Federal Court Dismisses Suit Against Spouse’s Employer for Off-Site Exposure to Coronavirus

On May 10, 2021, a Northern District of California judge issued a win for California employers by dismissing a case seeking to hold an employer liable for COVID-19 related injuries allegedly sustained by its employee’s spouse. In what is the first of many anticipated cases for secondary exposure to the coronavirus, the court confirmed that claims against an employer arising out of an employee’s alleged contraction of the virus are subject to the exclusive remedy provided by worker’s compensation. The court also expressly confirmed that an employer’s duty to provide a safe workplace to its employees does not extend to nonemployees who may contract COVID-19 away from the workplace premises.

In late 2020, Corby and Robert Kuciemba sued Robert’s employer, Victory Woodworks, Inc., after Corby contracted COVID-19 allegedly through Robert’s exposure at work. [Kuciemba v. Victory Woodworks, Inc. (N.D. Cal., Case No. 3:20-cv-09355-MMC).] The Kuciembas claimed that Victory’s failure to take basic precautions on the job site caused Robert to unknowingly bring the virus home and transmit it to Corby, who soon thereafter tested positive for COVID-19 and suffered severe and long-term symptoms. Corby alleged, among other things, claims for negligence, negligence per se (based on purported violations of county health orders), and premises liability for failing to maintain a safe working environment to prevent employees from being infected by COVID-19. Robert alleged a cause of action for loss of consortium due to his wife’s injury.

Corby initially argued that she was injured when Robert, who himself experienced significant COVID-19 symptoms from the virus, was infected at work and then transmitted the virus to her. That argument was quickly rejected as being precluded by the Worker’s Compensation Act. Then, in a clear attempt to circumvent the exclusive remedy doctrine, the Kuciembas amended the complaint to allege that Corby was not necessarily infected through direct contact with her husband, but probably through contact with her husband’s clothes, personal belongings, or body. As such, they argued, Corby’s injury was not “collateral or derivative” of her husband’s injury, but rather a direct injury to her body because of Victory’s negligence in allowing her husband to bring the virus home, regardless of whether he contracted COVID-19. The Kuciembas argued that Victory owed a duty to all members of its employees’ households to protect them from an easily transmissible pathogen in the same way an employer who works with asbestos owes a duty to non-employees to prevent exposure to asbestos fibers.

Fortunately, in what might feel like a rare win for California employers, the judge disagreed. While the court’s ruling is quite succinct, at less than a page in length, it does provide some insights into how a court might address the legal issues underlying claims against California employers for secondary exposure to the coronavirus.

First, the judge reiterated that exposure to the coronavirus through direct contact with one’s spouse is clearly barred by the “exclusive remedy provisions” of California’s worker’s compensation statutes.

Second, the court rejected, albeit without substantive explanation, the plaintiffs’ “take-home” theory of liability, namely that employers owe a duty to protect their employees’ families from exposure to the coronavirus akin to that imposed on employers whose businesses involve hazardous substances. California has previously extended an employer’s liability for harm caused by hazardous substances (such as asbestos) that escape from the employer’s property where the employer did not exercise reasonable care to keep the hazardous substances on-site. In this way, an employer may be held liable for injuries to members of an employee’s household, even if the household member never visited the workplace. However, perhaps recognizing the fundamental difference between a hazardous substance that is both deliberately used in business and is often traceable, and a highly contagious virus that did not originate at the workplace and could be contracted virtually anywhere, the court found the claim implausible.

In the most significant aspect of the holding, the court declared that an employer’s “duty to provide a safe workplace to its employees does not extend to nonemployees who, like Corby Kuciemba, contract a viral infection away from those premises.”

It is important to note that this ruling came in a federal case and was decided at the trial court level on a motion to dismiss; therefore, it has minimal precedential value, especially in state court proceedings. Nevertheless, the court’s holding indicates that California employers may be protected by their worker’s compensation policy against civil liability for claims brought by members of their employees’ households for COVID-19 infections, even with the presumption that the source of those infections is the workplace. The holding also suggests that an employer’s sole duty regarding coronavirus prevention is owed to their employees while on workplace premises. Until a California state court makes a similar ruling, no one is out of the woods; but, for now, California employers facing nonemployee COVID-19 claims have reason to be cautiously optimistic.