WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT
The Supreme Court gave a second chance today to the heirs of Sharon Stamper (You can read the entire opinion here). Sharon Stamper was killed in a car crash in 2005 and her husband and children filed a wrongful detah lawsuit against the driver of the car in which she was a passenger. The trial court threw out the case but the Supreme Court reopened it. Here’s the rest of the story.
In 2005, Sharon Stamper was employed by Gilbert Development Corp. She was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Rebecca Johnson. Johnson was employed by Diamond G. Rodeos. Johnson and Stamper were driving from Toqerville, Utah to Mesquite Nevada. Enroute, Johnson failed to negotiate a turn. The car left the roadway and rolled, ending up on its side. Stamper died as a result of her injuries.
Stamper’s husband and children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Johnson. Stamper’s husband and children also collected worker’s compensation benefits against her employer.
When someone gets hurt on the job, they are entitled to worker’s compensation benefits. If they are hurt by the negligence of their employer or co-employee, worker’s compensation is all they get. It is their exclusive remedy. If the injured worker is hurt by the negligence of a third party, however, they can also collect personal injury benefits from the third party. Attorneys frequently call this type of case a third party claim. When the injured person collects personal injury money, the injured worker is forced to pay back worker’s comp the money the injured worker got.
You might wonder why someone would care to collect personal injury benefits if they already collected worker’s comp and they’re just going to be forced to pay worker’s comp back anyway. The reason is that the injured worker usually gets a lot more money from a personal injury case than from worker’s comp. Thus, even after paying off worker’s comp, the injured worker usually ends up with money in her pocket.
The question in this case is whether Stamper and Johnson were co-employees. If they were, Stamper’s family can’t collect any wrongful death benefits from Johnson’s insurance. If they were not co-employees, Stamper’s family can collect wrongful death money from Johnson’s insurance.
It would seem obvious that they aren’t co-employees because they work for different companies. There’s more to the story. Both companies are owned by the same guy, Steve Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert asked them to go to Mesquite at the same time.
The trial court judge thought they were co-employees and threw the case out on summary judgment. The Supreme Court didn’t agree. The Supreme Court reopened the case. They sent it back to the trial court judge so the trial court could get some additional information. Specifically, the trial court must determine if the two women were co-employees as defined in the worker’s compensation act.
