Workers at Kentucky Candle Plant Not Limited to Comp Claims, Appellate Court Finds
Employees who were killed and injured when a powerful tornado struck a Kentucky candle factory in 2021 are not necessarily limited to the workers’ compensation exclusive remedy, a Kentucky appeals court said in a decision that could have far-reaching impact for employers and commercial liability insurers.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals found that the workers can sue Mayfield Consumer Products and a supervisor for damages because the employer had threatened the workers with termination and had unlawfully intimidated or restrained them from leaving the building before the EF-4 twister struck. The storm destroyed the entire structure and trapped multiple workers underneath rubble for hours.
The storm descended during the busy pre-Christmas rush to produce candles for stores across the country. “Appellants alleged that supervisors physically stood in exits of the factory to prevent employees from fleeing before the tornado struck, and no worker was permitted to leave,” Appeals Court Judge Jeff Taylor wrote in the June 18 opinion.
The Kentucky workers’ compensation statute, like most states’ laws, allows an exception to the exclusive remedy and grand bargain of the comp system if an injury or death is caused by an employer’s deliberate, aggressive actions, the court noted.
“The alleged acts of physically blocking the factory doorways appear to be far removed from and not incidental to ordinary acts performed by supervisors within the scope of their employment at the factory,” the appeals court wrote. “In fact, we can envision no ordinary duty of a supervisor that would require a supervisor to physically block employees from fleeing the factory hours before an impending tornado.”
The candlemaker has denied the allegations, saying that workers were told to stay put at the Mayfield building only because they were under a shelter-in-place order, according to the court opinion and news reports at the time. Others have pointed out that fleeing the building may have been more dangerous: Many parts of the Mayfield area were heavily damaged in the tornado, and 22 residents were killed.
A circuit court in 2025 agreed with the company and dismissed the workers’ lawsuit, concluding that the employees had no claim for false imprisonment and were covered only by the workers’ compensation remedy. A group, including some of the injured workers and the estates of deceased employees, appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed the circuit court in part and remanded the case for trial.
The manufacturer’s managers “generally claim that the supervisors were properly instructing the workers to shelter in place,” the appellate judges noted. “However, there is a marked difference between instructing employees to shelter in place and physically blocking employees from fleeing the factory to seek safe shelter.”
While the supervisors may not have physically restrained the anxious workers as the tornado bore down, they did, according to the plaintiffs, stand in front of exits and speak to the workers. Legal precedents have noted that restraint “may arise out of words, acts, gestures, or the like, which induce a reasonable apprehension that force will be used if the plaintiff does not submit,” the appeals court wrote, citing 1977 and 2009 court decisions.
“The physical presence of supervisors at exits could certainly induce a reasonable belief that force may have been utilized to prevent employees from fleeing through those exits,” the judges wrote. “Therefore, we conclude that appellants alleged sufficient facts to state a claim for the tort of false imprisonment.”
The case now goes back to the Graves County Circuit Court for the lawsuit to proceed.
The Mayfield case was similar to another case in which an employer in the region was accused of barring employees from leaving as a catastrophic storm approached. As floodwaters from Hurricane Helene rose around the Impact Plastics plant in Erwin, Tennessee, in 2024, workers said they were not permitted to leave. Five workers and a contractor were killed in the devastating event.
A lawsuit brought by the family of at least one of the workers is still pending in court. Prosecutors, though, declined to bring criminal charges against the owner of the plastics company.
Related: Planning Questions Emerged at Tornado-Destroyed Kentucky Candle Plant
Injured Kentucky Candle Factory Workers File Suit Against Company
Photo: Search and rescue crews at the candle factory after the tornado, on Dec. 12, 2021. (Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader via AP)