Attack on co-worker must be covered by comp: Appeals court

An appeals court in Illinois on Wednesday ruled an electrical worker’s negligence lawsuit that stemmed from a 2020 attack by a co-worker having a psychotic episode is barred due to exclusive remedy.

Kamil Kordas sued Bob’s All Bright Electric, claiming, among other things, intentional misconduct and negligence after his co-worker and son of the business’s owner, Thomas Clarizio, struck him over the head with a shovel while having a psychotic episode. Mr. Kordas alleged that the company and the owner knew or should have known that Mr. Clarizio had mental health issues, negligently hired and supervised him, and intentionally concealed his dangerous propensities, according to Kordas v. Bob’s All Bright Electric Inc., filed in the Appellate Court of Illinois, 3rd District.

All Bright moved for summary judgment, asserting that Mr. Kordas’ claims were barred by the exclusive remedy provision of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act. The circuit court granted All Bright’s motion.

Mr. Kordas appealed, arguing that he is not barred from bringing common-law claims against All Bright because his injuries were not “accidental” as that term is used in state comp law: “Specifically, he claims that the attack was not accidental because All Bright knew that Mr. Clarizio was violent and knowingly concealed his violent tendencies.”

The court, in applying case law, said that the “injuries intentionally inflicted by a co-worker are accidental from the employer’s point of view” and because of that, “the employer has a right to consider that the injured employee’s sole remedy against the employer will be under the workers compensation statute.”

The court also wrote that “the record fails to substantiate” Mr. Kordas’ claims that the owner knew his son was violent and intentionally withheld that information from All Bright’s employees.

Based on the deposition testimony, “no question of fact exists” that Mr. Clarizio had expressed any violent tendencies in the workplace before the attack.

One judge of the three appeals judges dissented, writing that the evidence shows that the relationship between Mr. Kordas and Mr. Clarizio was “personally volatile, that (Mr. Clarizio) ‘hates’ Kordas, that (Mr. Clarizio) thinks he is a ‘cruel guy,’ and that (he) ‘felt bad that (Mr. Kordas) is not dead.’” The judge wrote that the attack on Mr. Kordas “had nothing to do” with his employment and that (Mr. Clarizio) told police that “he had hit Kordas as hard as he could and that he ‘doesn’t feel remorse because he hates (him) so much.’”

“This is not the sort of ‘risk inherent in employment’ that the legislature intended the (Workers’ Compensation) Act to cover,” the judge wrote.