Chavez v. Transload Services, L.L.C.

884 N.E.2d 1258, 379 Ill. App. 3d 858
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 4, 2008
Docket1-07-0125
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 884 N.E.2d 1258 (Chavez v. Transload Services, L.L.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chavez v. Transload Services, L.L.C., 884 N.E.2d 1258, 379 Ill. App. 3d 858 (Ill. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

JUSTICE SOUTH

delivered the opinion of the court:

This appeal arises from an order of the circuit court of Cook County which granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to section 2 — 619 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 619 (West 2004)). 1

Plaintiff, Roberto Chavez, was employed by Tandem Staffing Solutions (Tandem), a temporary employment agency. He was hired as a temporary laborer by defendant Transload Services, L.L.C. (Trans-load), at its Harvey, Illinois, facilities pursuant to an agreement between the two entities. While assisting in the offloading of materials from a rail car, plaintiff was injured when he was struck by an overhead crane. Subsequently, he filed a negligence complaint against Transload.

Charles Marias, Transload’s president, testified during his deposition that it was in the business of providing material handling services for customers to unload and store steel and coordinate delivery to its final destination. Marias testified that when Transload needed additional labor, it would call Tandem for additional employees, and Tandem would send employees pursuant to that request. According to Marias, Transload signed off on the hours worked by plaintiff on a daily time sheet, and plaintiff was paid by Tandem after submitting a time ticket indicating the number of hours he had worked. The time ticket contained multiple terms and conditions, such as: Transload was not allowed to entrust Tandem employees with unattended premises or valuables, and Transload could not use Tandem employees to operate dangerous or unprotected equipment. Marias testified that Tandem was not reimbursed by Transload for workers’ compensation or pension payments. Marias was not aware of any workers’ compensation claim that plaintiff made, and he testified that if Tandem had asked Transload to reimburse Tandem for any of the expenses incurred as part of the workers’ compensation claim, it would have refused.

In a pretrial affidavit, Doug Stone, Jr., a supervisor for Trans-load’s operations in Harvey, attested that plaintiff was a temporary employee employed by Tandem and loaned to Transload pursuant to an agreement between it and Tandem. Stone was plaintiffs supervisor at the Harvey facilities and controlled plaintiffs work, which included plaintiffs work schedule and the project assignments. While he was employed by Transload, plaintiff performed the same type of work as defendant’s other employees, and Stone possessed the right to discharge plaintiff from his employment with Transload for any reason. During his deposition, Stone stated that plaintiff was given a Transload employee handbook and provided with individualized training.

In his deposition testimony, John Boquist, defendant’s assistant secretary and chief financial officer, testified that plaintiff was not covered as an employee under Transload’s workers’ compensation policy. According to Boquist, plaintiff received workers’ compensation through a carrier that issued coverage to Tandem.

After plaintiff filed his third amended complaint alleging premises liability and negligence, Transload filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to section 2 — 619 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — 619 (West 2004)). It argued that it was a borrowing employer for the purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act (Act) and thus was protected from plaintiffs tort claim by the exclusivity provision of the Act (820 ILCS 305/5(a) (West 2004)). The trial court granted the motion, finding that Transload was a borrowing employer and plaintiff was its employee within the meaning of the Act.

Plaintiff filed a motion to reconsider, claiming for the first time that he never consented to being Transload’s borrowed employee. Attached to this motion was his affidavit in which he maintained that it was not his understanding that he was a Transload employee, and he never consented to being one. The trial court granted Transload’s motion to strike the affidavit because it was not newly discovered evidence and denied plaintiffs motion to reconsider.

On appeal, plaintiff contends the trial court erred in granting Transload’s motion to dismiss. Plaintiff argues that a central inquiry into whether he was a borrowed employee is whether he consented to being Transload’s employee, and there is no evidence that he gave such consent. Plaintiff maintains he had no reason to believe he was a Transload employee because he was paid by Tandem. Moreover, his belief that he was not a Transload employee was shared by Transload based upon the testimony of Charles Marias, Transload’s president, that it was not contacted with respect to reimbursing Tandem for any workers’ compensation expenses, and according to Marias, if Tandem made such a request, it would refuse to pay it. Accordingly, plaintiff claims that Transload cannot now seek the protection of the exclusive remedy provision of the Act when it did not regard itself as a borrowing employer.

Plaintiff also asserts that he was not a borrowed employee because he did not occupy a status equal to that of Transload’s other employees since he was not entrusted with unattended premises or valuables and could not operate dangerous or unprotected equipment while working on Transload’s premises. According to plaintiff, these factors create a question of fact as to whether Transload was a borrowing employer and the trial court erred in granting the motion to dismiss.

A section 2 — 619 motion is similar to a motion for summary judgment and allows for the dismissal of a complaint on the basis of issues of law or easily proven facts. Carroll v. Paddock, 199 Ill. 2d 16, 22 (2002). “Under section 2 — 619, the defendant admits to all well-pled facts in the complaint, as well as any reasonable inferences that may be drawn from those facts [citation], but asks the court to conclude that there is no set of facts which would entitle the plaintiff to recover.” Advocate Health & Hospitals Corp. v. Bank One, N.A., 348 Ill. App. 3d 755, 759 (2004). We apply de novo review to the dismissal of a complaint under section 2 — 619. Carroll, 199 Ill. 2d at 22.

The exclusivity provision of the Act provides immunity to loaning and borrowing employers. Evans v. Abbott Products, Inc., 150 Ill. App. 3d 845, 848 (1986). Section 5(a) of the Act states that an injured employee does not have a common law or statutory right to recover damages from his employer for injury sustained by the employee while engaged in the line of his duty as an employee, other than the compensation provided by the Act. 820 ILCS 305/5(a) (West 2004).

Section 1(a)(4) of the Act provides that when an employer:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
884 N.E.2d 1258, 379 Ill. App. 3d 858, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chavez-v-transload-services-llc-illappct-2008.