Benoit v. Test Sys., Inc.
Decision Date | 28 May 1997 |
Docket Number | No. 95–641.,95–641. |
Citation | 694 A.2d 992,142 N.H. 47 |
Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Parties | Sandra J. BENOIT v. TEST SYSTEMS, INC. |
Hall, Hess, Kenison, Stewart, Murphy & Keefe, P.A., Manchester (Francis G. Murphy, on the brief and orally and Kathryn B. Johnston, on the brief), for plaintiff.
Devine, Millimet & Branch, P.A., Manchester (Laurence W. Getman and Marjorie E. Lanier, on the brief, and John E. Friberg, Jr., orally), for defendant.
The plaintiff, Sandra J. Benoit, appeals the Superior Court's (Hampsey, J.) entry of summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Test Systems, Inc. We affirm.
The parties stipulated to the following facts. The plaintiff, a New Hampshire resident, sustained an injury while she performed light assembly work at the defendant's place of business in New Hampshire. E.D. Associates, a Massachusetts temporary employment agency, had assigned the plaintiff to work at the defendant company. While working at the defendant's place of business, the plaintiff was under the defendant's exclusive control, and the defendant supplied her with the tools, instruments, and materials necessary for performing assembly work.
The defendant paid E.D. Associates for the hours the plaintiff worked based on weekly invoices E.D. Associates submitted to the defendant. E.D. Associates then compensated the plaintiff for the work she performed. Pursuant to the arrangement between the defendant and E.D. Associates, E.D. Associates also provided workers' compensation insurance for the plaintiff under a policy issued to E.D. Associates in Massachusetts by CNA Insurance Company (CNA). After her injury, the plaintiff received workers' compensation benefits from CNA pursuant to Massachusetts' workers' compensation statute.
The plaintiff commenced a negligence action against the defendant. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that New Hampshire law applies, and that pursuant to New Hampshire law, which recognizes the "borrowed servant" rule in workers' compensation cases, the "exclusive remedy" provision of New Hampshire's workers' compensation statute barred the plaintiff's claim. See RSA 281–A:8 (Supp.1988) (amended 1991, 1993). The superior court granted summary judgment to the defendant, and this appeal followed.
A trial court may grant summary judgment when a case presents no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See LaVallie v. Simplex Wire & Cable Co., 135 N.H. 692, 696, 609 A.2d 1216, 1218 (1992). There is no genuine issue of material fact in this case because the parties stipulated to the relevant facts for the purpose of resolving this choice of law question. Accordingly, we conduct a de novo review of the trial court's application of the law to the stipulated facts. Cf. Union Leader Corp. v. City of Nashua, 141 N.H. 473, ––––, 686 A.2d 310, 312 (1996) ( ).
The dispositive issue is which State's law governs: New Hampshire or Massachusetts. The parties agree that if New Hampshire law applies, the plaintiff's suit is barred. See LaVallie, 135 N.H. at 694, 609 A.2d at 1217. In comparison, Massachusetts law would allow the plaintiff to commence a suit against her borrowing employer because unlike New Hampshire, Massachusetts does not require a borrowing employer to obtain workers' compensation coverage for borrowed employees. See Lang v. Edward J. Lamothe Co., 20 Mass.App.Ct. 231, 479 N.E.2d 208, 209, review denied, 395 Mass. 1104, 482 N.E.2d 328 (1985). Consequently, Massachusetts declines to extend the benefit of the workers' compensation statute's exclusive remedy provision to borrowing employers. See Numberg v. GTE Transport, Inc., 34 Mass.App.Ct. 904, 607 N.E.2d 1, 2 (1993) ; Lang, 479 N.E.2d at 209. Accordingly, this case presents a true conflict of laws. See Taylor v. Bullock, 111 N.H. 214, 215, 279 A.2d 585, 586 (1971) ; cf. Leflar, True "False Conflicts," Et Alia, 48 B.U. L.Rev. 164, 171 (1968). We conclude that New Hampshire law properly applies in this case, barring this action against the borrowing employer.
