New Jersey: Golf Course Superintendent’s Tort Action for Bunkhouse Injury Barred by Exclusivity

Applying Professor Larson’s three-part test for assessing whether a special employee relationship has formed, a New Jersey appellate court found that a golf course superintendent was the employee of both a management company that operated a golf club and the golf club itself. Accordingly, the exclusive remedy provisions of the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act barred the superintendent’s civil action filed against both corporations for injuries the superintendent sustained when he fell in the living quarters that had been provided to him as part of his compensation package. Under the Larson test, when a general employer lends an employee to a special employer, the special employer becomes liable for workers’ compensation only if: (a) the employee has made a contract of hire, express or implied, with the special employer; (b) The work being done is essentially that of the special employer; and (c) The special employer has the right to control the details of the work. The court held that all three conditions were satisfied in relation to both corporations.  Both were liable for workmen’s compensation and both, therefore, could utilize the exclusivity defense.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Hanisko v. Billy Casper Golf Management, Inc., 2014 N.J. Super. LEXIS 128 (Sept. 8, 2014) [2014 N.J. Super. LEXIS 128 (Sept. 8, 2014)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 68.01 [68.01]

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

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