The dual persona doctrine, under which an injured employee may sometimes be allowed to sue the employer in tort if the employer possesses a second “persona” sufficiently independent from and unrelated to its status as employer, may not be utilized “in reverse”...
The Supreme Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s denial of post-trial motions following an adverse jury verdict in a “deliberate intention” action filed pursuant to W. Va. Code § 23-4-2(d)(2)(ii) (2005). The plaintiff, who suffered permanent injuries after...
Construing Oklahoma law, a federal district court dismissed a civil action filed by a Marriott International employee against Marriott on the basis that the plaintiff had not alleged sufficient facts to plausibly show that his injury was the result of a willful...
In a case with somewhat bizarre facts, an Ohio appellate court ruled a state trial court appropriately found that there was a genuine issue for trial regarding whether the defendant, who served along with plaintiff on a county SWAT team, knew that it was substantially...
A Minnesota high school teacher and lunchroom supervisor, who sustained injuries when he tried to break up a fight between two students during a lunch period, may not maintain a civil action against his employer (and various officials) for negligence, held a U...
The surviving spouse of a woman who worked at a Virginia apartment complex and who sustained fatal injuries when she was attacked and stabbed by a robber cannot maintain a civil action against the employer; the tort action was barred by the exclusive remedy provisions...
A teacher, who was six-weeks pregnant at the time of a classroom incident that resulted in her injury, may not maintain a tort action against the school board; her allegations failed to raise an issue of intentional tort and her civil action was, therefore, barred...
By Richard B. Rubenstein, Esq., Rothenberg, Rubenstein, Berliner & Shinrod, LLC, Livingston, NJ On September 23, 2017, Rutgers University Law School in Camden, N.J. brought together a panel of academics, jurists, and practitioners to discuss the feared—and...
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of an employer that had been sued by a deceased employee’s estate, finding that the estate could not prevail under the intentional-tort exception to Michigan’s workers’ compensation...
A trial court should have dismissed a former employee’s assault and battery and tort-of-outrage claims against the former employer because they were barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act, held the Supreme...
The Supreme Court of Oklahoma held that there were material issues of fact as to whether the decedent’s employer knew that injury or death was substantially certain to result from the task decedent and his coworkers were directed to complete and the conditions...
The Supreme Court of North Dakota held the trial court properly granted a former employer’s summary judgment dismissing a widow’s wrongful death action against it because the facts alleged did not provide a genuine issue of material fact to avoid the...
Under the West Virginia subrogation statute [W. Va. Code § 23–2A–1], a party is entitled to a lien only to the extent that it has actually paid a sum of money. Accordingly, where a mining electrician suffered catastrophic injuries when he was struck...
By Robert J. Grace, Jr., Esq., The Bleakley Bavol Law Firm, and Lyle Platt, Esq., Clarke & Platt, P.A. For two years now we have written about a collection of cases which represent the most closely watched and eagerly anticipated workers’ compensation...
An employer’s workers’ compensation insurer had no duty to defend an employee, Rydberg, who had been sued by af co-employee who claimed that Rydberg sexually groped her while both were at work on the employer’s premises. The Wisconsin appellate...