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4th Circuit revives part of worker's intentionally inflicted

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jan 27, 2004 by Ann Parks

A security guard who was abducted at gunpoint cannot sue her employer for damages arising out of the assault and rape that ensued after her supervisor instructed her co-workers not to call police, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed last week.

However, the appeals court sent Dominique Gantt's suit back to federal court in Greenbelt on a more limited question: whether her supervisor, Angela Claggett, intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Gantt by ordering her to an outside post when she feared for her life.

The lower court ruled that Gantt was limited to workers' compensation benefits for the assault and rape because there was no evidence that Claggett, who knew Gantt's abductor and thought he just wanted to talk, meant her any harm.

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The Maryland Workers' Compensation Act provides Gantt's exclusive remedy unless she can prove she was injured 'as the result of the deliberate intent of [her] employer to injure' her, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the appellate court. Gantt simply did not present evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that Claggett acted with an 'actual, specific and deliberate intent' to cause, and with a desire to bring about' the assault, battery, rape and emotional distress resulting from them.

The 4th Circuit reversed in part a grant of summary judgment by a U.S. District Judge in Greenbelt in favor of New York-based Security USA Inc., its employees and representatives.

It's an extraordinary, interesting case, said Matt M. Paavola, legislative chairperson of the Workers' Compensation Committee of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association, who thought that the court ruled correctly although he was not involved in the matter.

The good news is that they did uphold some of her claim, that Claggett did expose Gantt to these unwelcome interactions, Paavola said. The bad news is that this statute is very onerous. Only in the clearest circumstances will courts find intentional conduct outside the act.

In order for Gantt's claim to fall within the intentional tort exception to the Workers' Compensation Act, she would have to show that Claggett very specifically wanted to injure her, Paavola said.

The clearest case is if an employer strikes you, he explained. Here, the employer was a bystander who tragically miscalculated what was going on.

In November 1996, Gantt obtained a protective order preventing Gary R. Sheppard, a former boyfriend, from contacting her at her workplace. When Gantt notified Security USA, manager Earl Wood told all Security supervisors to assign Gantt to indoor posts only.

But when Gantt reported to work at the Internal Revenue Service building in Lanham on Dec. 9, 1996, Claggett ordered her to guard the outdoor garage and even transferred Sheppard's telephone call to Gantt while she was at her post.

When Gantt asked to be moved inside following the call, Claggett refused to allow this.

Sheppard arrived within an hour and dragged Gantt off the IRS premises at gunpoint, raping her and holding her captive for six hours.

Since Claggett knew Sheppard personally, she refused to call the police until five or 10 minutes following Gantt's abduction - telling two security guards he doesn't want to hurt her, he just wants to talk to her.

Gantt filed suit against her employer in December 1999, alleging several theories of recovery including intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The district court judge held that the fear Gantt suffered while waiting at her post was not severe enough to satisfy the necessary element of the emotional distress claim. The 4th Circuit disagreed.

A jury could infer from the evidence proffered by Gantt that Security USA's supervisor, Claggett,-deliberately determined to inflict on Gantt any emotional distress she might suffer from talking to Sheppard, Motz wrote.

Respecting the distress suffered by Gantt as a result of the abduction and rape, the district court concluded that summary judgment was appropriate since those actions had been caused by Sheppard, not by Claggett.

While the 4th Circuit had problems with that analysis, it nonetheless concluded that Gantt had not offered sufficient evidence of her employer's deliberate intent to injure with respect to Sheppard's crimes.

Second and third opinions

Writing separately, Judge Paul V. Niemeyer contended that the district court's grant of summary judgment should have been completely affirmed on Gantt's state law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Claggett's overt disobedience to the order of Project Manager Wood should not be imputed to Security USA, he wrote.

But Judge J. Michael Luttig, in another opinion, believed that the district court's judgment should have been completely reversed.

[A jury] could determine that Claggett's actions, taken as a whole, demonstrated a deliberate intent 'to bring about the consequences of [her] act[s],' Gantt's abduction, torture and rape, as well as the emotional injuries that attended each, Luttig wrote.

4th Circuit revives part of worker's intentionally inflicted

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jan 27, 2004 by Ann Parks

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