Baker v. Airguide Manufacturing, LLC

151 So. 3d 38, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 17627, 2014 WL 5462528
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedOctober 29, 2014
Docket3D13-2878
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 151 So. 3d 38 (Baker v. Airguide Manufacturing, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Airguide Manufacturing, LLC, 151 So. 3d 38, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 17627, 2014 WL 5462528 (Fla. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

ROTHENBERG, J.

The plaintiff below, Gwendolyn Baker, appeals a final summary judgment entered in favor of the defendant, Airguide Manufacturing, LLC (“Airguide”), based on the trial court’s ruling that Airguide was entitled to workers’ compensation immunity. Because we find the trial court correctly found that Airguide was entitled to immunity under section 440.11(2) of the Florida Statutes (2010), we affirm.

Baker began working for a company called Pacesetter in January 2008. The record establishes that Pacesetter is an employment agency that supplies employees to shorthanded companies. For the first six months of her employment with Pacesetter, Baker was placed with various Carmax locations. Then, in July 2008, Pacesetter placed Baker (along with several other Pacesetter employees) with Air-guide, an air conditioning duct manufacturer.

Baker worked at Airguide without incident for two years, but on July 28, 2010, a machine designed to punch holes in the aluminum air duct parts unexpectedly activated and injured Baker’s right index finger. Baker’s immediate supervisor at Air-guide, Corine Graham (“Graham”), helped Baker wash the wound and then called Pacesetter to deal with the issue. Pacesetter sent a driver to pick up Baker, and Baker was taken back to the Pacesetter facilities, where she filed a report. Baker was subsequently taken to a doctor’s office and then later to a hospital. Baker experienced significant pain and immobility in her finger and had to undergo physical therapy and rehabilitation. Baker claims she still experiences pain in the finger to this day.

Baker successfully filed a workers’ compensation claim with Pacesetter after her accident, and she was reimbursed for her injury based on the statutorily prescribed reimbursement amount. Unsatisfied with her recovery amount, Baker subsequently filed the underlying negligence suit against Airguide on July 24, 2012. After some discovery, Airguide filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that it was immune from liability because Baker was either a “borrowed servant” under common law doctrine or was an employee of a help supply services company as provided in section 440.11(2) of the Florida Statutes, and therefore, Baker’s exclusive remedy was through workers’ compensation, which she had already received.

*40 The motion for summary judgment cited and relied heavily upon Baker’s deposition testimony. In that deposition, which was taken on May 21, 2013, Baker stated that she reported directly to Airguide in the mornings, was trained to use the machines by Airguide employees, was monitored and reprimanded by Airguide employees, and was assigned weekly hours and tasks by Airguide management, but that Pacesetter issued Baker’s paychecks and sent supervisors to the Airguide premises once or twice per week to check on the Pacesetter employees.

Two days before the summary judgment hearing, and four months after Baker’s deposition, on September 11, 2013, Baker filed an affidavit and an errata sheet to her deposition that materially conflicted with some of the statements she had made during her deposition. Based on the changes to her testimony, Baker argued that there was a genuine dispute over material facts whether Airguide possessed the requisite degree of control over Baker ,to establish Airguide’s immunity under the common law “borrowed servant” doctrine. After some legal argument on the issue, the trial court granted Airguide’s motion for summary judgment. Baker filed a motion for rehearing, which the trial court denied, and this appeal followed.

Baker contends on appeal that the trial court erred by failing to consider her affidavit and errata sheet and that it improperly granted Airguide’s motion for summary judgment because Airguide did not meet its burden of establishing that it was entitled to workers’ compensation immunity. We disagree.

As to the first issue, it is well-established Florida law that a party may not rely on an affidavit that contradicts or repudiates prior deposition testimony simply to defeat a motion for summary judgment. Ellison v. Anderson, 74 So.2d 680, 681 (Fla.1954); United Auto. Ins. Co. v. Seffar, 37 So.3d 379, 380-81 (Fla. 3d DCA 2010). In this case, Baker testified in a sworn deposition that Airguide had nearly complete control over her everyday work activities and that Pacesetter merely provided her paycheck. Then, curiously, nearly four months after her deposition and only two days before the summary judgment hearing, Baker filed her affidavit and errata sheet to state that she checked in with Pacesetter every morning, that Pacesetter supervisors often checked on her at Airguide, and that Airguide had limited authority to direct her work, determine her hours, or terminate her. These statements clearly contradict Baker’s deposition testimony, and they evidence an attempt on Baker’s part to contravene her prior testimony and create a factual dispute regarding Airguide’s ability to control her workplace conduct — one of the main factors considered under the “borrowed servant” doctrine. We accordingly find that the trial court did not err by refusing to consider the affidavit and errata sheet testimony when granting Airguide’s motion for summary judgment.

Although we find that the trial court did not err by rejecting Baker’s contradictory affidavit and errata sheet, the inadmissibility of the affidavit and errata sheet is not dispositive. While these two documents may have potentially created a dispute as to whether Airguide sufficiently established that it was entitled to immunity under the common law “borrowed servant” doctrine, they create no dispute as to whether Airguide is entitled to immunity as a “help supply services company” under section 440.11(2) of the Florida Statutes. Because Airguide is clearly a help supply services company under section 440.11(2), we affirm the trial court’s ruling on that issue as well.

*41 As explained by this Court in Cabrera v. T.J. Pavement Carp.:

Florida’s workers’ compensation act sets forth a comprehensive scheme that provides benefits to workers injured during employment. This system, which is based on mutual renunciation of common law rights and defenses by employers and employees, ensures that injured employees who fall within its scope receive swift compensation and medical benefits from the employer irrespective of fault or cause of injury. In exchange, employers who comply with the workers’ compensation act receive immunity from suit except in limited circumstances.

2 So.3d 996, 998 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008) (citations omitted).

As an extension of the immunity conferred on employers by workers’ compensation, the common law “borrowed servant” doctrine was developed to cover employers that utilize other companies’ employees to complete their work under circumstances indicating that the borrowing employer is the de facto employer of the borrowed employee at the time of the injury. See Hazealeferiou v. Labor Ready, 947 So.2d 599, 603 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007) (“The doctrine of lent employment reflects the dual purpose of ensuring that a lent employee is covered by workers’ compensation and immunizing employers attaining ‘special employer’ status from liability in tort.”).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
151 So. 3d 38, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 17627, 2014 WL 5462528, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-airguide-manufacturing-llc-fladistctapp-2014.