Snyder v. Michael's Stores, Inc.

• Decision Date: 30 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. S057064,S057064
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 945 P.2d 781, 62 Cal. Comp. Cases 1351, 97 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8347, 97 Daily Journal D.A.R. 13,501 Mikayla M. SNYDER, a Minor, etc., et al., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. MICHAEL'S STORES, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Page 476

68 Cal.Rptr.2d 476

16 Cal.4th 991, 945 P.2d 781, 62 Cal. Comp. Cases 1351,

97 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8347,

97 Daily Journal D.A.R. 13,501

Mikayla M. SNYDER, a Minor, etc., et al., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. MICHAEL'S STORES, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

No. S057064.

Supreme Court of California.

Oct. 30, 1997.

Miller, Brodsky & Baskin, Brodsky, Baskin & Shapiro, Eugene A. Brodsky, San Francisco, Brendan P. Brewer, San Rafael, Fancher & Wickland and Paige Leslie Wickland, San Francisco, for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Patricia A. Shiu, Judith E. Kurtz and Joannie C. Chang, San Francisco, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Crabtree, Schmidt, Zeff, Jacobs & Farrar, Thomas D. Zeff, E. Daniel Farrar, Modesto, Morrison & Foerster, Robert A. Naeve, Irvine, John Sobieski, Los Angeles, and Robert J. Keenan, Irvine, for Defendants and Respondents.

Cook & Roos, John C. Cook and Michael E. Wilbur, San Francisco, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Respondents.

WERDEGAR, Associate Justice.

Plaintiff Mikayla Snyder, a minor, alleges she was injured in utero when her mother, Naomi Snyder, breathed carbon monoxide gas in amounts toxic to both Naomi and Mikayla. The injury occurred at Naomi's workplace, a store owned and operated by defendant Michael's Stores, Inc., during Naomi's employment. The trial court granted Michael's Stores' demurrer on the ground the action was barred by Labor Code sections 3600-3602, ¹ providing that workers' compensation proceedings are the exclusive remedy for injuries to employees arising out of their employment. The court so ruled under the compulsion of Bell v. Macy's California (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 1442, 261 Cal.Rptr. 447 (Bell), which held fetal injuries are, as a matter of law, derivative of injury to the pregnant mother. (Id. at pp. 1453-1454, 261 Cal.Rptr. 447.) The Court of Appeal in the present case reversed, explicitly rejecting Bell's rationale and holding.

We agree with the appellate court below and will affirm its judgment. Section 3600 bars personal injury actions against an employer only "for any injury sustained by his or her employees arising out of and in the course of the employment." Mikayla's action is for her own injuries, not her mother's. The trial court therefore should have overruled Michael's Stores' demurrer.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In reviewing a dismissal following the trial court's sustaining of a demurrer, we take the properly pleaded material allegations of the complaint as true; our only task is to determine whether the complaint states a cause of action. (ABC Internat. Traders, Inc. v. Matsushita Electric Corp. (1997) 14 Cal.4th 1247, 1253, 61 Cal.Rptr.2d 112, 931 P.2d 290; Aubry v. Tri-City Hospital Dist. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 962, 967, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 92, 831 P.2d 317.)

Plaintiffs are Mikayla Snyder, a minor, by and through Naomi Snyder, her mother and guardian ad litem, Naomi Snyder personally, and David Snyder, Mikayla's father. Defendants are Michael's Stores, Inc., and Dennis Cusimano, the manager of the store where Naomi worked (hereafter collectively Michael's). (Two additional nonemployer defendants are not involved in this appeal.) Mikayla seeks damages for her physical injuries resulting from Michael's negligence; Naomi and David seek economic damages for the increased medical, educational and other expenses they have incurred and will incur due to Mikayla's physical injuries.

Plaintiffs allege that on October 2, 1993, Michael's negligently allowed a janitorial contractor to operate a propane-powered floor-buffing machine in the store without adequate ventilation, resulting in hazardous levels of carbon monoxide. Several customers and employees fainted from the fumes. Some, including Naomi, were taken to the hospital with symptoms of nausea, headaches and respiratory distress. Plaintiffs allege that both Naomi and Mikayla, who was then in utero, were exposed to toxic levels of carbon monoxide, which impairs the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen. As a result, Mikayla suffered permanent damage to her brain and nervous system, causing her to be born with cerebral palsy and other disabling conditions.

The trial court sustained Michael's demurrer without leave to amend, citing Bell, supra, 212 Cal.App.3d 1442, 261 Cal.Rptr. 447, as binding, and dismissed the action as to Michael's. The Court of Appeal reversed as to Mikayla's cause of action and her parents' cause of action for Mikayla's expenses of treatment and care. Because Mikayla's injuries were not derivative of Naomi's, but the result of her own exposure to toxic levels of carbon monoxide, the Court of Appeal reasoned, the exclusive remedy provisions of the workers' compensation law (§§ 3600-3602) were not applicable to Mikayla's injuries. Hence, neither Mikayla's cause of action for her own injuries nor her parents' cause of action for the expenses of her treatment was barred by those provisions.

