Elkins v. Carroll

Jason Elkins and his wife Paula appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Stanley Maguire, Gabriel Collins, and Jeff Carroll. TDY Industries, LLC ("TDY"), hired Jason as a screener operator in 1998. Jason Elkins operated various pieces of machinery in the course of his employment, including a "manipulator." While he was operating the manipulator to dump powder from a drum, the manipulator rose and hit him under the chin and then descended and hit him in the head. Jason filed a workers' compensation action against TDY seeking benefits for his work-related injury. He later amended his complaint to add Paula as a plaintiff and to sue his co-workers Maguire, Collins and Carroll based upon the theory that the co-employees removed a safety device and that the removal of that safety device proximately caused Jason's injury. The trial court granted TDY's motion to dismiss counts two through five of the Elkinses' complaint as amended as to TDY. On that same day, the trial court entered a summary judgment in favor of the co-employees as to count two of the Elkinses' amended complaint. The trial court certified the judgment as to count two as final pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P. After the trial court entered its Rule 54(b) order, and the Elkinses appealed the summary judgment in favor of the co-employees. The Alabama Supreme Court remanded the case back to the trial court: (1) for the trial court to make an interlocutory order of December 28, 2015, a final judgment as to the co-employees relative to counts three, four, and five pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P.; (2) for the trial court to adjudicate the remaining claims against all parties, thus making the interlocutory order of December 28, 2015, final and appealable; or (3) for the trial court to take no action, in which event the appeal would be dismissed as being from a nonfinal judgment. View "Elkins v. Carroll" on Justia Law