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Tucker v. Molden3/3/2000
practices. The intent of the legislature is to provide complete immunity to employers and limited immunity to officers, directors, agents, servants or employees of the same employer and to the workers' compensation insurance carrier and compensation service companies of the employer or any officer, director, agent, servant or employee of such carrier or company and to labor unions and to any official or representative thereof, from civil liability for all causes of action except those based on willful conduct and such immunity is an essential aspect of the workers' compensation scheme. The legislature hereby expressly reaffirms its intent, as set forth in Section 25-5-53, as amended herein, and Sections 25-5-144 and 25-5-194, regarding the exclusivity of the rights and remedies of an injured employee, except as provided for herein." § 25-5-14, Ala. Code 1975 (emphasis added).
This inescapable legislative intent requires us to reject any interpretation of the last sentence of § 25-5-11(d) that would allow a wrongful-death action against a co-employee for negligence or wantonness as distinguished from willfulness. See also Thermal Components, Inc. v. Golden, 716 So. 2d 1166 (Ala. 1998); Barron v. CNA Ins. Co., 678 So. 2d 735 (Ala. 1996); Braxton, supra.
The modesty of the death and burial benefits under the Workers' Compensation Chapter does not impair the validity of the co-employees' immunity or imply legislative intent to make an exception to the immunity. The amount of the death and burial benefits is a policy decision within the prerogatives of the Legislature. The adequacy of these benefits as a quid pro quo for the personal representative's loss of the right to bring a wrongful-death action against a co-employee for negligence or wantonness, and the constitutionality of the co-employee's immunity against such actions, have already been established in cases, like the plaintiff's, of the personal representatives' bringing actions for the wrongful deaths of dependentless employees against co-employees on theories of negligence or wantonness. Slagle v. Parker, 370 So. 2d 947 (Ala. 1979), Yarchak, supra. Moreover, in this same context, this Court has recognized that the Legislature, in limiting the dependentless employees' death and burial benefits, intended simply to conform to the purpose of the workers' compensation scheme to provide the most compensation to those who most need it -- living employees injured on the job and the dependents of employees killed on the job. Yarchak, supra; United States Steel Corp. v. Baker, 266 Ala. 538, 97 So.2d 899 (1957).
Because § 25-5-52 and § 25-5-53 immunize co-employees against wrongful-death actions for negligent or wanton conduct, and because the last sentence of § 25-5-11(d) does not make any exception to this immunity in the case of an action brought by the personal representative of a dependentless employee killed on the job , the trial court correctly entered summary judgment in favor of the defendant co-employee Molden. Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Maddox, Cook, See, Lyons, and Brown, JJ., concur.
England, J., recuses himself.
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