Wisconsin: Borrowing Employer May Be Sued in Tort by Injured "Employee"

Holding that a borrowing employer is not always the “employer” of a worker assigned to it by a temporary help agency, at least for purposes of the exclusive remedy provisions of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act, a Wisconsin appellate court held the injured worker could sue the temporary or borrowing employer in tort for injuries sustained on the job. The court stressed that under the plain language of  Wis. Stat. § 102.29(6)(b)1., a temporary employee could seek workers’ compensation benefits from the temporary employer and if the employee took that route, his or her tort action against the temporary employer would be barred. On the other hand, where no workers’ compensation benefits had been sought from the temporary employer, the temporary worker was free to elect a civil action as for his or her remedy for any alleged injuries.

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 Ehr v. West Bend Mut. Ins. Co. (In re Estate of Rivera), 2018 Wisc. App. LEXIS 16 (Jan. 9, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 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