Court Rejects Exclusive Remedy Defense in Long-Running MVA Litigation
The El Paso Court of Appeals has declined to hold as a matter of law that a subscribing employer was entitled to the exclusive remedy defense in litigation pursued by three employees and their survivors following a one-car rollover accident that occurred while the workers were traveling to an oilfield job site to begin their workday. In Painter v. Amerimex Drilling, No. 08-19-00226-CV, (Tex. App., April 12, 2021), the Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The trial court judgment that was reversed had determined the Workers’ Compensation Act barred the negligence claims brought against Amerimex Drilling I, Ltd., by Amerimex employees or their surviving beneficiaries. In those claims, the plaintiffs alleged the employer was vicariously liable for the deaths of two employees and the serious bodily injuries sustained by a third employee. The deaths and injuries arose from a 2007 roll-over motor vehicle accident allegedly caused by a fourth employee, who was driving the men in his own personal vehicle from a remote worksite to a bunkhouse provided by the employer at the end of the crew’s workday.
The court of appeals decision is the latest ruling in a case that has seemingly developed a life of its own. Two earlier decisions resolved related issues
Amerimex I: Employer Standing to Determine Compensability
Following the MVA, the driver of the vehicle sought workers’ compensation benefits, and since the driver was paid to transport the crew between the ranch and the bunkhouse, the Division, at the contested case hearing, ultimately found the injury compensable as he was found to have been acting within the course and scope of his employment by furthering Amerimex’s business interests. The injured crew member and the deceased crew members’ representatives and beneficiaries did not seek workers’ compensation benefits.
Amerimex, however, initiated proceedings at the Division to determine whether the injuries suffered by the injured and deceased were covered by its workers’ compensation policy. The Division’s Appeals Panel concluded that the employer lacked standing to do so and that, in any event, the employees were not injured in the course and scope of their employment and thus did not sustain compensable injuries.
The carrier filed suit for judicial review of that ruling and the employer intervened, seeking a declaratory judgment that the passengers had been injured in the course and scope of employment. The carrier sought a writ of mandamus ordering the trial court to dismiss the employer’s suit for lack of standing. The court of appeals granted the carrier’s petition and ordered the trial court to dismiss the employer from the suit. In re Tex. Mut. Ins. Co., 331 S.W.3d 70, 73 (Tex.App.—Eastland 2010, orig. proceeding).
Amerimex II: Driver Compensability
In a previous appeal of the case, the Texas Supreme Court had determined a fact issue existed as to whether the driver had been acting in the course and scope of his employment with Amerimex at the time of the collision.
The course-and-scope inquiry under step two involves an objective analysis, hinging on whether the employee was performing the tasks generally assigned to him in furtherance of the employer’s business. That is, the employee must be acting with the employer’s authority and for the employer’s benefit. We confirm that the coming-and-going rule, under which an employee is generally not acting within the scope of his employment when traveling to and from work, applies in the vicarious-liability context. However, we also recognize an exception when such travel involves the performance of regular or specifically assigned duties for the benefit of the employer. And when a specifically assigned duty includes driving other workers to the workplace, it necessarily also includes ensuring they are not left stranded at the end of the workday.
In this case, Amerimex does not dispute that it employed Burchett as a driller at the time of the incident, and we reject Amerimex’s argument that, as a matter of law, Burchett ceased acting as its employee when he left the drilling site. Further, we conclude that a fact issue exists as to whether Burchett was acting in the course and scope of his employment when the accident occurred.
Painter v. Amerimex Drilling, LTD, 561 S.W.3d 125 (Tex. 2018).
Therefore, the Supreme Court overruled the Court of Appeals’ determination that summary judgment was appropriate, and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
Amerimex III: Application of Exclusive Remedy to Passenger Claims
On remand from Amerimex II, the employer filed a second traditional motion for summary judgment, contending the evidence conclusively established the exclusive remedy defense of the Workers’ Compensation Act that barred the plaintiffs’ negligence claims because the passengers were acting in the course and scope of their employment at the time of the collision. Therefore, the employees and their beneficiaries were limited to compensation under the Workers’ Compensation Act. The trial court agreed and granted Amerimex’s motion for summary judgment.
In three issues, employees and their beneficiaries contended the trial court erred in granting summary judgment on Amerimex’s affirmative defense because the evidence did not conclusively establish that the passengers had been acting within the course and scope of their employment at the time of the MVA. First, employees and their beneficiaries contended the passengers’ injuries were not related to, nor did they originate in, the work of Amerimex, as required by the Workers’ Compensation Act’s definition of course and scope of employment. Second, even if the injuries related to or originated in Amerimex’s business, employees and their beneficiaries contended that the injuries were sustained while the crew was using the public streets and highways to come and go from the jobsite, which is transportation activity expressly excluded from the Workers’ Compensation Act’s definition of course and scope via the coming-and-going rule. Third, employees and their beneficiaries contended the employer did not conclusively demonstrate that the transportation in the case at issue met the requirements of the exceptions to the transportation exclusion upon which the employer relies.
After consider the “coming and going” rule in the Workers’ Compensation Act and comparing the evidence in this case with that detailed in another Supreme Court decision, SeaBright Ins. Co. v. Lopez, 465 S.W.3d 637, 642 (Tex. 2015), the Court agreed with the employees and their beneficiaries that a fact issue existed as to whether the relationship between the crew’s travel in the case and the conditions of the crew’s employment was so close that it could fairly be said that their deaths and injuries had originated in the work, business, trade or profession of Amerimex.
First, the Court pointed to the employer’s failure to provide any evidence describing the nature of the jobs held by injured/deceased that would demonstrate that the conditions of their employment required them to travel beyond coming and going to work. Instead, Amerimex only pointed to evidence establishing the nature of the driver’s job which included a daily obligation to make a free ride available to the crew to and from the jobsite as a condition of his employment. The Court reasoned that the driver’s job was not the appropriate consideration in regard to the injured/deceased, and that the injured/deceased clearly did not retain driving as one condition of their employment.
Second, the Court found that the evidence did not conclusively establish that the assignment of the driving duty to the fourth employee, nor the travel to and from the jobsite were a part of Amerimex’s established business model. The Court stated that this strengthened the claims of the employees and their beneficiaries that Amerimex’s business model did not dictate the crew’s travel and that the crew members’ deaths and injuries did not originate in Amerimex’s business.
Third, the Court opined that the evidence established that the crew passengers were paid a fixed hourly rate of pay, for fixed hours, which began and ended at a fixed jobsite; they were not paid for travel, and the MVA occurred while they were traveling as passengers, off duty, out of hours, off the jobsite, and on the way to a fixed housing location after the completion of their workday, and in light of those facts, the Court found that the crew was in the course and scope of their employment at the time of the collision—citing Rodriguez v. Great American Indemnity Co., 244 F.2d 484, 488 (5th Cir. 1957).
In conclusion, the Court, faced with only three facts they felt Amerimex could have conclusively established as a matter of law: (1) the crew was working at a remote jobsite; and (2) Amerimex made available to the crew, a free ride to and from the jobsite and free housing; and (3) the crew was going to the free housing at the time of the collision, found that, standing alone, those facts were insufficient to demonstrate, as a matter of law, that the crew members were acting in the course and scope of their employment for purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act at the time of the MVA. For those reasons, the Court sustained the employees’ and their beneficiaries’ first issue and did not address the remaining issues.
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