New York: Construction Worker Fails to Show that Plaintiff’s Employer Was a Borrowing or Special Employer

A New York appellate court held there was conflicting evidence as to whether the plaintiff’s employer had the right to exercise control over a construction worker who was performing sheetrock work at the employer’s premises. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it refused to grant a summary judgment motion filed by the defendant sheetrock worker who had been sued by the plaintiff for injuries she sustained when she was struck by a sheetrock panel. The appellate court acknowledged that the plaintiff could not maintain a civil action against the construction worker if he was properly characterized as a special employee of the plaintiff’s own employer. The court agreed, however, that the defendant had failed to make a prima facie showing that he was under the purported special employer’s control. The issue would move forward for determination by the trial court.

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 Leonard v. Wenz, 2021 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3747 (2d Dept., June 10, 2021)

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

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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