Louisiana’s Exclusive Remedy Rule

State Snapshot

State Snapshot		Louisiana
Exclusive Remedy Rule

BASIC RULE

In Louisiana, the Workers’ Compensation Act provides the exclusive remedy for employees injured in the course and scope of employment.

This means that employers are immune to their employees’ tort lawsuits. Employees cannot sue their employers (or their coworkers) for negligence, personal injury, emotional distress, etc. over their work-related injuries. La. R.S.-LSA 23:1032.

ELEMENTS FOR RULE TO APPLY

Three elements must be present for the rule to take effect:

1. The injured party must be an “employee” within the meaning of the WCA;
2. The injury must arise out of and in the course of employment; and
3. The employer must be within the scope of the WCA.

INTENTIONAL TORT EXCEPTION

An injured employee may sue the employer if the injury resulted from an intentional act by the employer or by a co-employee.

To act intentionally, one of these two things must be true:

1. The employer desired the injury; or 
2. The employer was substantially certain the injury would occur.

DUAL CAPACITY DOCTRINE EXCEPTION

This exception, which Louisiana courts rarely apply, involves the situation where the employer occupies a separate role unrelated to that employment. An example is a product manufacturer whose defective product injures the employee.

STATUTORY EMPLOYEE RULE 

A worker who is not a direct employee of a company but works for a subcontractor is considered a “statutory employee” of the company, meaning he is an employee of the company for workers’ compensation purposes. As a result, the exclusivity rule would also apply, preventing that worker from suing the company in tort for an injury that occurred in the course and scope of his employment for the subcontractor.

THIRD-PARTIES

Employees can still sue third parties (e.g., equipment manufacturers, negligent drivers) whose negligence caused or contributed to their injury while also collecting workers’ compensation from their current employer

RECENT CASES

Zamora v. Equillon Enterprises, LLC, No. 24-CA-507 (La. Ct. App. 04/15/25) 

Two employees were severely burned when hot steam spewed from a vent. The accident was likely the result of a clog in the piping. The employees sued the company for personal injuries, saying the company knew about past incidents but failed to repair the equipment. They argued that the intentional tort exception to the exclusivity rule applied. The court found that they didn’t meet the strict standard for establishing an intentional tort. The employees never showed that the particular piece of equipment that injured them had any history of releasing hot condensate without warning. Further, the other incidents didn’t even involve this exact type of equipment, and some did not result in injury. Given the scope of the company’s operations, a handful of similar incidents over the course of several years didn’t show that it was "substantially certain" that the particular vent in this case would get clogged, release condensate, and injure someone.

Mendoza v. H&O Investments, LLC, No. 2024 CA 1241 (La. Ct. App. 08/05/25) 

The employee, while working for H&O Investments, was allegedly injured when his left foot was caught underneath a riding lawnmower being operated by a coworker. He sued H&O in tort. He claimed that H&O was "liable for an intentional tort by knowingly removing the guards on its lawn mowers because [H&O] knew that physical injury was substantially certain to follow." The trial court dismissed the case, reasoning that workers’ compensation was the employee’s sole remedy. The appeals court reversed. Because the employee properly pled a cause of action for an intentional tort against his employer, it said, the trial court erred in dismissing the claim.

Goodall v. Barber Brothers’ Contracting Co., LLC, No. 24-1485 (E.D. La. 08/03/25)

The employee could continue with his tort action against a contracting company that allegedly ordered him to operate equipment in an unsafe, confined space, despite being aware of the risks and the high likelihood of injury. The court held that the employee’s allegations were sufficient to proceed because they met the "substantially certain" standard for an intentional act at the pleading stage.

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