Public-Employee Co-Worker Gross-Negligence Claims Survive Workers’ Compensation Exclusivity, But ITCA Presentment Must Name Each Employee Defendant

Public-Employee Co-Worker Gross-Negligence Claims Survive Workers’ Compensation Exclusivity, But ITCA Presentment Must Name Each Employee Defendant

Introduction

In Sara Montague, individually, and as parent and next friend of C.M., a minor, and as the duly authorized representative of the Estate of Robert McFarland v. Beth Skinner, William Sperfslage, Samantha Tucker-Sieberg, Sarah Holder, Daniel Clark, Jeremy Larson, Michael Heinricy, Chad Kerker, Scott Eschen, Brian Tracy, Robert Hartig, Josh Baal, Tracy Dietsch, Jeremy Burds, Jon Day, Lucas Fowler, the Iowa Supreme Court addressed whether Iowa workers’ compensation law and the Iowa Tort Claims Act (ITCA) block (or limit) common-law gross-negligence claims brought by the surviving spouse of a state corrections officer killed during an Anamosa State Penitentiary escape attempt.

The plaintiff, Sara Montague, alleged that multiple Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC) co-employees committed “gross negligence” by allowing inmates to access tools from the machine shop and enter the infirmary armed, resulting in the murder of Officer Robert McFarland (and a nurse, Lorena Schulte). The defendants—former co-employees—moved to dismiss, arguing (1) heightened pleading/qualified immunity, (2) workers’ compensation exclusivity for public employees under Iowa Code section 85.2, and (3) failure to exhaust ITCA administrative procedures.

Summary of the Opinion

  • Qualified-immunity heightened pleading: Iowa Code section 669.14A(3) does not apply to common-law claims; it therefore could not support dismissal.
  • Appellate posture: Because section 669.14A did not apply, the appeal was not “as of right” under section 669.14A(4), but the Court treated the notice of appeal as an application for interlocutory review and granted it.
  • Workers’ compensation exclusivity: Iowa Code section 85.2 does not bar public-employee gross-negligence claims against co-employees; chapter 85 applies to government employment “as a whole,” including the gross-negligence carveout in section 85.20(2).
  • ITCA presentment limits defendants: Under Iowa Admin. r. 543—1.4(1), an administrative claim against employees must state the “name of the employee,” so Montague may litigate only against those co-employees identified as at-fault in the administrative claims.
  • Disposition: Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded—claims proceed only against the employees previously identified in the ITCA presentment.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

1) Standard of review / motion to dismiss

  • Venckus v. City of Iowa City, 930 N.W.2d 792 (Iowa 2019): Cited for the proposition that rulings on motions to dismiss are reviewed for correction of legal error.

2) Qualified immunity and heightened pleading provisions do not apply to common-law claims

  • Doe v. W. Dubuque Cmty. Sch. Dist., 20 N.W.3d 798 (Iowa 2025): Held qualified immunity defenses under the IMTCA do not apply to state common-law claims; used here by analogy to the ITCA’s parallel provisions.
  • Fogle & Fogle ex rel. P.F. v. Clay Elementary Sch.-Se. Polk Cmty. Sch. Dist., 27 N.W.3d 538 (Iowa 2025): Reinforced that IMTCA qualified immunity does not apply to common-law tort claims; also provided the Court’s recent practice of dismissing an appeal lacking jurisdiction when an “as of right” immunity appeal is unavailable—distinguished here because other controlling legal issues warranted interlocutory review.
  • City of Davenport v. Am. Family (In re Davenport Hotel Bldg. Collapse), 27 N.W.3d 270 (Iowa 2025): Same doctrinal point; cited as part of the trilogy.

3) Converting an improper appeal into an interlocutory proceeding

  • State v. T.J.W., 2 N.W.3d 853 (Iowa 2024): Example of treating a notice of appeal as a different vehicle for review (petition for certiorari) and granting it.
  • MC Holdings, L.L.C. v. Davis Cnty. Bd. of Rev., 830 N.W.2d 325 (Iowa 2013): Example of treating a notice of appeal as an interlocutory appeal.
  • Banco Mortg. Co. v. Steil, 351 N.W.2d 784 (Iowa 1984) (en banc): Interlocutory review is appropriate when sound and efficient judicial administration is served—especially with a controlling, previously undecided issue of law.

