Oklahoma: Employer’s Shareholder Not Always Shielded by Exclusive Remedy Doctrine

In a split decision, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, answering a certified question for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, held the state’s Administrative Workers’ Compensation Act fully abrogated the so-called “dual-capacity” doctrine with regards to employers, but it did not necessarily bar an employee from bringing a cause of action in tort against a stockholder of the employer for independent tortious acts where the stockholder was not acting in the role of employer. Here, an employee and his spouse filed a tort action against the corporate sole shareholder of the employer for injuries sustained by the employee in a work-related incident, alleging they had been damages by the negligence of the corporate stockholder. The federal district court found that the defendant was the sole stockholder of the employer, and that dismissal was warranted pursuant to 85A O.S. Supp. 2013 § 5. The Tenth Circuit felt the statute was ambiguous as to stockholders and asked the Oklahoma high court for clarification. The Oklahoma Court agreed that there was ambiguity and held there could be circumstances in which the stockholder was not immune from suit.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Odom v. Penske Truck Leasing Co., 2018 OK 23, 2018 Okla. LEXIS 23 (Mar. 13, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 113.09.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see