We begin by observing that this case does not implicate the constitutional concerns that arise in some choice of law cases. See Saharceski v. Marcure, 373 Mass. 304, 366 N.E.2d 1245, 1248 (1977). Both New Hampshire and Massachusetts have significant contacts necessary to justify the application of that State's law to this dispute, and as such, we are free to apply either without running afoul of the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution. See Dailey v. Dallas Carriers Corp., 43 Cal.App.4th 720, 51 Cal.Rptr.2d 48, 51–52 ( ), review denied (Cal. July 10, 1996) (unpublished disposition); see also Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U.S. 408, 412–14, 75 S.Ct. 804, 806–08, 99 L.Ed. 1183 (1955).
A particular work-related injury may implicate more than one jurisdiction's workers' compensation statute. See LaBounty v. American Insurance Co., 122 N.H. 738, 742, 451 A.2d 161, 163 (1982). The workers' compensation statutes of either New Hampshire or Massachusetts could have potentially applied to the plaintiff's injury. Compare RSA 281–A:2, VI(a), VIII(a),:5 (Supp.1996) with Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 152, §§ 1 (4), (5), 26 (West 1988 & Supp.1997).
As a general rule, Massachusetts requires general employers, such as E.D. Associates, to provide workers' compensation benefits to its employees. See Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 152, § 18 (West 1988) ; see also Numberg, 607 N.E.2d at 2. As such, lending employers, not borrowing employers, generally enjoy the immunity concomitant with providing workers' compensation benefits. Lang, 479 N.E.2d at 209. There is, however, an exception. A borrowing employer is immune when a direct employment relationship exists between the borrowing employer and the borrowed employee, and the borrowing employer agrees to pay compensation for injury to the employee sufficient to alter the general employer's obligation for the payment of benefits under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 152, section 18. See Numberg, 607 N.E.2d at 2. Notably, the parties have neither briefed nor argued that New Hampshire's requirement that borrowing employers provide workers' compensation benefits for the borrowed employees would satisfy this exception. As such, we assume that this exception is not applicable here.
New Hampshire obligates borrowing employers to provide payment of workers' compensation benefits to borrowed servants that satisfy the criteria of employees. See Bisson v. Winnipesaukee Air Service, 91 N.H. 73, 76, 13 A.2d 821, 823 (1940) ; see also R. Galway, New Hampshire Workers' Compensation Manual § 11.04, at 11–11 to –12 (2d ed. 1996). Immunity from employee tort suits is concomitant with the borrowing employer's obligation to provide workers' compensation insurance coverage. LaVallie, 135 N.H. at 694, 609 A.2d at 1217; see RSA 281–A:8. A borrowing employer's immunity remains even if the borrowing employer delegates the duty to provide workers' compensation benefits to the lending employer and the employee receives workers' compensation benefits. See LaVallie, 135 N.H. at 698, 609 A.2d at 1219.
We note here that the parties stipulate that "the plaintiff was under the exclusive control and direction" of the defendant. The plaintiff also concedes that if New Hampshire law applies her action is barred, presumably because she was the defendant's borrowed servant and satisfied the test for an employee. See id. at 694, 609 A.2d at 1217. Consequently, we consider the plaintiff to have conceded her status as an employee of the defendant and proceed with our analysis accordingly.
The trial court was not required to apply Massachusetts law simply because the plaintiff chose to pursue a workers' compensation claim in Massachusetts. Cf. Dailey , 51 Cal.Rptr.2d at 51 ( ). But cf. 4 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 88.00, at 16–196 (1996) ( ). In New Hampshire, the appropriate analysis in a case involving a choice of law focuses on five choice-influencing considerations: "(1) the predictability of results; (2) the maintenance of reasonable orderliness and good relationships among the States in the federal system; (3) simplification of the judicial task; (4) advancement of the governmental interest of the forum; and (5) the court's preference for what it regards as the sounder rule of law." LaBounty, 122 N.H. at 741, 451 A.2d at 163. See generally Leflar, Conflicts Law: More on Choice–Influencing Considerations, 54 Cal. L.Rev. 1584, 1586–88 (1966).
The first factor, predictability of results, Ferren v. General Motors Corp., 137 N.H. 423, 426, 628 A.2d 265, 267 (1993) (quotation omitted). Though predictability usually has little import in accident cases because accidents are not planned, LaBounty, 122 N.H. at 742, 451 A.2d at 163, it is of more import here because the accident occurred in an established...
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