4) Workers’ compensation exclusivity and the co-employee gross-negligence exception

  • Mehmedovic v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 21 N.W.3d 412 (Iowa 2025): Cited for the general framework of section 85.20—workers’ compensation exclusivity with the section 85.20(2) gross-negligence carveout for co-employee claims.
  • Gourley v. Nielson, 318 N.W.2d 160 (Iowa 1982): Identified the 1974 amendment extinguishing ordinary negligence co-employee claims while preserving gross-negligence claims.
  • Terry v. Dorothy, 950 N.W.2d 246 (Iowa 2020): Confirmed that gross-negligence co-employee claims “survived” and are not within the scope of the workers’ compensation statutes’ exclusivity.
  • Smith v. Iowa State Univ. of Sci. & Tech., 851 N.W.2d 1 (Iowa 2014): Recognized section 85.20(2) applicability in a state-employment setting and held certain co-employee claims exempt from IWCA exclusivity even where ITCA substitution applies.
  • McGill v. Fish, 790 N.W.2d 113 (Iowa 2010): Key support for the Court’s conclusion that state-employee gross-negligence co-employee claims exist (i.e., are “exempted” from workers’ compensation by section 85.20(2)), while also requiring ITCA exhaustion.
  • Allied Mut. Ins. v. State, 473 N.W.2d 24 (Iowa 1991): Applied section 85.20(2) “protection from liability” to a state co-employee absent proof of gross negligence, reinforcing that the gross-negligence framework governs state co-employee liability.
  • State v. Hall, 969 N.W.2d 299 (Iowa 2022): Used for interpretive method—statutory titles can be considered in interpreting text.

5) ITCA presentment, rule-based claim requirements, and purposes

  • Anderson v. State, 2 N.W.3d 807 (Iowa 2024): Central to enforcing state appeal board rules on claim content and “separate claim” requirements; applied here by analogy to defendants (not just plaintiffs)—if rules require certain identification, noncompliance limits who may sue/whom may be sued.
  • Swanger v. State, 445 N.W.2d 344 (Iowa 1989): Quoted in Anderson for the principle that a claim meeting prescribed form-and-content rules is “properly presented.”
  • Voss v. State (In re Estate of Voss), 553 N.W.2d 878 (Iowa 1996): Cited for the purpose of administrative presentment—prompt investigation and facilitating early settlement—used by the district court but narrowed by the Supreme Court as not resolving the specific “must-name-employees” requirement.
  • Doe v. New Lond. Comm. Sch. Dist., 848 N.W.2d 347 (Iowa 2014): Cited to support the general point that the legislature can enact more restrictive limitations for governmental defendants; used in discussing the practical burdens of ITCA procedures.

Legal Reasoning

1) Section 669.14A does not screen common-law claims

The Court extended its recent IMTCA holdings to the ITCA: because the qualified-immunity scheme (and its heightened pleading standards) does not apply to common-law claims, it cannot be used as a dismissal device here. This doctrinal move prevents government defendants from importing statutory immunity pleading screens into cases that proceed under common-law theories (even if the defendant is a state employee and the ITCA supplies procedures and substitution).

2) Interlocutory review despite lack of “as of right” immunity appeal

Once section 669.14A fell out, the statutory right to immediate appeal fell out with it. Rather than dismiss, the Court exercised procedural flexibility (Iowa R. App. P. 6.151(1)) because the case presented controlling threshold legal issues already decided by the district court and fully briefed—especially the novel claim that section 85.2 eliminates the gross-negligence co-employee carveout for public workers.

