, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1996
• Parties: 95-2621 La
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 1135

668 So.2d 1135

95-2621 La. 2/28/96

Zola Haynes MOORE v. RLCC TECHNOLOGIES, INC., et al.

No. 95-CA-2621.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Feb. 28, 1996.

Marshall Travis Napper, Shotwell, Brown & Sperry, Monroe, Harry Alston Johnson, III, Shreveport, for Applicant.

John Edward Morton, Fuhrer, Flournoy, Hunter & Morton, Alexandria, for Respondent.

John Stone Coulter, Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Baton Rouge, for amicus curiae State.

[95-2621 La. 1] LEMMON, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from a judgment in a declaratory judgment action declaring unconstitutional La.Rev.Stat. 23:1032's grant of tort immunity to a principal or statutory employer of an injured employee of the direct employer. ¹ The principal issue on appeal is whether this extension of immunity beyond the direct employer violates the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by La. Const. art. I, § 3 or the access to courts guaranteed by La. Const. art. I, § 22.

[95-2621 La. 2] Procedural History

Plaintiff's husband, an employee of Manpower Temporary Services, was killed while working on a water pipeline at a plant operated by RLCC Technologies, Inc. In the ensuing wrongful death action against several defendants, plaintiff alleged that the hazards on RLCC's unsafe premises and the negligence of RLCC's employees combined to cause her husband's death. RLCC and its employees asserted the immunity granted by La.Rev.Stat. 23:1032 to a principal and its employees.

Plaintiff then filed an amended petition seeking a declaratory judgment that Section 1032 was unconstitutional to the extent that it granted tort immunity to a principal and its employees. By agreement, the declaratory judgment action was severed from the wrongful death action and was tried in advance of the trial on the merits.

The trial court rendered a judgment declaring La.Rev.Stat. 23:1032 and 1061 unconstitutional. The court noted that Sections 1032 and 1061 divide employees into two classifications, direct employees and statutory employees, and that statutory employees are discriminated against in regard to tort recovery solely on the basis of their employment affiliation with a direct employer or contractor who is executing work which is part of the trade, business or occupation of the statutory employer-principal. The court reasoned that the statute discriminated by denying employees of the direct employer recovery in tort for injuries negligently inflicted by employees of the principal, while allowing employees of the principal recovery in tort for injuries negligently inflicted by employees of the direct employer. The court also pointed out the statutory discrimination which allows employees of contractors and subcontractors recovery in tort for injuries negligently inflicted by employees of other subcontractors. Because La. Const. art. I, § 3 [95-2621 La. 3] prohibits a law which "arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably discriminate[s] against a person because of ... affiliation," the court placed the burden of proving constitutionality on the defendants under Sibley v. Board of Supervisors of La. State Univ. and Agric. and Mechanical College, 477 So.2d 1094 (La.1985). Finding that defendants did not bear their burden of proving that the discrimination against statutory employees on the basis of employment affiliation substantially furthered a legitimate state interest, the court declared Section 1032 unconstitutional.

The trial court further reasoned that La. Const. art. I, § 22 requires the Legislature to provide an adequate remedy for the recognized action for wrongful death in the workplace. Finding that Section 1032 denies injured employees an adequate remedy, the court added this as a further basis for the declaration of unconstitutionality.

Hence this direct appeal by defendants to this court under La. Const. art. V, § 5 D. ²

History of La.Rev.Stat. 23:1032 and 1061

The Louisiana Workers' Compensation Act, originally adopted in 1914, represented a compromise in which the employer was granted tort immunity for all workplace accidents in exchange for absolute liability for compensation payments of medical expenses and partial wage replacement, while the employee gave up the right to recovery of full damages against the employer in some cases in exchange for recovery of lesser amounts as compensation for almost all workplace injuries without having to prove fault. The balance struck by this original legislative [95-2621 La. 4] compromise has swung from time to time, but the compromise nature of the Act has remained the focal point of its viability.

La.Rev.Stat. 23:1032, as originally enacted, expressed the limitation of the employee's remedy on account of a compensable injury to the rights and remedies in the Act. This limitation, although not expressly stated at the time, clearly excluded other remedies against the employer. ³ There was no mention of any immunity for persons defined as a "principal" in La.Rev.Stat. 23:1061 or for employees of the direct employer or the principal.

