Peters v. Radcliff Ready Mix Concrete Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 March 1967
• Parties: Charles PETERS, Appellant, v. RADCLIFF READY MIX CONCRETE INC., et al., Appellees. Jerry MILLER, Appellant, v. THOMAS J. NOLAN & SONS et al., Appellees.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 854

412 S.W.2d 854

Charles PETERS, Appellant, v. RADCLIFF READY MIX CONCRETE INC., et al., Appellees.

Jerry MILLER, Appellant, v. THOMAS J. NOLAN & SONS et al., Appellees.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

March 17, 1967.

Paul M. Lewis, Hatcher & Lewis, Elizabethtown, for appellant, Charles peters.

E. R. Gregory, Bowling Green, for appellant, Jerry Miller.

Robert Hubbard, Elizabethtown, John Hopkins, Hazelrigg & Cox, Frankfort, for appellee, Radcliff Ready Mix Concrete, Inc. William A. Miller, Louisville, for appellee, Schabb Const. Co., Inc.

William Mellor, Burke & Mellor, Louisville, for appellee, Thomas J. Nolan & Sons.

L. A. Faurest, Faurest & Collier, Elizabethtown, Grover C. Thompson, Thompson & Thompson, Lexington, for appellee, Kentucky Steel Products Co., Inc.

CULLEN, Commissioner.

Charles Peters and Jerry Miller, employes of Southern Plumbing and Heating Company, were injured while engaged in work for their employer in the construction of a new school building, when the roof collapsed. Schickli Contracting Company was the principal contractor on the job. Southern Plumbing and Heating Company, Radcliff Ready Mix Concrete Company, Schaab Construction Company, and Kentucky Steel Products Company all were subcontractors. Thomas J. Nolan & Sons were the architects.

The principal contractor, the architects, and each of the subcontractors were operating under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Peters and Miller were entitled to workmen's compensation from their employer, Southern Plumbing and Heating Company, and Miller applied for and received such compensation. However, both Miller and Peters filed common law actions against the subcontractors other than their employer, and against the architects, alleging negligence and seeking damages according to the common law. See KRS 342.055. Summary judgments were entered for the defendants, on the theory that under the law of Kentucky, as set forth in Miller v. Scott, Ky., 339 S.W.2d 941, an employe covered by workmen's compensation cannot maintain a common law action for damages for injuries sustained on a job against anyone else directly connected with the performance of the job. Miller and Peters have appealed.

In Miller v. Scott, Ky., 339 S.W.2d 941, the holding was that an employe covered by workmen's compensation who is injured by the negligence of a fellow employe working on the same job cannot sue the latter for common law damages. The holding was rested solely on the pronouncement in McEvilly v. L. E. Myers Co., 211 Ky. 31, 276 S.W. 1068, that 'some other person than the employer,' as used in KRS 342.055 with reference to the bringing of common law actions, 'refers to a third party having no connection with the general work being performed, and whose act of negligence was wholly disconnected with that work.' The specific holding in McEvilly was that an employe of a subcontractor could not sue the principal contractor for common law damages.

We think that the specific holdings in McEvilly and in Miller (v. Scott) may be justifiable but that the statement above quoted from McEvilly needs qualification and it should not be interpreted and applied to extend immunity from common-law liability beyond the limits deducible from McEvilly and Miller.

The only immunity from common-law liability expressly provided for in the Workmen's Compensation Act is that of the 'employer'. KRS 342.015(1). Consistent with this are the provisions of KRS 342.055 relating to common-law actions against 'some other person than the employer.' The immunity avoids unconstitutionality only on the basis that the employe, in electing to come under workmen's compensation, waives his common-law rights against his employer. See Greene v. Caldwell, 170 Ky. 571, 186 S.W. 648.

In subcontractor situations it may be reasonable to treat the superior contractor as being the equivalent of an immune 'employer' of the subcontractor's employes by reason of his liability to them under KRS 342.060 for workmen's compensation. The opinion in Jennings v. Vincent's Adm'x, 284 Ky. 614, 145 S.W.2d 537, makes it clear that the superior contractor's immunity arises solely from the existence of his statutory obligation for workmen's compensation.

Perhaps immunity of an employe from common-law liability to a fellow employe working on the same job, as was held to exist in Miller v. Scott, can be justified on the theory that all employes of a single employer working on the same job constitute together with the employer an employment unit so integrated in economic effect as to warrant the entire unit as being considered to be embraced within the word 'employer' as used in the immunity provision of KRS 342.015(1), thus extending the immunity to the employes. It reasonably could be considered that an employe would expect his workmen's compensation benefits to be exclusive of any other remedy for injuries received as a result of negligence of any member of his employment unit.

There is no basis, however, on which one contractor can be considered to be an 'employer' of the employes of another independent contractor who is in no way subordinate to the former. The one has no obligation for workmen's compensation to the employes of the other, so he cannot be considered the equivalent of an employer. And despite the fact that two subcontractors may be working on the same general project, and be under contract to the same principal contractor, it cannot reasonably be considered that they are so integrated as to warrant that they be treated as a single employment unit. We think an employe cannot reasonably be considered to have intended or expected to waive his common-law right of action against every person, individual or corporate, who happens to work on the same project on which his employer is engaged.

In Dillman v. John Diebold & Sons Stone Co., 241 Ky. 631, 44 S.W.2d 581, where the holding was that an employe of the...