Washington: Co-employee Immunity Applies Only When Defendant Acting in the Course of Employment

An appellate court in Washington state held that it was error for a trial court to grant summary judgment in favor of a defendant, on exclusive remedy grounds, where the plaintiff alleged he was struck by a vehicle driven by the defendant, a fellow employee, as the plaintiff walked across an access road on the employer’s premises. The appellate court said it was not enough for the trial court to find that the parties were co-employees and that the incident occurred on the job site. In order to be immune from suit, the defendant/co-employee was required to show that he was acting in the course of his employment at the time of the accident and injury. Defendant had not shown that he was performing any work for the employer at the time he struck the plaintiff with his vehicle. The summary judgment in defendant’s favor was premature.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis 

See Entila v. Cook, 2015 Wash. App. LEXIS 2362 (Oct. 5, 2015) 

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 111.03 

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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