We granted Michael's petition for review in order to resolve the conflict between the appellate decision in this case and that in Bell.

DISCUSSION

That Mikayla's complaint would state a cause of action had she been negligently exposed to toxic fumes outside the context of her mother's employment is undisputed. Under California law, "[a] child conceived, but not yet born, is deemed an existing person, so far as necessary for the child's interests in the event of the child's subsequent birth." (Civ. Code, § 43.1.) The quoted provision, originally enacted in 1872 as Civil Code section 29, gives a child the right to maintain an action in tort for in utero injuries wrongfully or negligently caused by another, a right that did not exist at common law. (Young v. Haines (1986) 41 Cal.3d 883, 892, 226 Cal.Rptr. 547, 718 P.2d 909; Scott v. McPheeters (1939) 33 Cal.App.2d 629, 631-633, 92 P.2d 678.) In light of this authority, Michael's does not contend that, the workers' compensation law aside, Mikayla's complaint fails to state a cause of action for her prenatal injuries.

The only question presented, therefore, is whether fetal injuries occurring in the mother's workplace are remediable solely, if at all, through the workers' compensation system, We begin with the statutes establishing the exclusive jurisdiction of that system. Section 3600, subdivision (a), setting forth the conditions of compensation under the workers' compensation system, provides: "Liability for the compensation provided by this division, in lieu of any other liability whatsoever to any person except as otherwise specifically provided...., shall, without regard to negligence, exist against an employer for any injury sustained by his or her employees arising out of and in the course of the employment and for the death of any employee if the injury proximately causes death, in those cases where the following conditions of compensation concur:..." Section 3602 provides, in relevant part: "(a) Where the conditions of compensation set forth in Section 3600 concur, the right to recover such compensation is, except as specifically provided in this section and Sections 3706 and 4558, the sole and exclusive remedy of the employee or his or her dependents against the employer...." In terms similar to those of section 3602, section 3601 provides that, for a covered injury, the employee generally does not have a civil cause of action against a fellow employee.

A fundamental condition of compensation under section 3600 and, hence, a fundamental premise of the exclusivity provided in all three sections, is that the compensation sought is for an injury to an employee. In some circumstances, however, the bar on civil actions based on injuries to employees extends beyond actions brought by the employees Based on the statutory language, California courts have held worker's compensation proceedings to be the exclusive remedy for certain third party claims deemed collateral to or derivative of the employee's injury. Courts have held that the exclusive jurisdiction provisions bar civil actions against employers by nondependent parents of an employee for the employee's wrongful death (Treat v. Los Angeles Gas etc. Corp. (1927) 82 Cal.App. 610, 615-616, 256 P. 447), by an employee's spouse for loss of the employee's services (Gillespie v. Northridge Hosp. Foundation (1971) 20 Cal.App.3d 867, 868-870, 98 Cal.Rptr. 134) or consortium (Cole v. Fair Oaks Fire Protection Dist. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 148, 162-163, 233 Cal.Rptr. 308, 729 P.2d 743; Casaccia v. Green Valley Disposal Co., Inc. (1976) 62 Cal.App.3d 610, 612-613, 133 Cal.Rptr. 295; Williams v. State Compensation Ins. Fund, supra, 50 Cal.App.3d at p. 123, 123 Cal.Rptr. 812), and for emotional distress suffered by a spouse in witnessing the employee's injuries (Cole v. Fair Oaks Fire Protection Dist., supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 163, 233 Cal.Rptr. 308, 729 P.2d 743; Williams v. Schwartz (1976) 61 Cal.App.3d 628, 631-634, 131 Cal.Rptr. 200). It was primarily on the " 'derivative' injury doctrine" drawn from these cases (Bell, supra, 212 Cal.App.3d at pp. 1453-1454, 261 Cal.Rptr. 447) that the Bell court relied in holding fetal injuries were barred by the exclusive remedy provisions. (Id. at pp. 1452-1455, 261 Cal.Rptr. 447.) As will appear, we agree with plaintiffs that the Bell court misapplied the rule the cited decisions drew from the statutory language.

[945 P.2d 784] themselves. The employers' compensation obligation is "in lieu of any other liability whatsoever to any person" (§ 3600, italics added), including, but not limited to, [16 Cal.4th 997] the employee's dependents (§ 3602) for work-related injuries to the employee. This statutory language conveys the legislative intent that "the work-connected injury engender[ ] a single remedy against the employer, exclusively cognizable by the compensation agency." (Williams v. State Compensation Ins. Fund (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d 116, 122, 123 Cal.Rptr. 812).

In Bell, a pregnant worker...