Widow Bound by Exclusive Remedy in Band-Saw Fatality, NC Court Finds

A longtime worker at a North Carolina furniture products company, described as a model employee, died in 2020 under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Co-workers described hearing a “strange noise” as Rodney Baker was cleaning around a running band saw machine.

Baker was found with bruises to his back and blunt force trauma and lacerations to his chest. A medical examiner’s report surmised that the man had been crushed between a moving part of the automated machine and a nearby steel girder, although the moving part was only three feet off the ground. No one saw the incident and security cameras were not in positions to record it, a recent court decision explained.

Bakers’ widow was awarded full workers’ compensation benefits: two-thirds of the man’s weekly wages, for nine years, plus a $10,000 burial allowance.

Under North Carolina law, which is similar to statutes in many states, claimants can also pursue a tort claim against the employer or co-workers if they believe willful, wanton, reckless negligence or intentional acts were involved. A trial court in Catawba County dismissed the suit against the president of Dimension Wood Products but allowed it to proceed against the firm’s operations manager, Randy Reinhardt.

On Tuesday, a panel of the Court of Appeals of North Carolina reversed the lower court judge, finding that the plaintiffs had not presented enough evidence to show Reinhardt exhibited wanton negligence that would allow an exception to the exclusive remedy of the workers’ compensation statute.

“This case involves an undeniable tragedy. We are cognizant of the heartbreak caused by Mr. Baker’s death and the ensuing pain endured by his family,” Appeals Court Judge Allison Riggs wrote in the opinion. “But the State has guaranteed them some measure of recompense, however inadequate it may feel following the avoidable loss of a family member, through the guarantees of the Workers’ Compensation Act.”

The decision once again highlights the high bar that plaintiffs must reach in proving an exception to the exclusive remedy, a bar that was established by the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1985 in the pivotal Pleasant vs. Johnson ruling. That decision recognized that reckless behavior and willful negligence can be equated with an intentional act, in keeping with the exception allowed under the workers’ comp statute.

In the Baker case, though, the employer had not exhibited such willful actions, the appeals court found. Although employees had testified that although one side of the band saw had been left exposed, allowing Baker to clean in that area, that side was normally blocked by movable barrels or carts.

Dimension Wood Products also had a sparkling safety record and had held regular employee meetings to address safety issues, the court noted. Baker had worked there for 15 years, knew the hazards involved, had not been directed by anyone to clean behind the saw and had been warned to stay away from the spot while the machine was in operation.

After the fatal incident, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the plant for a serious violation for failing to place guards around all sides of the machine. Dimension then installed an appropriate barrier gate.

The widow’s attorney, David Hood, of Hickory, North Carolina, argued that Reinhardt, the plant manager, knew of the hazard but management was “too busy” to complete the necessary fencing before the accident.

The appeals court judges said that was not enough.

“Even if we take this evidence, accurately described, in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, it falls short of showing negligence so egregious as to be ‘equivalent in spirit to actual intent,'” the judge wrote, quoting from another decision that backed the Pleasant ruling.

Judges Hunter Murphy and John Arrowood concurred. Attorneys David Coats, David Wisz and Devon Collins represented the plant manager in the case.

In another workers’ comp-related opinion handed down Tuesday, the appeals court found that Travelers Insurance Co. must continue paying for medical treatment for a worker who fell from a stack of boxes at a Rent-a-Center in 2010. The employer/carrier did not produce enough evidence to rebut North Carolina’s Parsons presumption, which holds that once an injury is accepted as the result of a compensable accident, additional medical treatment is usually considered directly related to the injury.

Topics North Carolina