A woman walks past See's Candies inside the Stonestown Galleria on Aug. 1, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. A state appeals court ruled Tuesday that the family of a man who died from COVID-19 that he caught from his wife, who was exposed at her job at a See’s Candy packing plant in Los Angeles County, can sue her employer for damages.

The family of a man who died from COVID-19 that he caught from his wife, who was exposed at work, can sue her employer for damages, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday, saying household members are not bound by the limits placed on employees by California’s workers’ compensation law.

Workers’ compensation repays employees, and their dependents, for financial losses caused by injuries or illnesses they suffered at work, but does not include damages for pain and suffering or emotional distress from the loss of a loved one. In Tuesday’s case, the Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said an employer whose negligence injures or kills an employee can be sued by family members for any harm they suffered.

“When a person suffers a disabling or lethal injury, the harms they suffer from that injury necessarily extend beyond the injured person to those who love and/or depend on that person,” Justice Helen Bendix said in the 3-0 ruling.

It was apparently the first decision by a California appellate court on an employer’s responsibility for coronavirus that a worker transmitted to family members.

Matilda Ek worked in a See’s Candies packing plant in Los Angeles County and said in her suit that the company crowded workers close to one another, including some who were coughing and sneezing, after the start of the pandemic. She became ill in March 2020 and was cared for at home by her husband, Martin Ek, and one of their daughters, who both were diagnosed with COVID a few weeks later, the suit said. Martin Ek died in April 2020.

See’s, supported by filings from state and nationwide business organizations, sought to dismiss the suit. The company argued that under workers’ compensation law, it was responsible only for workers’ compensation coverage of injuries or illnesses suffered by its employees at work and not for harm to others, even if they were infected by an employee.

The appeals court disagreed, upholding a Superior Court judge’s refusal to dismiss the case. The court said workers’ compensation, which does not require proof of negligence, applies only to losses suffered by the injured worker and any resulting financial harm to family members. Non-employees who suffer their own injuries as a result of the employer’s alleged misconduct can sue for damages, including a relative’s wrongful death, the court said.

If the court accepted the company’s argument, Bendix observed in the ruling, it would have to shield employers from damage claims by bus passengers infected by an employee who had unknowingly contracted an illness at work.

She cited the state Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling allowing a suit against an employer by a child who suffered brain damage before birth when her pregnant mother was exposed to carbon monoxide from a defective floor-buffing machine at work. In a 2016 case, the state’s high court said that when employees came home from work with asbestos dust on their clothing, and their family members later came down with cancer, the employer could be sued for damages.

This May, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney of San Francisco dismissed a similar suit by a San Francisco woman who said she was hospitalized with COVID-19 that her husband, a construction worker, had caught on the job. But the appeals court said the ruling was not binding on state courts and did not state reasons for the dismissal.

Lawyers for See’s Candies declined to comment on the ruling, which they could appeal to the state Supreme Court. Lawyers for the family could not be reached for comment.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko

Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.

His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.