North Carolina: Employee’s Tort Action Against Plant Nurses Fails Because of Exclusive Remedy Defense

The Court of Appeals of North Carolina affirmed a dismissal of a plaintiff-employee’s medical malpractice action against two registered nurses who were employed at a packing company’s medical clinic where it appeared the plaintiff was also a packing company employee and she had sought treatment from the two nurses for a work-related injury. The court said that even if plaintiff’s allegations were treated as true, the evidence tended at most to support a finding of ordinary negligence on the part of plaintiff’s co-employees. The court agreed that there was no evidence to support a finding that defendants’ conduct constituted willful, wanton, or reckless negligence. Accordingly, plaintiff was barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act from bringing the action against defendants.

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 Johnson v. Gooden, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 794 (Aug. 2, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 113.08.

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