Case Summary: Jones v. County of Erie, No. 971 CA 13-01845, 10/03/2014
The county of Erie hired American Site Developers to serve as the general contractor for a storm damage clean up project. American Site Developers further subcontracted the company Malcolm Pirnie to oversee the work. An employee of Malcolm Pirnie fell out of a tree and was injured.
The employee proceeded to sue the County(client), American Site Developers and Malcolm Pirnie for negligence and violations of Labor Law Sections 200, 240 (1) and 241 (6).
The court agreed that since the defendants had established that they did not have supervisory control and the manner in which he performed his work, the employee’s complaint was dismissed. The court also reasoned that there are inherent dangers in tree-trimming work and these dangers were not created by the county, American Site Developers or Malcolm Pirnie.
Why the client wasn’t negligent – Absent any evidence that the county gave anything more than general instructions as to what needed to be done, as opposed to how to do it, they cannot be held liable under Labor Law § 200 or for common-law negligence.
In addition, plaintiff’s contention is premised on the fact that a County employee informed him that he had to cut one remaining damaged branch if he wished to be paid for that tree. As the County points out, however, the dangers attendant to climbing the tree were inherent in the work itself and not created by the employee’s directive.
Why ASD & Malcom Pirnie weren’t negligent – Plaintiff acknowledged during his deposition that he never took any instruction from employees of those two parties.
How does this affect your business?
This case can be a precedent in this line of work. The employee is indeed eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. However, in this case, it becomes evident that an employee is unable to sue the client for such claims due to the fact that the client is not under this particular liability. This can be an essential factor not only from a legal perspective for companies in this area of high risk, such as tree-trimming but also as a marketing aspect for companies pitching their business to clients, expressing that such claims will not be applicable when completing a job such as tree-trimming.
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