Conversely, Section 1061 did not purport to grant any immunity to anyone, but rather granted to injured employees an additional source of compensation recovery. ⁴ The original purpose of Section 1061, a provision which is found in the [95-2621 La. 5] compensation acts of most states, was to prevent an employer from avoiding compensation responsibility by interposing an independent contractor or sub-contractor between himself and his employee. Wex S. Malone & H. Alston Johnson III, Workers' Compensation Law and Practice, 13 Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, § 128 (3d ed. 1994). The Legislature closed that loophole, and gave the injured employee an additional source of compensation recovery, by subjecting any person (called a principal or statutory employer) to compensation liability when that person undertakes work that is part of his trade business or occupation by means of a contract with another or when that person contracts to perform work and sub-contracts a portion of that work to another. Id. at § 121.

Thus, Section 1061 by its terms has always given an advantage to injured employees and has never purported to take any advantage away from injured employees. Nothing in the Act expressly provided, or even suggested, that the principal was entitled to any tort immunity, even if the principal actually had to pay compensation benefits to an injured employee. ⁵ The Legislature arguably deemed immunity inappropriate since a principal was entitled to full indemnity for payment of compensation and could avoid compensation exposure altogether by requiring the contractor, as part of the contract, to carry workers' compensation insurance for its employees.

In 1950, this court, and not the Legislature, established tort immunity for the principal. Without any discussion of the absence in Section 1032 or 1061 of any [95-2621 La. 6] suggestion of a legislative intent to grant tort immunity to a principal, or of a principal's apparent ability to avoid any compensation liability, or of the question whether immunity should only apply if the principal actually pays compensation, this court in Thibodaux v. Sun Oil Co., 218 La. 453, 49 So.2d 852 (1950) rendered a judgment maintaining an exception of no cause of action and limiting the plaintiff's remedy against the principal to compensation under the Act.

Despite suggestions that this court reconsider the Thibodaux decision, ⁶ neither this court nor the Legislature reexamined the issue for twenty-six years.

In 1976, the Legislature set out to abolish the so-called "executive officer" tort actions. Because Section 1032 expressly granted tort immunity only to the employer in actions by an injured employee and did not extend tort immunity to employees of the employer, the courts had recognized under certain circumstances a cause of action by an injured employee against certain other employees of the employer, who were frequently covered as "executive officers" under the employer's insurance policy. See Adams v. Fidelity and Casualty Co. of N.Y., 107 So.2d 496 (La.App. 1st Cir.1958); Canter v. Koehring Co., 283 So.2d 716 (La.1973). When the 1976 amendment to Section 1032 added employees of the employer as persons immune in tort suits by an injured employee, the Legislature also granted statutory immunity for the first time to principals and employees of [95-2621 La. 7] principals, and the Thibodaux decision was thereby codified. ⁷ See Rowe v. Northwestern Nat'l. Ins. Co., 471 So.2d 226, 229 (La.1985) (Lemmon J., concurring). It is that legislative granting of immunity to principals and employees of principals that is under constitutional attack in this declaratory judgment action.

Burden and Standard of Proof

Statutes are presumed to be constitutional. Accordingly, the party [95-2621 La. 8] challenging the validity of a statute generally has the burden of proving unconstitutionality. Moore v. Roemer, 567 So.2d 75, 79 (La.1990). The party challenging the constitutionality of a legislative enactment also must cite the particular constitutional provision that is alleged to limit the Legislature's powers. Chamberlain v. State Through Dept. of Transp. and Dev., 624 So.2d 874 (La.1993). When the challenging party cites La. Const. art. I, § 3, the burden may be shifted to the proponent to prove constitutionality under Sibley v. Board of Supervisors of La. State Univ. and Agric. and Mechanical College, 477 So.2d 1094 (La.1985).

The threshold issue in the present case is whether the burden of proof on the equal protection issue rests with plaintiff or with defendants. ⁸

La. Const. art. I, § 3 provides:

No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws. No law shall discriminate against a person because of race or religious ideas, beliefs, or affiliations. No law shall arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably discriminate against a person because of birth, age, sex, culture, physical condition, or political ideas or...