Ohio Supreme Court rules in employee safety case on dairy farm

On August 12, the Ohio Supreme Court released its opinion Camara v. Gill Dairy, L.L.C. The majority opinion was written by Justice Brunner and joined by all of the justices, except for one section that Justice Fischer did not join. The case involves an injury sustained by an employee from equipment on the dairy farm. The case reached the Ohio Supreme Court because the employee, Camara, appealed a decision from Ohio’s Twelfth District Court of Appeals. We covered that decision in an Ag Law Harvest post back in 2023 (available here).

Background

The lawsuit, originally filed in Madison County Court of Common Pleas, alleged that Jose Camara, the employee, suffered severe injuries while operating a piece of machinery called a sand spreader. The Court explains the incident, saying that the sand spreader was connected to a tractor by a power take-off (PTO) shaft, which was equipped with a hydraulic motor that caused the PTO shaft to rotate while in use. However, the safety guards on the PTO shaft were not there on the day Camara was injured in 2019. Camara explained that he observed an oil leak in the sand spreader and first turned the sand spreader off to look for the source of the leak. He could not identify the source of the leak, so he turned the sand spreader on to investigate the matter further.  As he looked for the leak, a piece of clothing on his left leg got caught in the unguarded, rotating PTO shaft.  The rotation of the PTO shaft pulled Camara toward the machine, then threw him over the shaft to the other side of the tractor.  Camara suffered severe and permanent injuries to both legs and his left shoulder, requiring skin grafts and multiple surgeries.

At trial, the jury found the dairy farm liable and ordered it to pay over $1.9 million in damages. Gill Dairy appealed to the Twelfth District Court of Appeals arguing that its failure to repair or replace does not amount to a “deliberate removal” of the safety guards from the PTO shaft and sand spreader, and the appellate court agreed, and vacated and reversed the jury’s judgement. Camara appealed the Twelfth District’s ruling, taking the lawsuit to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Guiding statutory language

Before getting into the majority’s opinion, it is first important to understand the statute at the center of this case. Ohio Revised Code (ORC) section 2745.01 reads in part (emphasis added):

(A) In an action brought against an employer by an employee…for damages resulting from an intentional tort committed by the employer during the course of employment, the employer shall not be liable unless the plaintiff proves that the employer committed the tortious act with the intent to injure another or with the belief that the injury was substantially certain to occur.

(B) As used in this section, “substantially certain” means that an employer acts with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death.

(C) Deliberate removal by an employer of an equipment safety guard or deliberate misrepresentation of a toxic or hazardous substance creates a rebuttable presumption that the removal or misrepresentation was committed with intent to injure another if an injury or an occupational disease or condition occurs as a direct result.

In other words, if an employee is harmed on the job and the employee proves that there was an intent to injure, or a belief that injury would occur, the employer can be found liable at trial. Further, deliberate removal of a safety guard on equipment helps the employee’s argument, because it creates a presumption under the law that there was an intent by the employer to injure, although the employer may provide evidence to rebut such a claim.

Questions before the Ohio Supreme Court

The Twelfth District’s decision conflicted with a Third District Court of Appeals decision on what an employee must prove to establish “deliberate removal” of a safety guard, so the Ohio Supreme Court agreed to hear to the case.  In addition to that conflict, in his appeal, Camara asked the Ohio Supreme Court to answer two questions. The first question is whether an injured employee must establish both the deliberate removal of an equipment safety guard and the employer’s intent to never replace the guard in order to trigger presumption of intent to injure under ORC 2745.01(C). The second question is whether the appellate court should have reviewed only the evidence provided in the pretrial stage or the evidence presented at trial when making their decision.

Question 1

The Ohio Supreme Court, with Justice Brunner writing for the majority, found that an injured employee does not have to establish both the deliberate removal of a safety guard and the employer’s intent to not replace the guard to be entitled to the “rebuttable presumption” under ORC 2745.01(C). Firstly, according to Justice Brunner, the presumption available to a plaintiff under the statute “may…be established by either direct or circumstantial evidence,” whereas the appellate court said that only direct evidence could be used to show proof of an “intent to injure another” under ORC 2745.01(A) and (C). Secondly, an injured employee only needs to provide evidence that the employer deliberately removed an equipment safety guard, not that they “specifically decided not to reattach” the guard. Brunner reasons that the “plain text” of ORC 2745.01(C) entitles the employee to the rebuttable presumption that the removal was committed with the intent to harm another. This means evidence regarding the employer’s decision not to replace a safety guard is not required for the presumption to apply. This reasoning also answered the conflict between the two appellate decisions—an employee does not have to prove both that their employer had knowledge of a missing safety guard and that they made a “deliberate decision” not to replace it. The knowledge that the safety guard is missing is enough.

Question 2

In their appeal to the Twelfth District, Gill Dairy asked the court to review the lower court’s denial of summary judgement in their favor. Summary judgement is granted when a judge finds that no genuine issue of material fact (a disagreement about facts) exists between the parties. Thus, the case is decided without continuing on to a jury trial. When overturning the lower court’s denial of summary judgement, the Twelfth District Court only looked at the evidence provided at the summary judgement stage, and not the evidence provided at trial. The Ohio Supreme Court found that this was an error; when deciding whether there is a genuine issue of material fact, the appellate court must review “the record as it existed both at the time of the summary-judgement ruling and [at] the conclusion of the trial.” Justice Fischer did not join this part of the opinion.

What might this mean for my farm?

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that an injured employee must only prove that an employer has knowledge of missing safety equipment, not that the employer deliberately removed them or decided not to replace them. What is more, this statutory rebuttable presumption may be proved with either direct or circumstantial evidence. Therefore, to protect yourself and employees, and to limit your liability, it is advisable to keep track of your equipment and replace missing safety guards and other safety measures as needed. However, this does not mean that every case will find that the employer is at fault—the presumption of intent to injure is rebuttable. Thus, in similar cases, the employer may provide evidence to a court to disprove such a claim, and a judge or jury may find such evidence persuasive. The bottom line is to protect your employees, yourself, your farm, and to avoid lengthy lawsuits like this one, safety guards on equipment should be properly installed and replaced as necessary.