3) Workers’ compensation for public employees is mandatory—but not more exclusive than section 85.20

The opinion’s core statutory holding is that Iowa Code section 85.2 does not erase section 85.20(2)’s express permission for gross-negligence co-employee claims. The Court reasoned:

  • Textual structure: Section 85.2 does not itself define remedies “exclusive” in the sense of barring all other claims; rather, it says the chapter’s “provisions … for the payment of compensation and amount thereof” are “exclusive, compulsory, and obligatory” for government employers/employees—i.e., mandatory participation in the workers’ compensation system.
  • Chapter-wide coherence: Reading section 85.2 as barring co-employee gross-negligence claims would conflict with section 85.61(3)’s definition of “employer” (which includes the state and local governments) and thus with section 85.20(2)’s reference to “any other employee of such employer.”
  • Avoiding untenable consequences: The defendants’ reading risked implying that public employees could not sue even private third parties for work injuries (a result the defendants attempted to avoid by recharacterization as a sovereign-immunity limitation). The Court rejected that interpretive instability.
  • Historical function: Section 85.2 traces to 1913, when most private employers could reject coverage; government employers could not. Section 85.2’s “compulsory” nature historically ensured coverage applied to government work—an origin inconsistent with using section 85.2 today to extinguish the gross-negligence carveout.
  • Caselaw gravity: Prior cases (Smith, McGill, Allied Mut. Ins.) had proceeded on the assumption that state-employee co-employee gross-negligence claims exist; the Court found it unlikely that a century-old statute silently eliminated them.

4) ITCA presentment: “name the employee” means “name each employee you later sue”

The Court drew a direct line from the administrative rule’s command to litigation scope. Under Iowa Admin. r. 543—1.4(1), a claim “shall” state whether it is against an employee or the state, and if against an employee “the name of the employee and the department where employed shall be stated.” Treating rule compliance as a condition of exhaustion, the Court held:

  • Montague’s narrative made clear she asserted co-employee gross-negligence claims (with only derivative state liability via ITCA substitution), so checking an extra box on an optional form did not defeat presentment.
  • But Montague could proceed only against those employees she identified as at-fault in the administrative claim; adding additional employee defendants later fails exhaustion as to those individuals.

Impact

1) Preservation of a significant remedy for public employees

The decision rejects a categorical public-sector carveout from section 85.20(2). Public employees (and their representatives) retain the same basic statutory pathway private employees have: workers’ compensation is exclusive as to the employer, but gross-negligence claims against co-employees remain available.

2) A strict defendant-identification rule at the presentment stage

The more consequential day-to-day effect may be procedural: plaintiffs must identify, by name, each state employee they intend to sue for gross negligence in the ITCA administrative claim. Practically, this increases front-end investigative pressure and raises the stakes of incomplete information (especially where relevant facts are held by government entities).

3) Litigation strategy and institutional behavior

  • Claim drafting: Counsel will likely err on the side of naming all plausible employees, given the risk that later-discovered actors cannot be added.
  • Agency incentives: Agencies may face increased pressure to disclose information pre-suit because the “must-name” rule makes early access to facts outcome-determinative.
  • Procedural framing: Defendants may more frequently challenge ITCA exhaustion on a defendant-by-defendant basis (not merely claim-by-claim).

Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Workers’ compensation “exclusivity”: Generally, if you are injured at work, you cannot sue your employer in tort; you receive workers’ compensation benefits instead (Iowa Code § 85.20(1)).
  • Co-employee “gross negligence” exception: Iowa still allows a narrow tort suit against a co-worker when the co-worker’s conduct is not just careless but “gross negligence amounting to … wanton neglect for the safety of another” (Iowa Code § 85.20(2)).
  • Section 85.2 (“exclusive, compulsory, and obligatory”): This case clarifies that, for government work, workers’ compensation coverage is mandatory—section 85.2 does not silently eliminate the section 85.20(2) carveout.
  • ITCA “presentment” / exhaustion: Before suing under the ITCA framework, a claimant must file an administrative claim and comply with state appeal board rules. Here, that compliance includes naming each employee defendant in the administrative claim if the claim is “against an employee.”
  • Interlocutory appeal: An appeal before the case is finally decided. The Court treated the attempted immunity appeal as an interlocutory application to resolve controlling legal issues efficiently.

Conclusion

The Iowa Supreme Court’s opinion establishes two linked rules with major practical consequences: (1) Iowa Code section 85.2 does not bar public employees (or their survivors) from pursuing section 85.20(2) gross-negligence claims against co-employees; but (2) the ITCA administrative presentment rules, specifically Iowa Admin. r. 543—1.4(1), limit litigation to the employee defendants named in the administrative claim. The result preserves the substantive remedy while tightening the procedural gateway—making early, accurate identification of state-employee defendants a decisive feature of future public-employee gross-negligence litigation.

Case Details

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