New York: Grave Digger’s IIED Claim Barred by Exclusive Remedy Rule

A grave digger’s allegations that he had sustained emotional distress injuries resulting from the fact that, as part of his employment duties, he was sometimes required to step onto the top of caskets during the burial process was insufficient to establish the sort of intentional injury that would support a tort action against his employer, held the New York appellate court. Acknowledging that an intentional tort committed by the employer or its representatives could give rise to a cause of action outside of the ambit of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the appellate court also stressed that the complaint must allege an intentional or deliberate act by the employer directed at causing harm to a particular employee. No such allegations was contained in the plaintiff’s complaint and the trial court appropriately granted the employer summary judgment.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Zaborowski v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, 145 N.Y.S.3d 847, 2021 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3939 (3d Dept. June 16, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 100.01.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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