## Facts

- Longtime employees at du Pont’s Chambers Works plant experienced prolonged workplace asbestos exposure and later developed asbestos-related disease.
- Du Pont operated an in-house medical department whose physicians performed periodic examinations, including chest X-rays and pulmonary tests.
- Plaintiffs alleged testing revealed asbestos-related abnormalities, but they were told they were healthy and returned to work.
- Plaintiffs asserted two employer-related tort theories: (1) du Pont intentionally concealed asbestos dangers and continued exposing workers; and (2) du Pont and its physicians fraudulently concealed known asbestos-related diagnoses, causing further exposure that aggravated existing conditions.
- Plaintiffs’ asbestos injuries were otherwise compensable under the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA).
- Trial court entered summary judgment for du Pont and the company physicians on the tort claims as barred by WCA exclusivity; the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether WCA exclusivity bars tort claims against an employer based on alleged intentional workplace asbestos exposure occurring as part of ordinary operations.
2. Whether WCA exclusivity bars tort claims alleging fraudulent concealment of asbestos-related diagnoses that caused aggravation of employees’ conditions through continued exposure.
3. Whether WCA exclusivity bars similar claims against employer-retained physicians alleged to have participated in the concealment.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for du Pont on the “deliberate exposure” theory, holding it fell within the WCA’s exclusivity bar.
- The court reversed summary judgment on the fraudulent concealment/aggravation theory against du Pont and its physicians and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court treated the alleged post-diagnosis deception as potentially outside the compensation bargain and therefore within the WCA’s intentional-wrong exception.

## Legal Principles

- The WCA generally provides the exclusive remedy for work-related injuries arising out of and in the course of employment, reflecting a trade-off of no-fault compensation for employer immunity from civil suit.
- The WCA does not bar suits for an employer’s “intentional wrong,” construed narrowly to avoid eroding the statutory compromise.
- An “intentional wrong” analysis requires:
  - conduct more culpable than negligence or gross negligence, including conduct undertaken with knowledge that injury is substantially certain to occur; and
  - a contextual showing that the resulting injury and its manner of occurrence are not a normal incident of industrial employment and are plainly beyond what the Legislature contemplated within the WCA bargain.
- Continuing exposure to a known workplace hazard, without a qualitatively different intentional act, generally remains within WCA exclusivity even if the employer’s safety practices are egregious.
- Alleged intentional, fraudulent concealment of medical findings that results in aggravation of an existing occupational disease may constitute a separate intentional wrong outside WCA exclusivity, including as to participating company physicians.

## Conclusion

The court drew a line between injuries attributable to workplace asbestos exposure—treated as within workers’ compensation exclusivity—and separate, alleged intentional deception by an employer and its physicians that concealed diagnoses and caused aggravation of disease, which could proceed as an intentional-tort claim outside the WCA.


Millison v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 501 A.2d 505 (N.J. 1985)