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The Seabright vs. U.S. Airways Decision

August 29, 2011

By Barbara Haubrich-Hass, ACP/CAS

Claims made by injured workers against general contractors were made more problematic.  On August 22, 2011, the California Supreme Court rendered its decision in the case of Seabright Insurance Company v. U.S. Airways, Inc., where the Court was asked to consider the following:

“Generally, when employees of independent contractors are injured in the workplace, they cannot sue the party that hired the contractor to do the work. (Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 (Privette).) Here, we consider whether the Privette rule applies when the party that hired the contractor (the hirer) failed to comply with workplace safety requirements concerning the precise subject matter of the contract, and the injury is alleged to have occurred as a consequence of that failure.”

The Court held that the hirer of an independent contractor delegates to the contractor “any tort law duty it owes to the contractor’s employees to ensure the safety of the specific workplace,” including “any tort law duty the hirer owes to the contractor’s employees to comply with applicable statutory or regulatory safety requirements.”

This means tht the injured employee of a subcontractor will have a more difficult time sustaining an action against the general contractor on the grounds that the general contractor failed to maintain a safe place to work or otherwise violated Cal-OSHA rules or regulations.

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DISCLAIMER: Barbara Haubrich-Hass, ACP/CAS, is not an attorney. Any information derived from The California Litigator, and any other statements contained herein, are for information purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice or a recommendation on a legal matter. The information from The California Litigator is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or current. Barbara makes no warranty, express or implied, about the accuracy or reliability of the information provided within this e-zine/article, or to any other website to which this article may be linked.