George v. Bowler, 2015 MT 209, 380 Mont. 155, 354 P.3d 585 Separate legal entities are not considered “third parties” as that term is used in § 39-71-412, MCA, and Article II, § 16 of the Montana Constitution, when they are acting within the course and scope of their employment as co-employees of the claimant at the time the alleged negligence occurred.

George v. Bowler, 2015 MT 209, 380 Mont. 155, 354 P.3d 585 For purposes of applying the co-employee immunity rule, the simple fact that two persons have the same employer would not necessarily invoke the rule.  The proper test for determining when a co-worker is an “employee” for purposes of applying the co-employee immunity rule in § 39-71-412, MCA, is whether the co-employee was acting in the course and scope of his employment at the time the negligent acts occurred.

George v. Bowler, 2015 MT 209, 380 Mont. 155, 354 P.3d 585 Montana has rejected the “dual capacity” doctrine, which allows suit against an employer for negligence committed in a capacity separate from its capacity as employer, since it would “go a long way toward destroying the exclusive remedy principle.”

George v. Bowler, 2015 MT 209, 380 Mont. 155, 354 P.3d 585 Warehouse owners who rented warehouse to their employer were acting in the course and scope of their employment while supervising and controlling the work of claimant – who also worked for and was being paid by the same employer as the warehouse owners.  Since the claimant claimed and received workers’ compensation benefits from his employer, the warehouse owners were immune from claimant’s suit for injuries.  Even though owners were also general contractors on warehouse construction and were separate legal entities from employer, one of the owners was the employer’s warehouse manager and was acting on behalf of employer when supervising claimant, the project on which claimant was working was for benefit of employer, and claimant was working for employer at the time of his accident. 

Stokes v. Golden Triangle, Inc., 2015 MT 199, 380 Mont. 93, 353 P.3d 500 An employer is covered by a valid workers’ compensation insurance policy if the policy inadvertently fails to name the employer as one of the entities it insured.  Here, both the insurer and the employer agree the employer was covered under the policy; the policy used the employer’s payroll to calculate the premium; the application included the employer’s information, including its FEIN; the associated documents, including the insurance binder, named the employer as a covered insured; the premiums remained unchanged after the insurer corrected the policy endorsement to name the employer among the insured; the failure to name the employer in the policy was inadvertent; and the insurer paid, and the claimant accepted, workers’ compensation benefits under the policy in the claimant’s employer’s name.

Harris v. State, Dep't of Corrections [01/29/13] 2013 MT 16 The employer’s knowledge that the possibility of serious injury existed from voluntarily tasering the claimant as part of his SWAT training was insufficient to show an intentional and deliberate act by his employer.  A chance of injury is not the same as a deliberate act to injure under § 39-71-413, MCA, and a risk of injury does not establish actual knowledge of certain injury as required by the statute.  Claimant’s suit is therefore barred by the exclusive remedy provision of the WCA, § 39-71-411, MCA.

Walters v. Flathead Concrete Products, Inc. [03/16/11] 2011 MT 45 The quid pro quo upon which the exclusive remedy of the WCA is premised applies whenever an injury is covered and compensable under the WCA, regardless of whether the quid pro quo is fair and balanced.

Alexander v. Bozeman Motors, Inc., 2010 MT 135 To avoid the exclusivity provision of the WCA, a claimant must prove the two required elements of an intentional injury under § 39-71-413(3), MCA: (1) an intentional and deliberate act specifically and actually intended to cause injury; and (2) actual knowledge of the injury’s certainty.  Summary judgment was properly granted against one claimant, who failed to show actual knowledge by the employer of certain injury. A second claimant raised genuine issues of material fact when he showed he was sent by the employer to work at the office where the prior claimant complained the air was making him sick, the employer failed to investigate the cause of the prior employee’s sickness, and withheld information about the prior employee’s sickness.

Okuly v. USF&G Insurance Company, 2003 MT 291 Following Hubbel v. Western Fire Ins. Co., 218 Mont. 21, 706 P.1d 111 (1985), and relying on section 39-71-411, MCA, the Montana Supreme Court held that the Workers’ Compensation Act provided the exclusive remedy for the heirs and personal representatives of decedent, who was killed in an automobile accident in a car driven by a co-employee in the course and scope of employment. Recovery was not permitted under the uninsured motorist provision of the employer’s general liability policy.

Hegg v. Montana State Fund [10/10/16] 2016 MTWCC 14 The remedy in a case in which workers’ compensation benefits are insufficient to uphold the quid pro quo is to strike the employer’s exclusive remedy defense and allow the employee to proceed with a tort claim – a decision that is solely within the province of the district court in a civil action against the employer.  Where this Court cannot grant the claimant the remedy she seeks – i.e., to increase the amount of her benefits to an amount that would be sufficient – it will not rule on the claimant’s substantive due process challenge against § 39-71-721(2), MCA.