Onstad v. Payless Shoesource
| Decision Date | 24 August 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-462.,99-462. |
| Citation | 301 Mont. 259,9 P.3d 38,2000 MT 230 |
| Parties | Katie ONSTAD, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. PAYLESS SHOESOURCE, a corporation, and Payless Store # 2655 in Billings, Montana, Defendants and Appellants. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Thomas Singer (argued), Moulton Law Firm, Billings, Montana, James L. Jones (argued) and William A. Cole, Dorsey & Whitney, Billings, Montana, For Appellants.
A. Clifford Edwards (argued), Elizabeth A. Halverson and Roberta Anner-Hughes, Edwards, Tolstedt & Frickle, Billings, Montana, For Respondent.
¶ 1 A Thirteenth Judicial District Court, Yellowstone County, jury awarded Katie Onstad $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages on her complaint that her employer, Payless Shoe-Source, failed to provide her with a safe place to work. Payless appeals. We affirm.
¶ 2 The issues are:
¶ 3 1. Whether the District Court erred in rejecting Payless's workers' compensation exclusive remedy defense.
¶ 4 2. Whether the court erroneously allowed police officers to give expert opinion testimony when they were never qualified as experts.
¶ 5 3. Whether the court erroneously gave conflicting instructions as to causation and intervening superseding cause.
¶ 6 4. Whether the compensatory damage award is excessive and unsupported by the evidence.
¶ 7 5. Whether the court erred in approving punitive damages.
¶ 8 On September 23, 1997, Katie Onstad was assaulted by a stranger, later identified as Timothy Luplow, while she was working as a clerk at a Payless shoe store in Billings, Montana. Onstad, then eighteen years old, was working alone at about 7 p.m. when Luplow entered the store. He grabbed her waist and squeezed her "butt" from behind as she was stocking shelves. Onstad told him not to touch her and went into the back storeroom to call for help on the telephone, but Luplow forced his way into the storeroom with her. She then ran and hid in the employee bathroom, locking the door.
¶ 9 After about five minutes, Onstad heard the bell ring at the front of the store and assumed that either Luplow had left or another customer had entered the store. She came out of the bathroom only to be assaulted again by Luplow. Luplow restrained Onstad by grabbing her from behind and holding his hand over her mouth, demanding sex with threats to kill her if she refused. She resisted, and they struggled. He finally knocked her to the floor and stood over her masturbating, then ejaculated on her. Afterward, he left through the front of the store.
¶ 10 Onstad ran out the store's back door to a nearby restaurant for help, eluding Luplow in the alley on the way. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital where she was interviewed by police and then released in the care of her father. Based upon Onstad's description, Luplow was apprehended and arrested.
¶ 11 In this action, Onstad alleged that Payless was negligent in failing to provide a safe place for her to work. Citing prior incidents in which a female Billings Payless employee had been "flashed" by a male exhibitionist at work, Onstad complained that Payless took no steps to warn her of that danger, to instruct her on how to avoid such danger while at work, or to take adequate safety and security precautions at the store. Onstad alleged that she suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of Luplow's attack.
¶ 12 In a three-day jury trial, Onstad presented evidence of two prior incidents in which an assailant, later identified as Luplow, had exposed himself to a female employee in Billings Payless stores. Both incidents had occurred within nineteen months prior to the attack on Onstad, and the second incident had occurred in the same store where Onstad was assaulted. Onstad also presented evidence of the armed robbery of a Billings Payless store in February of 1997. She contended that following those events, Payless should have stepped up precautions for its employees' safety in the affected stores by such means as double-staffing and supplying employees with personal alarm signal devices. Payless took the position that the attack on Onstad was a random, unpredictable event.
¶ 13 The jury uniformly and unanimously found in favor of Onstad and against Payless. In a special verdict, the jury found that Payless was negligent; that Onstad suffered serious or severe emotional distress and that Payless's negligence was a cause of that distress; that there was no superseding, intervening cause that cut off Payless's liability; that Onstad sustained $500,000 in compensatory damages; and that Payless's conduct amounted to malice, thereby making it liable to Onstad for punitive damages. After presentation of further evidence addressed to the punitive damage issue, the jury awarded Onstad an additional $1 million in punitive damages. The District Court affirmed that award and denied Payless's motion for a new trial.
¶ 14 Did the District Court err in rejecting Payless's workers' compensation exclusive remedy defense?
Section 39-71-105(5), MCA. The viability of Payless's exclusive remedy defense hinges upon whether Onstad's injury was covered by workers' compensation, in which case this tort action would be prohibited.
¶ 16 As a threshold argument on appeal, Payless asserts that the Workers' Compensation Court, not the District Court, should have made the initial determination of whether Onstad's injuries were covered by workers' compensation. Payless points out that because Onstad never filed a workers' compensation claim, the Workers' Compensation Court has not had the opportunity to consider the present case.
¶ 17 This Court has stated that a district court has jurisdiction to hear tort claims as well as any affirmative defenses thereto, including the defense of workers' compensation exclusivity. Brown v. Ehlert (1992), 255 Mont. 140, 145-46, 841 P.2d 510, 514. Payless distinguishes Brown from the present case on the basis that Brown involved failure to plead the exclusivity defense, resulting in its waiver. However, Payless has not shown any reason why the foregoing rule stated in Brown would not remain good law. Nor has Payless cited authority which would require Onstad to seek and be denied workers' compensation benefits before her tort claim may be heard.
¶ 18 Payless has cited authority from other jurisdictions which would support a ruling that the Workers' Compensation Court must make the initial determination of compensability. See Bubnell v. Holmes Ambulance Service Corp. (N.Y.App.Div.1990), 168 A.D.2d 408, 562 N.Y.S.2d 533
(); Yount v. Davis (Mo.Ct.App.1993), 846 S.W.2d 780 (); Winters v. Dalton (1994), 207 Mich.App. 76, 523 N.W.2d 636, 638 ().
¶ 19 Nevertheless, in line with our prior case law, we conclude that the District Court had jurisdiction to adjudicate whether Onstad's tort claim was barred, as a matter of law, under the exclusive remedy provision. "Permitting piecemeal litigation of the various issues involved in ... [a] District Court action would be a terrible waste of judicial resources and the parties' time and money." CNA Ins. Companies v. Dunn (1995), 273 Mont. 295, 300, 902 P.2d 1014, 1017.
¶ 20 We next consider Payless's substantive arguments on its exclusive remedy defense. Payless first raised this issue as an affirmative defense in its answer to Onstad's complaint. Prior to trial, Payless moved for summary judgment that the complaint must be dismissed based on the workers' compensation exclusivity clause. In response, Onstad moved to strike the motion for summary judgment on grounds that it was untimely.
¶ 21 The court granted Onstad's motion, striking Payless's summary judgment motion as a sanction for Payless's failure to file it in a timely manner as required under the scheduling order established for this case. The court then went on to state that even on the merits, the motion would not be properly granted under Montana law, because Onstad's injuries were either "mental-mental" or "mental-physical" and therefore not compensable under the Workers' Compensation Act. The court did not, however, go so far as to explicitly grant Onstad summary judgment on this question.
¶ 22 Because the District Court's pretrial dismissal of Payless's summary judgment motion was a sanction for untimely filing of that motion, we do not consider that ruling as the court's decision on the exclusivity defense. In its next opportunity to rule on the question, the court took a more definitive position, however, and it is that ruling to which we direct our attention.
¶ 23 At the...
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