ACCU FAB & CONST., INC. v. Ladner

778 So. 2d 766, 2001 WL 171326
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 22, 2001
Docket96-CT-00692-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 778 So. 2d 766 (ACCU FAB & CONST., INC. v. Ladner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
ACCU FAB & CONST., INC. v. Ladner, 778 So. 2d 766, 2001 WL 171326 (Mich. 2001).

Opinion

778 So.2d 766 (2001)

ACCU-FAB & CONSTRUCTION, INC. and Roy Anderson Corporation,
v.
Richard G. LADNER, Deceased, by and Through Beverly Ladner, His Widow, as his Personal Representative.

No. 96-CT-00692-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

February 22, 2001.

*767 Raymond Brown, Pascagoula, Kelly Sessoms, Michael Ulmer, Jackson, Frank Wood, James O. Dukes, Karen K. Sawyer, Gulfport, Attorneys for Appellants.

Paul Minor, Mark Lumpkin, Biloxi, Attorneys for Appellee.

EN BANC.

PITTMAN, Chief Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. Richard G. Ladner, a subcontractor's employee, was working on the roof of a casino barge when he fell through a hole in the roof and later died from his injuries. A jury awarded his heirs $2 million in damages against the general contractor and another of its subcontractors. On appeal, the Court of Appeals initially reversed and remanded the judgment based on the jury verdict. The Court of Appeals then granted rehearing and affirmed. The general contractor and the subcontractor each filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari which we granted. Finding that the Court of Appeals did not err in affirming the judgment, we also affirm.

FACTS

¶ 2. Boomtown, Inc., hired Roy Anderson Corporation ("Anderson") as a general contractor in November of 1993 to construct the Boomtown Casino located in Biloxi, Mississippi. Anderson chose to subcontract a good portion of the work. Among the subcontractors were Accu-Fab & Construction, Inc. ("Accu-Fab"), a metal fabricator, and Bracken Construction Co. ("Bracken"), which employed Ladner as an iron worker.

¶ 3. Accu-Fab was subcontracted to construct the stairwells and stringers on the barge. Accu-Fab requested that Anderson not install the roof decking until the stairs had been installed. However, as a result of time constraints in the construction, Anderson denied the request and went ahead and decked the entire roof. Accu-Fab sought and obtained permission from Anderson to cut a hole in the roof in order to facilitate installation of the stairway, which it did on Saturday, March 5, 1994. Accu-Fab returned on Sunday, March 6, 1994, to complete installation of the stairs, but because the prefabricated stairway did not fit properly, Accu-Fab was unable to complete the installation, and instead took the stairway back to its shop for refabrication. Neither Accu-Fab *768 nor Anderson placed any warning signs or barricades around the hole or covered the opening in the roof.

¶ 4. The following Monday morning, March 7, 1994, Ladner fell through the hole cut in the roof and subsequently died from the injuries he received from the fall. Ladner's heirs filed suit against Anderson, Accu-Fab, and Boomtown, Inc., in the Jackson County Circuit Court seeking compensation for Ladner's death. Boomtown, Inc. was dismissed at the start of the trial and, therefore, is no longer a party.

¶ 5. Because the casino was being constructed on a barge that was on a navigable waterway, Ladner was covered under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq., which is a workers' compensation program governed by federal law. Because coverage provided by the employer under the Act is an exclusive federal remedy, Bracken, which was Ladner's employer, was not a party to this action. Both Anderson and Accu-Fab sought through jury instructions to have Bracken included in the apportionment of liability, pursuant to Miss.Code Ann. § 85-5-7 (1999). Relying on McBride v. Chevron U.S.A., 673 So.2d 372 (Miss.1996), the trial judge denied the requested instructions. The jury returned a verdict of $2,000,000. The jury attributed seventy percent (70%) fault to Anderson, twenty-five percent (25%) to Accu-Fab, and five percent (5%) to Ladner.

¶ 6. Both Accu-Fab and Anderson appealed, and the case was assigned to the Court of Appeals, which initially reversed and remanded, finding that Estate of Hunter v. General Motors Corp., 729 So.2d 1264 (Miss.1999), mandated reversal because the jury was not allowed to apportion liability to Bracken. All of the parties, however, filed motions for rehearing, which were granted. On rehearing, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court judgment finding that Estate of Hunter was distinguishable from the present case because Bracken was immune as the maritime employer of Ladner. Accu-Fab and Anderson each filed a timely Petition for Writ of Certiorari which we subsequently granted.

ANALYSIS

1. Anderson's failure to warn

¶ 7. Anderson argues that Bracken was an independent contractor which had knowledge of the hole, and therefore pursuant to this Court's decision in Jones v. James Reeves Contractors, Inc., 701 So.2d 774 (Miss.1997), it was not required to warn Bracken about the hole. Therefore, Anderson argues, it was entitled to a directed verdict in its favor. In Jones, an employee of McCaskill was killed when a hole being excavated on the premises of Howard Industries collapsed. Id. at 776-77. We found that Howard Industries owed no duty to make the premises safe, and then went on to say:

Moreover, even if there existed a duty on the part of Howard to make the premises safe, the only way in which that duty would remain intact is if John McCaskill, Jr., as site supervisor, did not know of the condition of the soil. In City of Jackson v. Ball, 562 So.2d 1267, 1270 (Miss.1990), we held that no warning need be given to employees of a contractor so long as the contractor knows of the danger. See also Mississippi Chemical Corp. v. Rogers, 368 So.2d 220, 222 (Miss.1979). Here there may be a dispute as to a material fact. Reeves claimed that he stopped digging and went and told McCaskill about the watersand under the surface when he observed it, and that McCaskill instructed him to keep digging. McCaskill denies any such conversation ever took place. This conversation, or lack thereof, certainly goes to McCaskill's knowledge of the soil condition.

Jones, 701 So.2d at 783 (emphasis added).

¶ 8. We continued:

However, it is not the only means by which McCaskill would have knowledge of the soil conditions. Because *769 he was on the site at all times, and was in fact running the transit to measure the elevation of the hole, he would have had additional opportunity to observe the condition of the subsurface. It must be pointed out, however, that according to the contract between McCaskill Brothers and Jones County, McCaskill Brothers is chargeable with knowledge of the soil conditions as a prerequisite to signing the contract. Section 1.2.2 states that "Execution of the Contract by the Contractor is a representation that the Contractor has visited the site, become familiar with local conditions under which the Work is to be performed and correlated personal observations with the requirements of the Contract Documents." (emphasis supplied). Thus, according to Jackson Ready Mix Concrete [v. Sexton, 235 So.2d 267 (Miss.1970)], Howard had no duty to warn of a danger which McCaskill should reasonably have appreciated before exposing himself (and by extension, his employees) to it. Such an expectation of appreciation is reasonable because under the contract McCaskill had visited the site and had familiarized himself with the soil conditions.

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Bluebook (online)
778 So. 2d 766, 2001 WL 171326, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/accu-fab-const-inc-v-ladner-miss-2001.