Federal: Employee Terrorized in “Active Shooter Drill” May Sue Employer in Tort

Allegations by a nursing home employee that her employer secretly arranged an “active shooter drill” in which an on-duty Carbondale, CO police officer posed as a “gunman,” that the officer burst into the work area and held the plaintiff-employee hostage at gunpoint as she cried and begged for her life, and that only then did the officer tell her in a hushed tone that it was a “drill,” were sufficient to raise an issue of fact as to whether the incident was reasonably incidental to the conditions of the employee’s work. Accordingly, the federal judge refused in relevant part to grant the employer’s motion to dismiss the employee’s civil action against the employer on exclusive remedy grounds. According to the complaint, the employer purposely chose the plaintiff-employee to be the “victim” in the incident. The employer contended that the incident was part of a safety program and that any injuries arose out of and in the course of the employment. The employee countered that the drill and the circumstances related to it were not part of her job duties or connected to her work-related functions and that there was nothing about the nature of her employment that either allowed or required the employer’s officials to intentionally terrorize and place employees like the plaintiff in fear for their lives. The judge acknowledged that in Colorado an employee need not be engaged in the actual performance of work at the time of injury in order for the course of employment requirement to be satisfied. Nevertheless, the judge said the injury had to arise out of a risk that was reasonably incidental to the conditions and circumstances of the particular employment. Such a determination was factual and should be made by a jury, not the judge.

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

See Meeker v. Life Care Ctrs. of Am., Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. 58761 (D. LEXIS Co., May 5, 2015) 

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, §§ 100.04, 104.02 

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

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