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Schmidt v. State12/15/1997
Submitted on Briefs November 13, 1997.
The plaintiff, Sherry Robinson Schmidt, filed a complaint against the defendant, State of Montana, in the District Court for the First Judicial District in Broadwater County, in which she alleged that the death of her husband, Steven Daniel Schmidt, was caused during the course of his employment with the State of Montana by the State's wrongful conduct. She sought damages on behalf of his estate and his survivors as a result of his injuries and death. The District Court granted summary judgment to the State based on the exclusive remedy provision of the Workers' Compensation Act. Schmidt appeals. We affirm the judgment of the District Court.
The issue on appeal is whether the District Court erred when it dismissed Sherry Robinson Schmidt's complaint by summary judgment.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Steven Daniel Schmidt died in an accident that occurred on July 21, 1992, while doing maintenance work for the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, a department of the State of Montana. At the time of his death, Steven and a co-employee, John Stoner, were removing bundles of tires which had been connected by a steel cable to form a breakwater in Canyon Ferry Lake near the Silos Campground in Broadwater County. Steven's function was to pull the tires from the water using a tractor provided by his employer, and tow them a short distance to a location from which a recycler could pick them up.
Work had begun on the project the day before Steven's injury and death. The tractor being used was a 1960 Massey-Ferguson Model 90 which had been acquired by Fish, Wildlife and Parks from the State Highway Department the previous winter. Bill Hahn, the maintenance supervisor for Region VIII of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and Steven's supervisor, had made the decision to use the tractor for the tire removal project and assigned Steven and Stoner to do the work.
On the second day of the project, while Steven was towing a bundle of connected tires from the lake or beach to the pick-up site, the weight of the load caused the front end of the tractor to rise off the ground and eventually turn completely over, pinning Steven beneath the tractor. Steven died at the scene of the accident from the injuries that he sustained.
The Department is insured against claims for workers' compensation by the State Compensation Insurance Fund. Sherry Schmidt filed a claim for benefits based on her husband's injuries and death, and that claim was accepted.
Sherry also filed this action in the District Court to recover common law damages as a result of her husband's death. She alleged that Steven was killed because his supervisor, Bill Hahn, knowing that there was a high probability of injury to him, deliberately and intentionally directed him to perform work in conscious disregard of that high probability of injury and, therefore, that the State is liable for damages to Steven's estate and his survivors.
In answer to Sherry's complaint, the State admitted that Steven was killed during the course of his employment with the State of Montana, but denied the rest of her allegations, and affirmatively alleged that since Steven's employer was covered by the Workers' Compensation Act, the State was not subject to further liability for damages as a result of his death.
The State moved for summary judgment pursuant to § 39-71-411, MCA, which provides that an employee's exclusive remedy for injury or death which occurs during the course of employment is to pursue those rights provided for by the Workers' Compensation Act. The State contended that the exception set forth at § 39-71-413,
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