Workers’ Comp Takes Bite Out of Employee Right to Sue Third Party

A Pennsylvania employer cannot be sued for blocking an employee from suing the third party responsible for her workplace injury, the state’s high court has ruled in reversing two lower courts.

In a case involving an employee who was bitten at work by a customer’s dog and then prevented by the employer from suing the dog owner, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has issued a strong endorsement of the exclusive remedy provision of the state’s Workers Compensation Act and refused to recognize an exception to that doctrine that immunizes employers from lawsuits related to job injuries.

Lindsay Franczyk did not seek to recover from Home Depot for the dog bite itself; she accepted workers’ compensation payments for her injury and related surgery. But she sued her employer for the economic harm she suffered when she lost the opportunity to file a third-party claim against the dog owner.

Franczyk’s supervisors investigated the incident, but barred Franczyk from having any contact with the dog owner or any witnesses. Home Depot questioned two individuals who separately had brought dogs into the store, and an eyewitness, but ultimately allowed all of them to leave the store without taking any identifying information.

Home Depot contended that, because Franczyk’s injury occurred in the course of her employment, the WCA barred her claim notwithstanding any failure on its part to act more diligently in securing the information she needed to bring a third-party claim.

The high court granted Home Depot summary judgment, agreeing with the retailer that the WCA’s exclusivity protected it from being sued because the harm of not being able to sue was “intertwined inextricably” with the workplace injury.

Two lower courts had agreed that the WCA exclusivity is not absolute and denied Home Depot summary judgment.

But the Supreme Court rejected what it called a “novel” exception, noting that over the long history of the WCA, courts have allowed only a few exceptions to the exclusivity.

In 6-0 opinion, Justice David Wecht added that while the result may be unfair, it is not the court’s place to “subvert legislative intent based upon the outcome or equities of any one case.”