## Facts

- Carlton Whitaker worked as a garbage collector for the Town of Scotland Neck.
- On July 30, 1997, Whitaker’s crew used garbage truck No. 84 to empty a dumpster at Hobgood Academy.
- While the truck’s mechanical arms were lifting the dumpster, the latching mechanism intended to secure the dumpster to the truck failed.
- The dumpster swung toward Whitaker and crushed him against the truck.
- Whitaker remained conscious and able to speak after the accident, received hospital treatment, and died 28 days later from the crush injury.
- The Town’s safety director, C.T. Hasty, conducted an internal investigation and determined that the truck’s latching mechanism had been broken for at least two months and that the dumpster was bent.
- The broken latch and bent dumpster had been reported to a supervisor, but the condition was not corrected before the accident.
- The investigation concluded that the broken latch and bent dumpster directly caused the incident.
- The North Carolina Department of Labor’s Division of Occupational Health and Safety also found the broken and bent equipment to be the proximate cause of Whitaker’s injuries and issued five serious safety violations to the Town.
- Whitaker’s estate, through co-administrators, sued the Town, Hasty, and the Town’s public-works superintendent, Douglas Braddy, alleging gross negligence.
- Defendants argued the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act provided the exclusive remedy, barring the civil action.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence could support a finding that defendants engaged in intentional misconduct substantially certain to cause serious injury or death, allowing a tort claim under the Woodson exception despite workers’ compensation exclusivity.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated summary judgment for the Town, Hasty, and Braddy.
- The court held that, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the estate, defendants’ conduct did not meet Woodson’s demanding “substantial certainty” requirement.
- The court concluded that the record at most showed negligence or gross negligence in failing to fix known hazards, which is insufficient to escape the Act’s exclusive-remedy bar.

## Legal Principles

- The North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act generally provides the exclusive remedy against an employer for workplace injury or death.
- A narrow exception exists under *Woodson v. Rowland* when an employer commits intentional misconduct knowing it is substantially certain to cause serious injury or death; the claim is treated as akin to an intentional tort.
- Knowledge of a dangerous condition, failure to repair, prior complaints, and safety citations may support negligence or gross negligence but do not, without more, establish that serious injury or death was substantially certain.
- If the evidence, taken as true for the nonmoving party, cannot meet Woodson’s substantial-certainty standard, summary judgment is proper.

## Conclusion

Because the estate’s evidence showed at most serious safety failures—continued use of a truck with a broken latch and a bent dumpster, despite notice and later safety violations—but did not show intentional misconduct with knowledge that serious injury or death was substantially certain to occur, the Workers’ Compensation Act’s exclusivity provision barred the tort suit, and summary judgment for defendants was reinstated.


Whitaker v. Town of Scotland Neck, 597 S.E.2d 665 (2003)