Court tosses negligence suit filed by murdered worker’s family
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The family of a counselor at an at-risk youth services facility who was murdered by a mentally unstable resident can’t sue the facility’s operator for negligence because the incident occurred during the course of the woman’s employment and thus falls under Virginia’s workers compensation’s exclusive remedy provision, the state Supreme Court ruled.
In 2016, Lizeth Lopez was killed by a resident at YouthQuest Independent Living in Richmond who had a history of mental health problems along with a criminal past that included the abduction and attempted rape of one of his therapists, according to documents in Gladys Lopez, as personal representative of the estate of Lizeth Lopez. v. Intercept Youth Services, Inc., filed in Richmond.
Seeking $10 million, the family of Ms. Lopez sued for negligence, alleging the facility created an unsafe work environment that included failing to ensure residents could not leave their rooms after curfew, failing to warn workers of the resident’s violent past, and failing to maintain video surveillance.
A circuit court dismissed the suit, finding that Ms. Lopez's death “had arisen out of and in the course of her employment, and thus, that her Estate's exclusive remedy was to seek benefits under the Workers' Compensation Act.”
In its ruling last Thursday confirming the district court decision, the Virginia Supreme Court agreed that Ms. Lopez’s death was within the risks of her work.
The high court said the case facts, “coupled with the allegations in the complaint, demonstrate that ‘the probability of assault was augmented either because of the particular character of (her) job or because of the special liability to assault associated with the environment in which’ she was required to work.”
