Workers’ Compensation Is Exclusive Remedy, by Barry Zalma, Zalma On Insurance Blog

http://zalma.com/blog/workers-compensation-is-exclusive-remedy/

Tort Judgment Against Employer Is Only Good for Wallpaper

The workers’ compensation system across the United States provides benefits to injured workers without regard to fault. When the injury is serious or results in death the workers’ compensation benefits do not feel sufficient to indemnify the injured worker or his or her estate for the loss incurred. As a result, the injured worker or his estate will attempt a tort action and then try to collect that judgment by means of a suit against the employer’s insurer.

Employers and employees make a bargain: the employer will not require proof of negligence if the employee is injured and the employee agrees that he or his estate will accept the statutory benefits provided by state law and give up the right to sue the employer for tort damages.

In Morales v. Zenith Ins. Co., — F.3d —-, 2015 WL 265445 (C.A.11 (Fla.) 1/22/15) the estate of an injured worker successfully sued an employer and sought to recover by means of a breach of contract claim filed by plaintiff-appellant Leticia Morales, on behalf of herself, the Estate of Santana Morales, Jr., and two minor children against Zenith Insurance Company (‘Zenith’).

FACTS
Santana Morales, Jr. was crushed to death by a palm tree while working as a landscaper for Lawns Nursery and Irrigation Designs, Inc. (‘Lawns’). At the time of Morales’s death, his employer Lawns maintained a ‘Workers’ Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance Policy’ with Zenith. The policy contained two types of coverage: (1) workers’ compensation insurance under Part I and (2) employer liability insurance under Part II. After Morales’s death, Zenith began paying workers’ compensation benefits to the Estate in accordance with its obligation under Part I of the policy.

Under Part II, Zenith was obligated: (1) to ‘pay all sums [Lawns] legally must pay as damages because of bodily injury to [its] employees, provided the bodily injury is covered by this Employers Liability Insurance’; and (2) to defend lawsuits for such damages. In relevant part, Part II contained an exclusion barring employer liability insurance coverage for ‘any obligation imposed by a workers compensation … law’ (the ‘workers’ compensation exclusion’).

On December 3, 1999, the Estate filed a wrongful death action against Lawns in Florida circuit court and obtained a default jury award to the Estate of $9.525 million in damages against Lawns. . . .