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2006-1808. Talik v. Fed. Marine Terminals, Inc., Slip Opinion No. 2008-Ohio-937.
Cuyahoga App. No. 87073, 172 Ohio App.3d 704, 2006-Ohio-3979. Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Moyer, C.J., and Lundberg Stratton, O'Donnell, Lanzinger, and Cupp, JJ., concur.
Pfeifer and Vukovich, JJ., concur in part and dissent in part.
Joseph J. Vukovich, J., of the Seventh Appellate District, sitting for O'Connor, J.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2008/2008-Ohio-937.pdf
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(March 13, 2008)The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) preempts (bars) a claim asserted by an injured dock worker under Ohio law alleging that the claimant’s employer caused his injuries through an intentional act that was committed with the belief that injury was “substantially certain” to occur.
The Court’s 5-2 majority opinion, authored by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger, reversed a ruling by the 8th District Court of Appeals that allowed Cleveland longshoreman Joseph Talik to pursue a civil suit in state court against his employer, Federal Marine Terminals Inc. Talik suffered leg injuries in a September 2004 workplace accident when a stack of pipes piled on a dock collapsed on him. As a maritime worker, Talik was covered by the LHWCA, a federal workplace injury insurance program that parallels state workers’ compensation programs.
Talik, who applied for and was awarded Ohio workers’ compensation benefits as a result of his injuries, filed suit in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas seeking additional damages from his employer based on a state law “intentional tort” claim. Such claims allege that the workplace hazard that resulted in an employee’s injury was so obviously unsafe that the employer was aware of a “substantial certainty” that the worker would be injured. Federal Marine filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that, because it is a federal law, the LHWCA preempts (bars) covered workers who are injured on the job from asserting additional tort claims against their employers under state laws. The trial court agreed, and dismissed Talik’s state law intentional tort claim.
On review, however, the 8th District Court of Appeals reversed and reinstated Talik’s civil suit. The court of appeals held that, because the LHWCA is a typical workers’ compensation program and Ohio law allows injured workers to maintain both a workers’ compensation claim and an employer intentional tort claim arising from the same injuries, Talik’s intentional tort claim was not preempted by the federal statute. Federal Marine appealed the 8th District’s ruling, and the Supreme Court agreed to review the case.
Writing for the Court in today’s decision, Justice Lanzinger held that the LHWCA does not preempt all intentional tort claims by injured dock workers against their employers, but it does restrict such claims to cases in which the plaintiff must prove that the employer acted with the federally recognized standard of “specific intent” to cause injury.
Because Ohio’s common-law intentional workplace tort claim at the time of Talik’s injury required a less-stringent “substantial certainty” standard of proof, she wrote, such claims are preempted by the federal statute because to allow them “would be inconsistent with the central purpose underlying the LHWCA to create ‘a uniform compensation system.’”
“We would create an inequitable situation if we permitted land-based maritime workers to maintain claims for ‘substantial certainty’ intentional torts while the same maritime workers injured in another jurisdiction or upon the navigable waters would be limited to ‘specific intent’ claims for intentional tort,” wrote Justice Lanzinger. “Therefore, we conclude that a ‘substantial certainty’ intentional tort claim is preempted by the LHWCA.”
Justice Lanzinger’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, Terrence O’Donnell and Robert. R. Cupp.
Justice Paul E. Pfeifer entered a partial dissent that was joined by Judge Joseph J. Vukovich of the 7th District Court of Appeals, who sat in place of Justice Maureen O’Connor. Justice Pfeifer concurred with the majority’s holding that the LHWCA does not preempt all intentional tort claims, but noted that the federal statute allows injured workers to “apply for benefits under a state workers’ compensation scheme, the LHWCA, or both.”
“Each of the 50 states has enacted its own unique state workers’ compensation system, any one of which can be used to determine liability for an injury pursuant to the LHWCA,” wrote Justice Pfeifer. “Accordingly, it will not offend the LHWCA if a ‘substantial certainty’ intentional tort standard, which according to the majority opinion has been adopted by at least seven other states, is used in Ohio to determine whether an employer committed an intentional tort.”
Contacts
Irene Keyse-Walker, 216.592.5000, for the Federal Marine Terminals, Inc.
Jerome W. Cook, 216.348.5400, for Joseph Talik.