Ortega v. Semco, L.L.C.

762 So. 2d 276, 99 La.App. 5 Cir. 1295, 2000 La. App. LEXIS 1265, 2000 WL 694295
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 30, 2000
DocketNo. 99-CA-1295
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 762 So. 2d 276 (Ortega v. Semco, L.L.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ortega v. Semco, L.L.C., 762 So. 2d 276, 99 La.App. 5 Cir. 1295, 2000 La. App. LEXIS 1265, 2000 WL 694295 (La. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

| ¡¿DALEY, Judge.

Plaintiff/Appellant, Pedro Ortega, appeals a trial court judgment that dismissed his tort suit' against DefendanVAppellee, Semco, L.L.C. Ortega was employed by Workforce, Inc., a temporary labor supplier. He was assigned to work at the Semco shipyard in Lafitte, Louisiana, as a shipfit-ter, when he was burned on the leg on April 14, 1997. He sued Semco in tort. Semco filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, arguing that Ortega was their borrowed employee, and that under the Long-shore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq., Ortega’s exclusive remedy against Semco was workers’ compensation benefits. The trial court found that Ortega was a borrowed employee, and granted Semco’s Motion for Summary Judgment. This appeal follows.

In the instant case, we must consider whether Ortega (the temporary worker) may sue Semco (the borrowing employer) in tort. Under the Longshore and Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act, if an employee is injured while working, “the employer |ashall be liable for and shall secure the payment to his employees of compensation.” 33 U.S.C. § 904. “The liability of an employer ... shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability of such employer to the employee.” 33 U.S.C. § 905. The term “employee” means any person engaged in maritime employment including a ship repairman and ship builder. The term “employer” means an employer whose employees are employed in maritime employment. The exclusive remedy of a borrowed employee against the borrowing or special employer is workman’s compensation. Hall v. Equitable Shipyard, Inc., 95-1754 (La.App.. 4th Cir. 2/29/96), 670 So.2d 543.

The record shows that Ortega was hired by Workforce on January 10,1997 as a shipfitter to work at various shipyards. Ortega’s first shipyard assignment was Bo-land Marine. He was assigned to work at Semco’s shipyard on April 10, 1997, and [278]*278had worked there approximately two weeks when he was injured. After he received his assignment, Ortega reported directly to Semco each morning, and was assigned work and supervised by a Semco employee. Workforce did not maintain supervisory personnel at the Semco site. Workforce sold Ortega “personal” tools and gave him a hard hat, while Semco furnished all the welding equipment and materials needed by Ortega for his specific assignment.

During the time that Ortega was at Semco, he did not have contact with Workforce except to collect his weekly paycheck. He filled out a timecard with Sem-co, who reported his hours to Workforce. Workforce was in the business of supplying supplemental labor to shipyards, which Ortega’s assignment at Semco accomplished, and Semco was in the business of shipfitting, which Ortega performed on a ship at Semco. Ortega’s assignment to Semco was at the agreement of both employers and Ortega. Workforce and Sem-co had an oral agreement for Workforce 14to supply temporary laborers to Semco. If Ortega did not like working at Semco, he could request another assignment from Workforce. If Semco did not like Ortega’s work, it could terminate him from this assignment and their shipyard, though not from his employment at Workforce. Ortega received safety training from Workforce, not Semco, but Semco discussed safety at morning meetings attended by all workers on site. Ortega testified that he asked about workers’ compensation insurance when Workforce hired him, and Workforce told him that they carried the insurance for him.

Appellant Ortega argues that the trial court erred in not considering Morgan v. ABC Manufacturer, 97-0956 (La.5/1/98), 710 So.2d 1077. Ortega contends that the Morgan case controls and under the language of the Morgan case Ortega is not limited to workers’ compensation, but has a remedy in tort. In the Morgan case, the Supreme Court considered the issue of whether an employer who is in the business of hiring out temporary employees to other businesses is liable for the tortious conduct of the temporary worker while in the performance of his temporary assignment. This, however, is not the question faced in the case before us. In this case, we must consider whether the borrowing employer (Semco) is liable to the borrowed employee (Ortega), in tort, for injuries he sustained while at work at the temporary job site, or if Ortega’s only remedy against Semco is workers’ compensation.

In Morgan, the Supreme Court recognized the “two masters rule” and held that both the lending and the borrowing employer could be liable to a third person for the torts of the borrowed employee. In Morgan, the injured party, Morgan, was not a third person. Morgan was an employee of the business where the temporary worker was assigned. Both the borrowed employee and a regular employee were working together at a scrap yard when plaintiff, the regular employee, was injured. The ^borrowing employer was supervising the temporary worker’s work activity. The regular employee was allowed to maintain a tort suit against the temporary worker and the company that supplied the temporary worker.

Prior to Morgan, courts determined liability/or an employee’s torts based upon a nine part “control” test to determine whether or not he was a borrowed employee.1 Morgan recognized that the “control” [279]*279test could often show that each employer retained some control over the offending employee, albeit in different spheres of his employment relationship with both. The court stated:

[T]here is no legislative expression regarding the borrowed employee defense. It is a jurisprudential creation. The immunity provided to the general employer is in derogation of the general tort rights of victims. Thus the scope of the immunity must be strictly construed. See Sewell v. Doctors Hospital, 600 So.2d 577 (La.1992). As we see it, the issue before this Court is not whether the scope of the borrowed employee defense should be restricted only to employers who exercise supervisory control over the borrowed employee. Rather, this Court must determine whether the borrowed employee defense extends to the circumstances of the instant case, namely, whether temporary agencies who are in the business of lending their employees under the supervision of others should receive the benefit of tort immunity.

The court held that tort immunity does not extend to the temporary agencies. The court recognized that the modern justification for an employer’s liability for its employee’s torts is “not so much based on the employer’s control of the employee’s actions, but on the concept of “enterprise liability.”2 The court noted that because the temporary agency was in the business of loaning out its employees while passing the | ^control of the detail of their work on to the customers, both employers had contemporaneous control over the loaned employee and both employers’ businesses contemporaneously benefitted from his labor. “It is therefore reasonable that considering the overlapping control and shared financial interest that they share liability.” Morgan at 1083.. The Morgan court stopped short, however, of abrogating the “control” test used to determine whether an worker is a borrowed employee.

The Morgan

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Bluebook (online)
762 So. 2d 276, 99 La.App. 5 Cir. 1295, 2000 La. App. LEXIS 1265, 2000 WL 694295, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ortega-v-semco-llc-lactapp-2000.