Shaw v. Mega Indus., Corp.

• Decision Date: 27 August 2013
• Docket Number: No. WD 75501.,WD 75501.
• Citation: 406 S.W.3d 466
• Parties: Robert L. SHAW, Appellant, v. MEGA INDUSTRIES, CORP., Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

406 S.W.3d 466

Robert L. SHAW, Appellant,

v.MEGA INDUSTRIES, CORP., Respondents.

No. WD 75501.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Western District.

July 30, 2013.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied Aug. 27, 2013.

Jason M. Pottenger, Kansas City, MO, for appellant.

William C. Crawford and Luke R. Hertenstein, Kansas City, MO, for respondent.

Before Division Four: JAMES E. WELSH, C.J., ALOK AHUJA, J., and JACK R. GRATE, Sp. J.

ALOK AHUJA, Judge.

Appellant Robert Shaw was injured while working on a construction project known as Zona Rosa Development II in Kansas City (“the Project”). Shaw was an employee of RLS Trucking; RLS was a subcontractor for Respondent Mega Industries Corp. After Shaw settled a workers' compensation claim for his injuries with RLS, he sued Mega Industries in the Circuit Court of Platte County. The circuit court entered summary judgment in favor of Mega Industries. It found that Mega Industries was Shaw's statutory employer, and that his common-law claims against Mega Industries were therefore barred by the exclusive-remedy provisions of the Workers' Compensation Law. Shaw appeals. We affirm.

Factual Background

At the time of his injuries, Shaw was employed by RLS, which is in the business of excavating and hauling materials such as gravel, dirt, and rock. Shaw is RLS' sole owner. RLS had been retained by Mega Industries as a subcontractor on the Project.

Shaw was injured at the Project site on September 7, 2007, when a telephone booth that was being moved by another RLS employee fell onto him. Shaw sustained multiple fractures of his feet and lower legs and, as a result, went through a number of surgical procedures, including the amputation of two toes.

Shaw filed a workers' compensation claim with the Division of Workers' Compensation against RLS and Mega Industries.¹ On December 15, 2009, the Division of Workers' Compensation approved a settlement between RLS and Shaw for his workers' compensation claim. The parties' stipulation stated that the settlement was:

Full and final settlement closing all claims for injuries to the claimant's right and left lower extremities and particularly resolves all injuries for the accident on or about September 15[sic], 2007. This settlement reflects overpayment of temporary total disability. This settlement closes any and all issues that could be raised, including but not limited to nature and extent of disability, temporary total disability benefits, and past, present and future medical expenses.

RLS and/or its workers' compensation insurer were the sole source of the settlement payment to Shaw; neither Mega Industries nor its insurer paid any compensation. On August 1, 2011, the Division of Workers' Compensation dismissed with prejudice what remained of Shaw's claim for compensation for failure to prosecute. The Order of Dismissal listed both RLS and Mega Industries as employers against whom Shaw's claim was asserted.

On February 4, 2011, following the settlement of his workers' compensation claim with RLS, Shaw filed suit against Mega Industries and one of its employees, Eric Bachman, in the Circuit Court of Platte County, contending that their negligence caused his injuries. On July 16, 2012, the circuit court granted Mega Industries summary judgment, finding that Mega Industries was Shaw's statutory employer, and therefore that the workers' compensation system constituted Shaw's exclusive remedy against Mega Industries. On July 25, 2012, Shaw dismissed his claims against Bachman without prejudice. This appeal followed.

Standard of Review

“Appellate review of summary judgment is de novo. The record is viewed in the light most favorable to the party against whom judgment was entered.” Roberts v. BJC Health Sys., 391 S.W.3d 433, 437 (Mo. banc 2013), citing ITT Commercial Fin. Corp. v. Mid–Am. Marine Supply Corp., 854 S.W.2d 371, 376 (Mo. banc 1993).

Analysis

Although Shaw's Brief contains three separate Points Relied On, his Points are interrelated, and boil down to a single, fundamental issue: was Shaw's sole remedy against Mega Industries under the Workers' Compensation Law (the “Act”), even though Mega Industries paid no portion of the workers' compensation benefits Shaw received?

