Jefferson Smurfit Corp. v. JBS, Inc.
| Decision Date | 22 June 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-2048,88-2048 |
| Citation | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1524,546 So.2d 30 |
| Parties | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1524 JEFFERSON SMURFIT CORPORATION, Appellant, v. JBS, INC., d/b/a Handi-Man Industrial Temporary Help Service, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Steven A. Werber and Thomas S. Edwards, Jr., of Commander, Legler, Werber, Dawes, Sadler & Howell, Jacksonville, for appellant.
Terry D. Bork, of Boyd & Jenerette, P.A., Jacksonville, for appellee.
Jefferson Smurfit Corporation (Smurfit) appeals the summary judgments against it on its action in negligence and breach of contract. Summary judgments were improvident in this case and we reverse on both counts.
Smurfit is in the business of manufacturing corrugated boxes. Smurfit contacted Handi-Man Industrial Temporary Help Service (Handi-Man), which is in the business of providing temporary labor, and requested four temporary workers. Handi-Man did not provide a supervisor and did not supervise any of the work performed by the workers. David Lott, the general manager at Handi-Man, stated in an affidavit that Smurfit had the right to (1) control the work assignments, (2) terminate the employment of the workers with or without cause, and (3) establish work hours, breaks, and lunches. He also stated that Handi-Man pays the workers $3.35 an hour for every hour Smurfit assigned and then Handi-Man bills Smurfit for those hours at $5.50 per hour.
When the four workers arrived at Smurfit on April 7, Mr. Holton, the floor supervisor, gave them some brooms and told them to sweep up around the outside of a nearby warehouse. Mr. Holton stated upon deposition that he instructed the men that they were not to smoke inside any building. He stated that after the workers began their tasks, he checked on them about every two hours or so.
Later that morning, the nearby warehouse where two of the workers were working caught fire. Holton said that one of the employees told him that Vincent Singleton had thrown down a cigarette or a match in some of the boxes and then had run off.
After a hearing, summary final judgment was entered in favor of Handi-Man on the negligence count, and later on the breach of contract count of Smurfit's complaint. The court found that "Vincent Singleton, who allegedly negligently discarded a cigarette causing the destruction by fire of Jefferson Smurfit warehouse and its contents, was the borrowed employee of Jefferson Smurfit."
We agree with Smurfit that the application of the borrowed servant doctrine in Workers' Compensation cases involving temporary labor lenders does not compel its application here to immunize Handi-Man from tort liability as a matter of law. In Rumsey v. Eastern Distribution, Inc., 445 So.2d 1085 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984) a temporary employee received Workers' Compensation benefits from the lending employer and also sued the borrowing employer in tort. The court entered summary judgment in favor of the borrowing employer finding that the temporary employee was the borrowed servant of the borrowing employer and thus the borrowing employer was not liable in tort. We affirmed. There are strong policy reasons behind precluding recovery for both tort and Workers' Compensation when both a lending and borrowing employer may be liable for a particular accident. See Id. at 1086. The instant case does not evoke the same policy compulsion.
The question presented by this case is whether the borrowed servant doctrine applies to a borrowing employer as a matter of law when a borrowing employer seeks damages from a temporary labor service resulting from the tortious acts of a worker supplied by the temporary labor service.
In applying the borrowed servant doctrine to attach liability under the theories of respondeat superior and vicarious liability, the Florida Supreme Court held in Postal Telegraph and Cable Co. v. Doyle, 123 Fla. 695, 167 So. 358 (1936) that
[i]t is competent for a principal to loan or farm out his servant to a third party, and if such third party has complete dominion over the...
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Airmanship, Inc. v. U.S. Aviation Underwriters, Inc.
...(Second) of Agency § 227 (1977). See Parmerter v. Osteopathic Gen. Hosp., 196 So.2d 505 (Fla. 3d DCA 1967); Jefferson Smurfit Corp. v. JBS, Inc., 546 So.2d 30 (Fla. 1st DCA), review denied, 554 S.2d 1168 (Fla.1989); Burton v. Diamond Sand & Stone Co., 327 So.2d 95 (Fla. 2d DCA 1976); Crawfo......
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JBS, Inc. v. Jefferson Smurfit Corp.
...Industrial Temporary Help Service v. Jefferson Smurfit Corporation NO. 74,553 Supreme Court of Florida. NOV 15, 1989 Appeal From: 1st DCA 546 So.2d 30 Rev. ...