Court Rulings

Employer who required employee to work under heavy flywheel without safeguards to protect the employee if the flywheel fell was guilty of violating a specific safety requirement.

Summary judgment - course and scope of employment

Motion to compel discovery attorney-client privilege SERS report. Judgment affirmed. The trial court did not err in ordering the Cleveland Clinic to provide its SERS report to the plaintiff, who slipped and fell at the Clinic while visiting a family member. There is no indication in the record that the person who completed the SERS report did so in anticipation of litigation or was a risk manager or an employee of the Clinic's Office of General Counsel. Therefore, the Clinic has not satisfied its burden of proof that the SERS report is privileged.

42 USC § 1983—Indemnification—Defense Costs—Insurance—Employer Liability Law. A City of Lakewood (City) police officer was killed by friendly fire, and his widow filed a lawsuit under 42 USC § 1983, alleging that the City and various fellow officers had violated the deceased officer's rights under the U.S. Constitution. The City sought indemnification for its own defense costs and those of the officers named in the lawsuit, which the City has an independent statutory duty to cover. The insurance company, Safety National Casualty Corporation, denied coverage. The district court concluded that a § 1983 claim did not arise under an employer liability law of any state and granted summary judgment for the insurance company. On appeal, the City contended that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the insurance company because the policy unambiguously covers all defense costs incurred by the City in connection with the § 1983 lawsuit. Specifically, the City argued that the § 1983 municipal liability claim must be covered by the employers' liability portion of the policy because it is a claim based on work-related injuries that falls outside the ambit of the workers' compensation laws. However, this overstates the scope of the coverage under the policy. By the policy's plain terms, the common law claims must arise under the laws of Colorado or "other State(s)." Section 1983 is not a law of Colorado or any other state. Therefore, the City's defense costs, which were sustained because of liability imposed as a result of the widow's § 1983 claim, did not arise from a state workers' compensation or employers' liability law and were not covered by the policy. Next, the City contended that it was entitled to reimbursement for amounts it paid to cover the fellow officers' defense costs. The policy's definition makes clear that the term "Employee" refers to the injured employee, not to an employee potentially responsible for the injury. "Loss" means payments by t

Mandamus denied SERB did not abuse its discretion when it dismissed unfair labor practice charges as untimely.

Ohio Environmental Review Commission erred when it granted appellee's motion to compel production of three e-mails that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency sought to withhold from discovery due to a claim of attorney-client privilege. De novo review of the three e-mails reveals that an EPA employee involved in the investigation of appellee's verified complaint sent the e-mails in confidence to EPA's in-house legal counsel seeking legal advice or assistance with regard to the EPA's review of appellee's verified complaint. Accordingly, all three e-mails are privileged attorney-client communications. We, therefore, reverse the commission's judgment with regard to e-mails A, B, and C, but we remand this matter for the commission to hold a hearing to determine whether EPA waived the attorney-client privilege with regard to e-mail A by inadvertently producing it in discovery. Judgment reversed and cause remanded with instructions.

The trial court did not commit plain error in its use of diagnostic criteria and in finding that Appellants' doctors failed to perform any differential diagnoses in connection with Appellant's claim to add Complex Regional Pain Syndrome as a covered condition under Workers' Compensation. Additionally, the trial court did not commit plain error by accepting as persuasive the testimony of an expert retained by the Bureau of Workers Compensation. Affirmed.