The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that a multimillion-dollar arbitration award against an employer in a worker death case does not bar other defendants from facing a lawsuit stemming from the same workplace fatality.
The high court, in Hodges v. Walinga USA Inc., determined that the state’s “one-action” rule, which generally requires defendants in tort cases to be consolidated into a single lawsuit when facing similar allegations, doesn’t apply when plaintiffs recover damages through an arbitrator’s decision as opposed to a judicial outcome.
The case involved a worker who died from asphyxiation after being engulfed in a corn silo in 2019. The man’s estate sued the employer, Butts Farms LLC, as well as Walinga USA Inc., the manufacturer of the grain vacuum system that allegedly failed and contributed to the death.
An arbitrator awarded the estate $5 million for pain and suffering, $7 million for economic damages and wrongful death, and $250,000 for bereavement and loss of companionship. The award was solely against Butts.
Walinga sought dismissal from the litigation, asserting the suit against them was barred by the “one-action” rule. It argued the arbitration proceeding was a judicial action that barred further claims involving the same allegations.
The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling an arbitration award is “extrajudicial” and that the confirmation of an arbitration award by a state court also doesn’t qualify as a “judicial determination.”