Ohio: Intentional Injury Claim After Fatal Trench Cave-In Denied

Where an employee was killed in a trench collapse accident, his estate could not maintain an intentional tort action against the employer where the evidence indicated the employer ceased all work on the trench when the employer's supervisors became aware of potential danger. At the time of the accident, the representative and a city supervisor had left the trench site to secure a trench box. There was no explanation as to why the employee went back down into the trench. His job was to spread gravel and help lay pipe. At the time of the accidental cave-in, there was no gravel or pipe at the work site. Quoting Larson's Workers' Compensation Law, the court stressed that even under Ohio's "substantially certain" rule, there was no evidence of intentional injury on the part of the employer.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the 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 Estate of Mennett v. Stauffer Site Servs., LLC, 2020-Ohio-4355, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS (Sept. 8, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 103.03.

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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