PAMELA G. HOLDERBAUM, INDIVIDUALLY, AS NATURAL PARENT AND GUARDIAN OF NICOLE AMY HOLDERBAUM, A MINOR, AND AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF STACY HOLDERBAUM, DECEASED, APPELLANTS,
v.
ITCO HOLDING COMPANY, INC., F/K/A ITCO TIRE COMPANY, INC., A FOREIGN CORPORATION, APPELLEE
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Survivors of an employee murdered by a coworker at the workplace appeal a summary judgment upholding the employer's workers' compensation immunity. The court affirmed immunity, holding that the employer's alleged negligence in failing to remove a threatening employee or warn the victim did not constitute an intentional tort sufficient to overcome statutory immunity.
As a matter of law, the employer's mistakes in failing to remove the employee or his weapon or to warn the victim neither exhibited a deliberate intent to injure nor were substantially certain to result in injury or death, and therefore did not constitute an intentional tort. Consequently, the employer's workers' compensation immunity was properly upheld.
[1] An employer is immune from tort liability under workers' compensation laws unless the employee's injury was the result of an intentional tort, which requires a deliberate…
[2] A failure to remove a weapon or warn an employee about another employee's threats does not, as a matter of law, constitute an intentional tort sufficient to overcome work…
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“their mistakes in failing to remove him or his weapon from the premises or to warn Holderbaum prior to the shooting, neither "exhibit[ed] a deliberate intent to injure [n]or ... [were] substantially certain to result in injury or death" so as to constitute an intentional tort and thus, overcome Itco's workers' compensation immunity”
Establishes the legal standard: negligence, even gross negligence, does not overcome workers' compensation immunity absent an intentional tort with deliberate intent or substantial certainty of injury
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceQuinones was laid off from his job at Itco Tire Company on orders from his superior Holderbaum. Upon notification of his termination, Quinones threate…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
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SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge.
The plaintiffs are the survivors of a deceased employee. They appeal from an adverse summary judgment upholding the defense of workers’ compensation immunity in a wrongful death action against his employer. We affirm.
On orders from his superior, Holderb-aum, Quinones was laid off from his job at the Itco Tire Company. When he was informed, Quinones, in the presence of other supervisory employees, threatened Hol-derbaum’s life. Later that day, he made the threat good by murdering1 Holderb- aum with a pistol the employees knew he kept at the workplace.
The story is a very compelling one indeed, and the employees may have been negligent — perhaps grossly or even culpably so — in, as they said, not taking Qui-nones or his threats seriously under the circumstances. Nevertheless, we conclude as a matter of law that — objectively viewed as required by Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So. 2d 683, 685-88 (Fla. 2000)— their mistakes in failing to remove him or his weapon from the premises or to warn Holderbaum prior to the shooting, neither “exhibit[ed] a deliberate intent to injure [n]or ... [were] substantially certain to result in injury or death” so as to constitute an intentional tort and thus, overcome Itco’s workers’ compensation immunity. § 440.11(1), Fla. Stat. (1995); Turner, 754 So. 2d at 687; Kline v. Rubio, 652 So. 2d 964 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), review denied, 660 So. 2d 714 (Fla.1995).
In Boynton v. Burglass, 590 So. 2d 446 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991), this court held that because, among other things, any predictions of a person’s future dangerousness are necessarily so uncertain, a psychiatrist has no duty of reasonable care to warn a victim about a patient’s subsequently realized threats to kill him. Accord Green v. Ross, 691 So. 2d 542 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997). Boynton is the paradigmatic a fortiori case to this one, which involves only lay persons and a monumentally higher standard of liability. See also Rafferman v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., 659 So. 2d 1271, 1272 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), and cases and authorities cited (severely attenuated Jones Act liability not present when ship owner fails to anticipate and guard against suicide of “visibly and obviously depressed and abnormal” crewman).
Affirmed.
. An appeal from the denial of Quinones' application for relief from his 23-year sentence for second degree murder was dismissed in Quinones v. State, 709 So. 2d 543 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998)(table).
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Marysol Sierra v. Associated Marine Insts., Inc., 850 So. 2d 582 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003)…se the employer’s lack of experience or expertise was such that a reasonable person in its place could not have foreseen that an employee, angry at being laid off, would make good on his threat against his supervisor: Holderbaum v. Itco Holding Co., 753 So. 2d 699 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000). None of those cases involved the situation here, in which an employer is alleged to have knowingly placed an unprotected employee directly in contact with specific, violent individuals. Although a similar circumstance was presen…
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Pacheco v. Fla. Power & Light Co., 784 So. 2d 1159 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001)…workers they had failed to do so. While these derelictions were very serious and had tragic consequences, we cannot find that they rise to the level of an intentional tort required to invoke the Turner exception. See Holderbaum v. Itco Holding Co., 753 So. 2d 699 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), review denied, No. SC00-1121, 776 So. 2d 275 (Fla.2000)(failure to warn of later realized specific threat to kill employee not “intentional tort”); Kline v. Rubio, 652 So. 2d 964 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), review denied, 660 So. 2d 714…
Authorities Cited
- Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So. 2d 683 (Fla. 2000)
- Boynton v. Milton Burglass, M.D., 590 So. 2d 446 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991)
- Kline v. Rubio, 652 So. 2d 964 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)
- Rafferman v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., 659 So. 2d 1271 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)
- Green v. Ross, 691 So. 2d 542 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997)