What Do You Think?
The exclusive remedy provision protects employers with workers’ compensation coverage from being sued for negligence by their employees. If an employee dies during work, does that protection always extend to lawsuits by the employee’s family? That was the question in the case of the mother of a convenience store employee who wanted to recover money damages after her son collapsed at work.
One day, during the employee’s shift at Circle-K a customer found him collapsed on the floor. An ambulance took the employee to the hospital where he died later that day of cardiac arrest.
The employee’s mother was his only surviving dependent. She filed a worker’s compensation claim seeking death benefits and burial expenses. At the same time, she sued the company for negligence. She claimed a dangerous condition inside the store caused her son to fall and that the fall led to his death. The company, she said, was negligent for failing to remove the dangerous condition, but she didn’t claim that the company intended any harm.
Circle-K asked the court to throw out the negligence case, saying it was immune to the lawsuit because workers’ compensation was the mother’s only remedy.
Workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy available for work-related injuries and illnesses, unless the employer intentionally injured the employee.
Could the employee’s mom sue Circle-K for negligence?
A. Yes. The exclusive remedy provision doesn’t apply to a surviving parent of an injured employee.
B. No. He was on the clock and doing his job when he died.
If you selected B, you agreed with the court in Broussard v. Circle K Stores, Inc., No. 6:25-CV-00593 (W.D. La. 02/26/26), which concluded that because the employee was injured during the course and scope of employment, his survivor’s only remedy was worker’s compensation.
Employers are generally protected from negligence lawsuits by injured workers unless they intentionally injured the worker. That protection also applies when it is a surviving parent who sues.
In fact, Louisiana’s worker’s compensation act specifically provides that when a deceased employee leaves no legal dependents or children, the surviving parent will receive a lump sum of $75,000. The act provides that that sum is the exclusive compensation in such cases.
Here, the parent acknowledged in both her worker’s compensation claim and negligence lawsuit that the employee was working for Circle K and acting within the course and scope of his employment when he had the heart attack. Accordingly, the exclusive remedy provision applied and barred the parent’s negligence claim. The court dismissed the lawsuit.
