Mosby
Mosby v. Liberty Mutual Insurance
Opinion
Opinion
Sills, J.
I. INTRODUCTION
Freddie Curtis Mosby and his wife Sheri Mosby have sued his employer, Best Buy, and his employer’s workers’ compensation insurer, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, for malicious prosecution and loss of consortium in the wake of Liberty Mutual’s reporting Mosby to the local district attorney for workers’ compensation insurance fraud. (Criminal fraud charges against Mosby were dismissed after the preliminary hearing.) This case comes to us after the trial court sustained demurrers to the complaint without leave to amend.
We will affirm the judgment in favor of Best Buy. The little involvement that Best Buy has with this case was clearly a part of normal workers’ compensation claims processing and therefore barred under the exclusivity provisions of the workers’ compensation laws. (See generally Charles J. Vacanti, M.D., Inc. v. State Comp. Ins. Fund (2001) 24 Cal.4th 800 [102 Cal.Rptr.2d. 562, 14 P.3d 234 ].) Best Buy never stepped out of its role as employer. (See Unruh v. Truck Insurance Exchange (1972) 7 Cal.3d 616, 630 [ 102 Cal.Rptr. 815 , 498 P.2d 1063 ] [origin of the “role” metaphor for workers’ compensation exclusivity analysis].)