The resolution of this issue depends on the interaction of multiple provisions of the Act. First, § 287.120 specifies that, at least as a general proposition, the workers' compensation system provides workers with their exclusive remedy against their employers for workplace injuries. At the time of Shaw's injury, the statute provided:

1. Every employer subject to the provisions of this chapter shall be liable, irrespective of negligence, to furnish compensation under the provisions of this chapter for personal injury or death of the employee by accident arising out of and in the course of the employee's employment, and shall be released from all other liability therefore whatsoever, whether to the employee or any other person.

...

2. The rights and remedies herein granted to an employee shall exclude all other rights and remedies of the employee, his wife, her husband, parents, personal representatives, dependents, heirs or next kin, at common law or otherwise, on account of such accidental injury or death, except such rights and remedies as are not provided for by this chapter.

§ 287.120, RSMo Cum.Supp.2011.

The Act also provides that, at least in certain circumstances, a contractor will be deemed to be the employer of its subcontractors' employees, although the statutory employer's liability for workers' compensation benefits is secondary to the immediate employer's liability, and is extinguished if the immediate employer carries workers' compensation insurance.

2. The provisions of this section shall not apply to the owner of premises upon which improvements are being erected, demolished, altered or repaired by an independent contractor but such independent contractor shall be deemed to be the employer of the employees of his subcontractors and their subcontractors when employed on or about the premises where the principal contractor is doing work.

3. In all cases mentioned in the preceding subsections, the immediate contractor or subcontractor shall be liable as an employer of the employees of his subcontractors. All persons so liable may be made parties to the proceedings on the application of any party. The liability of the immediate employer shall be primary, and that of the others secondary in their order, and any compensation paid by those secondarily liable may be recovered from those primarily liable, with attorney's fees and expenses of the suit. Such recovery may be had on motion in the original proceedings. No such employer shall be liable as in this section provided, if the employee was insured by his immediate or any intermediate employer.

§ 287.040.²

We interpret these statutory provisions by applying well-established canons of statutory construction.

The primary rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain the intent of the legislature from the language used, to give effect to that intent if possible, and to consider the words used in their plain and ordinary meaning. The legislature is presumed to have intended what the statute says, and if the language used is clear, there is no room for construction beyond the plain meaning of the law. We will look beyond the plain meaning of the words of a statute only when the language is ambiguous or would lead to an absurd or illogical result.

State ex rel. KCP & L Greater Mo. Operations Co. v. Cook, 353 S.W.3d 14, 17–18 (Mo.App.W.D.2011) (en banc) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

Shaw recognizes that Mega Industries qualified as his statutory employer because of its contractor-subcontractor relationship with his immediate employer (RLS Trucking). He emphasizes, however, that Mega Industries faced no liability for his workers' compensation claim due to the final sentence of § 287.040.3, which specifies that “[n]o such [remote] employer shall be liable as in this section provided, if the employee was insured by his immediate or any intermediate employer.” Shaw also emphasizes that § 287.120.1, which provides that the workers' compensation system constitutes a worker's exclusive remedy against his employer for injuries caused by workplace accidents, opens by specifying that “[e]very employer subject to the provisions of this chapter shall be liable, irrespective of negligence, to furnish compensation under the provisions of this chapter.” Relying on the final sentence of § 287.040.3, and the opening clause of § 287.120.1, Shaw argues that “a contractor is only entitled to immunity [from common-law actions] if it is liable under the Act for benefits.” Br. at 11.

The Missouri Supreme Court rejected this precise argument in Bunner v. Patti, 343 Mo. 274, 121 S.W.2d 153 (1938). Bunner held that a more senior contractor was immune from common-law actions, even where it was not ultimately liable for payment of workers' compensation benefits. In Bunner, as here, an injured worker recovered workers' compensation benefits against his immediate employer, and then sued a more remote statutory employer for damages. The Supreme Court explained that it was faced with precisely the same question presented in this appeal:

We are, therefore, squarely confronted with the single question whether the employee of a subcontractor if negligently injured by the general contractor can sue the latter for damages at common law as a third person and at the same time collect compensation from his immediate employer under the Compensation Act—when the immediate employer carries liability insurance covering the casualty and all the other facts bring the case within the Compensation Act. The [employee] takes the affirmative on that proposition, contending that the last sentence of [what is now § 287.040.3] makes the remote employer a stranger to the employment or a “third person” within the...