Products Liability Law Reporter

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the election-of-remedies provision outlined in the Minnesota Workers’ Compensation Act (MWCA), Minn. Stat. §176.061, does not preclude a plaintiff’s negligence and products liability suit arising out of her brother’s death at a paper mill.

Jill Gordon sued Sappi North America, Inc. (Sappi NA), alleging negligence and products liability arising out of the death of her brother, Ryan Martin, at a paper mill. The district court granted summary judgment for the defense.

Vacating, the Eighth Circuit noted that the sole issue on appeal is whether Sappi NA and its wholly owned subsidiary, Sappi Cloquet, LLC, were engaged in the accomplishment of the same or related purpose in operating the paper mill where Martin died. The court found that, if so, Gordon’s collection of workers’ compensation benefits from Sappi Cloquet would preclude her claims against Sappi NA under the MWCA’s election-of-remedies provision, which applies where an employer and third party are engaged in the furtherance of a common enterprise or the accomplishment of the same or related purpose in operations on the premises where the injury occurred.

Citing case law, the court also noted the Minnesota high court has held that the “accomplishment of the same or related purpose” prong of the statute requires that, at the time of injury, the employer and third party were engaged in the same project and that the third party must have had employees working at the site where the injury occurred. The court noted that while the state high court had not previously applied this rule to a case involving a subsidiary employer and a third-party parent company, the broad language in its decisions indicates it would not rule differently.

Applying these principles to the facts here, the court concluded that considering Sappi NA’s admission that it had no employees working on site at the paper mill when Martin died, the plaintiff’s claims are not barred by the MWCA’s election-of-remedies provision. The court added that its ruling would not allow Gordon to obtain a double recovery in that the MWCA includes an offset provision.

Consequently, the court remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.

Citation: Gordon v. Sappi N. Am., Inc., 2024 WL 340541 (8th Cir. Jan. 30, 2024).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ member Eric W. Beyer, Duluth, Minn.; and Darren L. Brown, John A. Cowan, and Joseph Fisher, all of Beaumont, Texas.