Federal: Kentucky Widow May Not Sue Staffing Company Regarding Employee/Husband’s Death

The widow and the estate of a construction worker may not pursue a wrongful death action against a construction staffing company regarding the worker’s death in a work-related accident where the worker interviewed directly with one of the staffing company’s clients, completed an application on forms that had been supplied by the staffing company, and was killed on the second day of work when he fell down an elevator shaft, before his application had actually been forwarded to the staffing company for review. The court found convincing the staffing company’s two-prong argument: (a) that the deceased was not its employee, so the company owed no duty to him; and (b) if the deceased was its employee, the exclusive-remedy provision of the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act barred the wrongful death claims.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Marquez-Warner v. Civil Action No. 3, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131044 (W.D.Ky., Sept. 26, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 111.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law