New York: Special Employer Is Immune From Tort Liability Related to Temporary Employee’s Injuries

Stating the general rule, that for purposes of the N.Y. Workers’ Compensation Law, the receipt of workers’ compensation benefits from a general employer precludes an employee from commencing a negligence action against the special employer, a New York appellate court affirmed a trial court’s order granting the defendant summary judgment where it appeared the plaintiff was an employee of a temporary staffing company and that plaintiff was injured while assisting the corporate operations manager of defendant, which had contracted with the staffing company to provide workers. The court observed that evidence submitted in support of defendant’s motion demonstrated, prima facie, that the defendant controlled and directed the manner, details, and ultimate result of the plaintiff’s work, and that the defendant was the plaintiff’s special employer. Plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact. The trial court committed no error.

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. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Wilson v. A.H. Harris & Sons, Inc., 2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 6714 (Sept. 16, 2015) [2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 6714 (Sept. 16, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 111.01 [111.01]

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

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