Iowa high court allows COVID suit against supervisors, not company

The families of four Tyson Foods Inc. meat processing workers who died in 2020 after contracting COVID-19 during a workplace outbreak that had state and local health officials asking for the temporary closure of a facility in Iowa can sue plant officials but not the company, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled.

A district court previously dismissed the case, Mehmedovic et al. v. Tyson Foods, Inc., et al., which named the company as a defendant along with more than a dozen local supervisors and plant health and safety officials. The lower court’s ruling was based on the state’s exclusive remedy provision, which says workplace injuries and illnesses must go through workers compensation.

The estates of four of the deceased workers asserted claims for fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence and ordinary negligence, arguing that Tyson Foods’ decision to keep the plant open despite more than 1,000 workers testing positive for COVID-19 met the burden for exceptions to the exclusive remedy provision, which allows for lawsuits if the employer was negligent, among other stipulations.

In dismissing and reversing in part an appeals ruling that dismissed the case in its entirety over the exclusive remedy defense, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that the decision over statutory exception to exclusivity for gross negligence applies only to “coemployees” and not to employers, allowing the case against several supervisors to proceed.