Workplace violence, and liability for it, have long been twin nightmares for the American employer. The awful possibility that an employee with access to the workplace would go berserk because of some real or imagined slight, and attack people in a place where they spend more waking time than they do their homes is the stuff of human resource managers' worst dreams. To then be sued after such an event is almost as bad, because it lays the blame for the deaths of coworkers squarely at the door of the employer.
Such a case is Thacker, etc. v. DaimlerChrysler Corporation, et al., No. 05-CV-7285 (September 24, 2007), a recent decision out of a federal court in Ohio. On a terrifying evening in January, 2005, at Chrysler's Toledo North Assembly Plant, an employee named Meyers used his employee access card to enter the facility. Under his hooded jacket he was carrying a 20 gauge shotgun that he suspended from his body using a wire harness and cushioned with a pink stuffed animal. Meyers then entered the supervisor office area by going through a door that had been wedged open with its bolt taped so that employees did not need a supervisor level access card to enter. After forcing a supervisor to radio his victims to come to the office, Meyers shot and killed one person and wounded two others before taking his own life. The murdered employee's wife sued, and the company attempted to defend by claiming a workers compensation bar to the negligence suit. Typically, workers compensation covers all injuries at work absent a showing of a deliberate act by the employer with the intent to injure the employee, or a showing that the employer knew of a dangerous process (where injury was almost certain) and required the employee to work in its presence anyway.
Using Ohio law in effect at the time (the standard has now been revised by statute), the Court determined that a situation where an employer has or might have knowledge of a person who is a threat creates a duty for the company to defend its employees. Of course, the $64,000 question in this entire matter is what constitutes "knowledge". Short of actual death threats, there is typically enough emotional back and forth between employees and/or supervisors that such activities would not set off any alarm bells.
In this case, Meyers, a 22 year employee, had a list of allegations against him that, unfortunately, are not particularly uncommon in the American workplace. His girlfriend complained to at least one supervisor that Meyers used drugs, made threats and verbally and physically abused her; he had several warnings for absenteeism; he had allegations of drug use on the job; a report from a longtime friend and another coworker stated that he needed behavioral assistance; Meyers made accusations of wrongdoing against a supervisor that were later found to be untrue; he had been reprimanded for poor performance; and he had disagreements with his coworkers, in one case threatening to "kick" another worker's "ass". Meyers served three years in prison for various offenses prior to his employment. Unknown to Chrysler, Meyers had been charged with possession of a loaded gun in his vehicle and was awaiting sentencing on this charge at the time he committed the murders.
While Meyers' preliminary conduct in this case was problematic, I don't believe the employer should be held to a standard that requires a crystal ball, which is what the court seems to say here. Upon reviewing the so-called indicators presented by the shooter, I would suggest that an employer terminating an employee based on those factors would have a different type of lawsuit on its hands--for disability discrimination, at a minimum. The biggest problem here seems to be that there was no single place where all of this knowledge about Meyers was collected so that someone could look at his behavior issues in their entirety.
This is a tough case for employers. However, it serves again to reinforce the idea that workplace safety involves more than just protecting people from the machinery.
Additional Note: Interestingly, in a case involving one of the other shooting victims, the federal court found that there was no liability for Chrysler because the record of the employee did not indicate violent tendencies which created the duty to defend noted above. See Medlen, et al. v. Meyers, et al.