Dickerson v. Godfrey
| Citation | 825 S.W.2d 692 |
| Parties | Gloria Jean DICKERSON, Plaintiff/Appellant v. Arthur GODFREY, Rick Catinella, Steve Maynard and Walker Springs Square Partnership, Defendants/Appellees. 825 S.W.2d 692 |
| Decision Date | 24 February 1992 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Tennessee |
H. Calvin Walter, Walter Gilbertson & Associates, Donna R. Davis, Hicks, Arnold, Haynes, Sanders & Davis, Knoxville, for plaintiff/appellant.
William S. Lockett, Jr., Kennerly, Montgomery & Finley, Knoxville, for defendants/appellees.
This is a worker's compensation case in which the plaintiff, for herself and her children, sought benefits for the accidental death of the children's father, Dennis Russell, during the installation of a sewer line. Arthur Godfrey was the deceased's employer. Rick Catinella, Steve Maynard and Walker Springs Square Partnership were the landowners who had contracted for the work and who the plaintiff contends are liable to pay benefits as principal contractors under T.C.A. Sec. 50-6-113(a). The Knox County Chancery Court granted summary judgment in favor of the landowners on the basis that the result in the plaintiff's previous unsuccessful tort action against the landowners collaterally estopped her from relitigating the issue of the control exercised by the landowners over the work being done. In this appeal, the plaintiff asserts that collateral estoppel does not apply and that she is entitled to litigate the issue of the landowners' contractor status. We agree.
The landowners had contracted with Arthur Godfrey to lay a sewer line on their property. The deceased was employed by Godfrey and was engaged with a co-employee in digging a ditch for the sewer line when a cave-in caused his death.
The project had begun a few days before and a ditch had been dug in an east-west direction. By deposition, Godfrey testified that, on the date of the death, he had to leave the site temporarily and returned immediately before the accident. He stated that the deceased and the co-employee had started digging a north-south ditch line on their own, against his previous instructions. Godfrey stated that he saw that a dangerous situation had been created because the workers were not using the trench jacks, which he had told them to use, to shore up the walls of the ditch. He testified that he told the deceased to get out of the ditch, but the walls crumbled before the deceased complied.
The plaintiff sued the landowners for wrongful death. Her complaint alleged that they, in constructing the pipeline, had a duty to provide a safe place to work, a duty to inspect the premises in order to determine that the construction work was being performed safely and a duty to hire responsible and competent persons to perform the work. Also, it alleged that the work was so dangerous that the landowners' duty to see that the work was safely performed was nondelegable.
The landowners' answer alleged that they did not control the means and method of the work performance, nor did they have the authority to do so. It averred that Godfrey was the general contractor and that he had the responsibility to supervise the work. Also, it denied liability because of the deceased's contributory negligence and the intervening, superseding negligence by Godfrey.
The landowners filed a motion for summary judgment which simply stated that there was no issue as to any material fact and that they were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The memorandum filed in support of the motion consisted mainly of a recitation of facts extracted from transcripts of testimony by Godfrey and defendant Catinella. Again, no specific reason was given in the memorandum as to why the motion should be granted.
The trial court's order granting the summary judgment in the tort action made no explanation of why the motion had merit, only stating that the "defendants' Motion is well taken." On appeal, the trial court's action was affirmed. In its opinion, the Court of Appeals stated the following:
It was the theory of Ms. Dickerson that Walker Springs was guilty of negligence in not maintaining their premises in a reasonably safe condition to minimize the possibility of injury to the deceased who was, under her theory, a business invitee. 1
We have no quarrel with the proposition of law regarding the duty of landowners to provide employees of contractors or sub-contractors performing work on their premises a safe place to work. Shell Oil Co. v. Blanks, 46 Tenn.App. 539, 330 S.W.2d 569 (1959).
However, in the case at bar we are persuaded that the injury and death of Mr. Russell was not a result of any lack of care on the part of the landowner. The unsafe condition was a result of the actions of Mr. Russell's co-worker and Mr. Russell himself.
Gloria Jean Dickerson v. James R. Racek, et al., No. 1234, Knox Co., slip op. at 4-5, 1989 WL 9547 (Tenn.App. Feb. 10, 1989).
The landowners filed a motion for summary judgment in the worker's compensation action, but, again, neither the motion nor the record on appeal specifies what issues they were addressing. However, the opinion filed by the chancellor stated that the landowners' motion asserted that the plaintiff was collaterally estopped from recovery. It noted that, to succeed, the plaintiff must show that the landowners were principal contractors, which required showing that they exercised or had the right to exercise control of the work of the other contractor's employee. See Acklie v. Carrier, 785 S.W.2d 355 (Tenn.1990); Posey v. Union Carbide Corp., 510 F.Supp. 1143, 1145 (M.D.Tenn.1981), aff'd. 705 F.2d 833 (6th Cir.1983); Chappell v. Olin-Mathieson Chemical Corp., 305 F.Supp. 544, 545 (E.D.Tenn.1969).
The chancellor stated that the Court of Appeals found in the tort action that the deceased was not the landowners' employee. It quoted the following portion of that Court's opinion:
In our consideration of this case we have not overlooked the testimony that Mr. Catinella was by the construction site on a number of occasions, although not on the day of the accident, to observe the work in progress. He did not, however, purport to direct how the work should be done, and Mr. Godfrey testified that he was the boss and no one from Walker Springs told him how to do the work.
Dickerson v. Racek, et al., supra, slip op. at 5. The chancellor then concluded that the issue of control had been previously found against the plaintiff who, in consequence, was collaterally estopped from relitigating the issue.
The doctrine of collateral estoppel is a corollary to the principle of res judicata. It operates to prevent relitigation of an issue which has been previously determined between the same parties in another suit, even if the suit was based upon a separate cause of action. The doctrine and its...
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State ex rel. Cihlar v. Crawford
...See Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 20(1)(c) (1982). Collateral estoppel is an issue preclusion doctrine. See Dickerson v. Godfrey, 825 S.W.2d 692, 694 (Tenn.1992); Goeke v. Woods, 777 S.W.2d 347, 349 (Tenn.1989). Once an issue has been actually or necessarily determined by a court of c......
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...in a prior suit between the same parties and that the issue's determination was necessary to the judgment." Dickerson v. Godfrey, 825 S.W.2d 692, 694 (Tenn.1992); see also Home Ins. Co. v. Leinart, 698 S.W.2d 335, 336 (Tenn.1985). A final judgment is essential under either collateral estopp......
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