Employer’s clinic may not be protected by workers’ comp, SC court says

The South Carolina Court of Appeals has signaled that employers who offer on-site health clinics may not be immune from tort claims by injured or ill workers. It’s the latest twist on a question that has swirled around workers’ compensation courts and legal treaties for decades.

“The question before the court was whether the case was workers’ compensation or whether it was a third-party malpractice action against the health clinic,” said Neil Alger, one of the attorneys representing the estate of deceased worker Samel Ragin. who died at a Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in 2017.

It is all about what is known as the “dual person doctrine”. A company, in certain circumstances, can be considered not only an employer, subject to the exclusive remedy of workers’ compensation law for injury to workers, but also a third party, which assumes the responsibilities that come with providing facilities to employees, such as health care. or food service.

The appeals court last week overturned a Sumter County judge’s ruling that dismissed the Ragin estate’s lawsuit against Pilgrim’s Pride and two nurses from the plant’s clinic. The lower court, after a second hearing, found that South Carolina law did not recognize the dual capacity exception to workers’ compensation exclusivity.

But the appeals court said the issue was not so cut and dry and sent the case back to the lower court for further consideration.

“Taking the facts and findings in the light most favorable to the estate, there appears to be some possibility that the dual person doctrine applies here,” Court of Appeals Judge Blake Hewitt wrote in the opinion.

The court said the doctrine of duality “has proven difficult and complicated in several jurisdictions.” The opinion cited two South Carolina Supreme Court decisions from the past two decades, as well as a Michigan Court of Appeals decision. The appellate judges also pointed out that the famous legal guide, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (which sells for several thousand dollars on LexisNexis), devotes at least two chapters to the question.

The tragedy and conundrum began when Ragin, a pallet handler at the chicken plant, allegedly suffered chest pains and shortness of breath while on the job in 2017. The case was complicated by a disagreement over whether the woman he actually went to the factory clinic. Plaintiffs claim she did and the nurses told her to get back to work. Pilgrim’s Pride said there are no records showing Ragin ever visited the clinic.

Later that day, she was found unconscious in the factory bathroom. The cause of death was listed as a heart attack.

A few weeks later, Ragin’s family member filed a workers’ compensation claim. Sedgwick Claims Management denied the claim on behalf of Zurich American Insurance Co.

Alger argued that Pilgrim’s Pride should be held liable for not providing better medical care to Ragin.

“If an employer undertakes a statutory duty outside of being an employer, then they may be subject to a tort in this scenario,” Alger said.

The appeals court noted that nurses in South Carolina are statutorily bound to the standards of ethical practice adopted by the American Nurses Association in 2015. “These standards may be the kind of independent duties contemplated by the two-pronged framework. persons”, wrote the judges.

Alger acknowledged that some might consider the dual persona claim in the case questionable. After all, the employer apparently helped the workers by operating the clinic. On-site nurses have been shown to reduce the severity and duration of injuries and claims, occupational health providers said. Dr. David Fletcher, a well-known Illinois occupational health physician, has been advocating for years for on-site nurses and other measures, particularly at meat processing plants.

Tyson Foods, another meat company, announced in 2020 that it plans to open medical clinics at several plants in the US, reflecting a growing trend of on-site clinics in the workplace.

That doesn’t excuse bad decisions by in-house medical providers, Alger said. He compared the situation to a company providing a lunch canteen at the construction site. If a worker becomes seriously ill or dies from spoiled food, is the worker barred from suing?

The question of the dual doctrine comes up more frequently in hospitals, Alger said. A carer at a facility, for example, can benefit from free hospital care. But if a doctor misdiagnoses an illness, should the worker be barred from pursuing a tort action against the hospital?

“The doctors in that case were treating him like a patient, not an employee,” Alger said.

U.S. law and employers decades ago moved away from “company towns,” where industries provided company stores and company food and company banks, and were allowed to escape tort liability by arguing that an injury caused of these services was covered by the exclusive remedy of the workers. compensation, Alger argued.

An attorney for Pilgrim’s Pride in the case could not be reached for comment Monday. In his brief on appeal, attorney Thomas Pritchard argued that the plaintiff’s estate failed to appeal the dismissal of the workers’ compensation claim, leaving the question of the exclusive remedy unresolved. Also, he noted, the cited 2013 state Supreme Court decision found that for the dual person doctrine to apply, a duty to the victim must occur. only from the non-employer of the company.

The employer may now ask the state Supreme Court to consider the Ragin case, Alger said.

Legislators in several states have allowed some occupations to avoid the vagaries of the dual person problem altogether. Firefighters in South Carolina, Florida and at least 17 other states, for example, have been given a rebuttable presumption that heart conditions are considered work-related and eligible for workers’ compensation benefits, the National Insurance Council reported. In 20 states, firefighters are also allowed a similar presumption for certain types of cancer.

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Commercial Lines Workers Compensation Business Insurance South Carolina