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Sherner v. Conoco2/29/2000
t 659.
Our holding in Sitzman flowed as the natural consequence of our decision in Enberg v. Anaconda Co. (1971), 158 Mont. 135, 489 P.2d 1036. In Enberg we created a common law exception to the exclusive remedy rule for workers injured by the intentional acts of their employers. Enberg, 158 Mont. at 137, 489 P.2d at 1037. In 1973, the legislature enacted § 92-204.1, RCM (1947) (the predecessor to § 39-71-413, MCA). This statute created the statutory exception to the exclusive remedy rule for intentional acts and omissions by co-employees. Thus, after 1973, the exception applied to employers via the common law and Enberg, and to co-employees via the statute. Importantly, both standards were the same.
For this reason, Sitzman, decided in 1986, did not create a new common law exception to exclusivity; it merely applied "in a similar manner" the rationale of the exception that had already been created in Enberg. As this Court did in Enberg, the Sitzman Court focused on the purpose of the Act and concluded that to give the employer immunity for intentional torts would effectively destroy the quid pro quo; grant the employer the right to assault his employees and then hide behind exclusivity; force other employers to subsidize this wrongful conduct; allow the offending employer to benefit from his own wrongdoing; and, thus, defeat the purposes of the Act. Sitzman, 221 Mont. at 307-08, 718 P.2d at 659.
Furthermore, there are good reasons why the exception for intentional and malicious acts and omissions must apply in the same fashion to employers and co-employees alike. In Madison v. Pierce (1970), 156 Mont. 209, 478 P.2d 860, we interpreted § 92-204, RCM (1947), which granted employers immunity from common law and statutory negligence actions brought by the injured employee, but allowed third party actions against persons or corporations other than the employer.
Madison, 156 Mont. at 212, 478 P.2d at 862. In Madison, the injured worker was receiving compensation under the Act, but then attempted to sue various corporate officers of her employer, and her foreman. Madison, 156 Mont. at 210-11, 478 P.2d at 861-62. The question was whether the statute's explicit grant of immunity to the employer also encompassed a grant of immunity to co-employees--here executive and management personnel. Madison, 156 Mont. at 213, 478 P.2d at 862-63.
We held that it did. Madison, 156 Mont. at 219, 478 P.2d at 866.
Again, we looked to the purpose of the Act. We stated:
The broad purpose of the Montana Workmen's Compensation Act is to substitute a system for the payment of medical costs and wage losses to injured employees without regard to fault, for the common law system of legal action by the injured employee against the one whose negligence proximately caused his injury .
Madison, 156 Mont. at 213, 478 P.2d at 863. We then went on to explain:
The principle behind this legislation was that the business enterprise or industry should directly bear the costs of injury to its employees in the same manner as the enterprise has always borne the costs of maintaining and repairing its plant, machinery and equipment. The business enterprise should pass along the costs of maintenance and repair of its human resources, its employees, in the same manner as is done in the case of other production costs, namely in the price at which its product is sold to the public. This underlying purpose finds summary expression in the familiar phrase "the cost of the product should bear the blood of the workman[.]"
Madison, 156 Mont. at 213-14, 478 P.2d at 863. Thus, the foundation for the Act is the principle of "enterprise l
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