Kentucky: Staffing Company Cannot Be Penalized for Host Company’s Safety Violations

The Supreme Court of Kentucky held that a temporary staffing company could not be made to pay the 30 percent enhancement of workers’ compensation benefits due to the injured worker because of significant safety violations by the host (hiring) company since there was no evidence that it had knowledge of, approved of, directed, or acquiesced in the host company’s actions. The worker was involved in a work-related accident that resulted in the amputation of his left arm above the elbow. He had only been on the job five days and there was clear evidence that a centrifuge machine had been altered by the host company to allow workers access to its parts while the machine was operating. The Court noted that the facts were quite similar to those in Jones v. Aerotek Staffing, 303 S.W.3d 488 (Ky. App. 2010), wherein the state’s Court of Appeals had declined to award enhanced benefits to a temporary staffing employee. The Court reasoned that there had been plenty of time for the legislature to change the law, if that was its desire.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Maysey v. Express Servs., 2021 Ky. LEXIS 123 (Mar. 25, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, §§ 67.01, 67.01.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

Sign up for the free LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation enewsletter at www.lexisnexis.com/wcnews.