Under current California law, if an employee is injured while performing services related to and within the course of their employment, the injured employee can recover for their injury only through a workers’ compensation claim (absent narrow exceptions). See Labor Code Section 3600(a). In other words, injured employees generally do not have a legal basis to assert civil claims in a lawsuit against their employer in order to seek monetary damages for a workplace injury. This policy of workers’ compensation exclusive remedies helps to ensure that employees will receive coverage from their employers for workplace injuries, through the employers’ workers’ compensation insurance. Moreover, this policy traditionally prevents employers from being hit with expensive negligence lawsuits for violence that occurs wholly outside of the employers’ control. However, two New York courts considering the issue of mass shootings may have begun to shake up this status quo.

Recently, in Matter of Timperio v. Bronx-Lebanon Hosp., 2022 WL 320641 (N.Y. App. Div. Feb. 3, 2022), a New York state appellate court issued a ruling that potentially changes the landscape of workers’ compensation coverage for random acts of violence (e.g., mass shootings). In that case, a former physician at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital (“the Hospital”), resigned from the Hospital following a sexual harassment allegation. More than two years later, on June 30, 2017, he entered the Hospital carrying a loaded AR-15 rifle and...

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