Becon Construction Co. v. Alonso

444 S.W.3d 824, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 10765, 2014 WL 4746417
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 25, 2014
DocketNo. 09-13-00295-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 444 S.W.3d 824 (Becon Construction Co. v. Alonso) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Becon Construction Co. v. Alonso, 444 S.W.3d 824, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 10765, 2014 WL 4746417 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION

HOLLIS HORTON, Justice.

In this permissive appeal, we address whether the exclusive remedy defense provided by the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act applies on a -worksite that was subject to a contractor-controlled insurance program. See Tex. Lab.Code Ann. §§ 406.123, 408.001 (West 2006). Because the summary-judgment proof of the appellants, who were subcontractors on the site, established that they were entitled to rely on the exclusive remedy defense, the appellants’ joint motion for summary judgment should not have been denied. The trial court also erred by granting the ap-pellees’ no-evidence cross-motion for summary judgment, which asserted that the appellants could not rely on the exclusive remedy defense because they provided the trial court with no evidence to show that the general workplace insurance plan in which the appellants were enrolled complied with several Texas Department of Insurance regulations that apply to such plans. We grant the appellants’ joint motion for summary judgment, we deny the appellees’ no-evidence cross-motion for summary judgment, and we order that the appellees take nothing on their claims against the appellants.

Background

In January 2011, Jose Alonso, Miguel Betancourt, Jose Rodriguez, Luis Guajar-do, Alejandro Salinas, and Ricardo Salinas Jr. (the employees and appellees) were on [826]*826a scaffold working at a refinery on a project that involved work that other contractors and subcontractors were performing when a crane collapsed. All of the appel-lees who are parties to this suit, except Luis Guajardo, were employees of A & L Industrial Services, Inc. when the incident occurred; Luis was employed by Empire Scaffold, LLC. Initially, the employees sued Motiva Enterprises LLC and Becon Construction Company, Inc.; later, they sued Bechtel Equipment Operations, Inc. in the same suit.

When the crane collapsed, A & L Industrial and Empire Scaffold were subcontractors on Motiva’s project. Both were subcontractors to Performance Contractors, Inc., and Performance was working on the project under a contract with Motiva. The Motiva/Performance contract obligated Performance to provide labor and equipment on the project and required Performance to take directions on the project from the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture. The various contracts in evidence reflect that the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture was the contractor placed in charge of managing the overall project.

The various contracts on the project also included clauses requiring the various contractors and subcontractors to have various types of insurance for the project, including a workers’ compensation policy that covered their respective employees while they worked on the project. The parties to the prime contract on the project were Motiva, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., and Bechtel Corporation. The contract, with respect to the provisions that concern insurance for the project, required the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture, the project’s general contractor, to “bring into effect a Contractor Controlled Insurance Program[.]” With respect to the workers’ compensation coverage for the project, the program for the project obligated the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture to obtain a policy covering all of the contractors and subcontractors who were to work on the project.1

The parties do not dispute that when the collapse occurred, Becon Construction and Bechtel Equipment (the subcontractors) were providing either construction equipment or services for the project under their respective subcontracts. Under their respective subcontracts with Performance, A & L Industrial and Empire Scaffold were not obligated to take direction on their work from the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture; they were under contract to Performance. But, they were indirectly required to take direction from the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture, as Performance’s contract with Motiva required that Performance take direction on its work from the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture.

There is also no dispute that Becon Construction and Bechtel Equipment were named as insureds on the workers’ compensation policy obtained for the project by the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture. The summary-judgment evidence included various insurance policy endorsements and schedules, and these indicate that the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture, Becon Construction, Bechtel Equipment, Performance, A & L Industrial, and Empire Scaffold, as well as numerous other entities not [827]*827subject to the appeal, were named as additional insureds on the workers’ compensation policy that the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture procured for the project. In the Motiva/Performance contract, Performance and its subcontractors were required to enroll as insureds in the general workplace insurance plan created for the project.

The employees who sued were injured when a crane owned by Bechtel Equipment and operated by Becon Construction collapsed. The employees who sued were present and were working on the project because their respective employers, A & L Industrial and Empire Scaffold, had contracts with Performance. The employees of Empire Scaffold and A & L Industrial who sued collected compensation benefits under the workers’ compensation policy obtained under the requirements obligating the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture to procure the insurance coverage for the contractors and subcontractors who were to work on the project.

The Parties’ Arguments

Arguing that the Act’s exclusive remedy provision limited the employees to their compensation benefits and precluded them from bringing their common law damage claims, Becon Construction and Bechtel Equipment moved for summary judgment on all of the claims of the employees that sued them. See Tex.R. Civ. P. 166a(c). In their appeal, Becon Construction and Bechtel Equipment contend the trial court erred by not granting their joint motion for summary judgment, and they argue the trial court should have rendered a take-nothing judgment in their favor on the employees’ claims.

In response to Becon Construction’s and Bechtel Equipment’s joint motion for summary judgment, the employees filed a combined response and no-evidence motion for summary judgment. See generally Tex.R. Civ. P. 166a(i) (allowing a party to move for summary judgment on the ground that there is no evidence to support specified essential elements of the other party’s claims). In their response and cross-motion, the employees argue that A & L Industrial and Empire Scaffold were performing their work under their master contracts with Performance; that the master contracts predate the Motiva/Performance contract and their subcontracts; and that the terms of their master contracts, which also included workers’ compensation requirements, control the legal relationship with respect to who was required to provide a compensation policy for their employers. The employees conclude that the insurance provisions found in their master contracts with Performance take precedence over the insurance requirements found in the Motiva/Performance contract. Additionally, the employees’ response and cross-motion argues that the general workplace insurance plan created for Motiva’s project failed to comply with several regulations of the Texas Depart ment of Insurance that apply to such plans.

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Bluebook (online)
444 S.W.3d 824, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 10765, 2014 WL 4746417, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/becon-construction-co-v-alonso-texapp-2014.