Roberts v. City of Alexandria, 920856

• Decision Date: 11 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. 920856,920856
• Citation: 431 S.E.2d 275,246 Va. 17
• Parties: Debbra Lynn ROBERTS v. CITY OF ALEXANDRIA. Record
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 275

431 S.E.2d 275

246 Va. 17

Debbra Lynn ROBERTS v. CITY OF ALEXANDRIA.

Record No. 920856.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

June 11, 1993.

Nina J. Ginsberg, Alexandria (DiMuro, Ginsberg & Lieberman, on brief), for appellant.

Philip Sunderland, City Atty. (George McAndrews, Asst. City Atty., on brief), for appellee.

Present: CARRICO, C.J., COMPTON, STEPHENSON, LACY, HASSELL and KEENAN, JJ., and POFF, Senior Justice.

COMPTON, Justice.

In this personal injury suit against a municipality brought by an employee of an independent contractor providing medical services at the municipality's detention center, the broad question is whether the employee's common-law action is barred on the ground that her exclusive remedy is under the Workers' Compensation Act (the Act). More precisely, the issue is whether the municipality was the plaintiff's statutory employer under the Act.

In 1987, the Sheriff of the City of Alexandria executed a contract with ARA Health Services, Inc., doing business as Correctional Medical Systems, Inc. (CMS), for CMS to provide health care services at Alexandria's Adult Detention Center. The contract required CMS to deliver medical dental, and related health care and administrative services to jail inmates.

On January 5, 1988, about 2:30 a.m., the plaintiff, a CMS employee assigned as a licensed practical nurse at the center, had completed her duties and was walking to her car parked in the employee parking lot. Due to allegedly poor lighting and slippery conditions caused by ice and snow, the plaintiff fell in the lot and was injured.

Subsequently, the plaintiff, who receives workers' compensation benefits for her injury through CMS, filed this damage suit against the City alleging negligent maintenance of the premises where she fell. Responding, the City filed a special plea asserting that it was immune from suit because the plaintiff was a statutory employee of the City and the plaintiff's sole remedy was under the Act. Following a hearing at which the trial court considered the CMS contract and deposition testimony from a representative of the City's Office of Management and Budget, the court sustained the plea. We awarded the plaintiff an appeal from the court's March 1992 order dismissing the action with prejudice.

The crucial inquiry is whether the provision of medical services at the correctional center, contracted for by the Sheriff, is a part of the "trade, business or occupation" of the City within the meaning of former Code § 65.1-29 (now § 65.2-302(A)). The plaintiff contends that the work she performed, "the delivery of health care services at the Alexandria jail, was not a duty imposed by law upon the City, or one over which the City exercised any authority or means of control. The Sheriff, on the other hand, is mandated by law to provide these services." Thus, according to the plaintiff, the delivery of medical services at the jail is part of the trade, business, or occupation of the Sheriff, not the City of Alexandria, and her action is not barred. We do not agree.

The statutory-employer test applied to governmental entities differs from that usually applied to private business entities. Ford v. City of Richmond, 239 Va. 664, 666, 391 S.E.2d 270, 271 (1990). When governmental entities and public utilities are involved, "It is not simply what they do that defines their trade, business, or occupation. What they are supposed to do is also a determinant." Henderson v. Central Tel. Co., 233 Va. 377, 383, 355 S.E.2d 596, 599-600 (1987). A private business entity is essentially self-defining in terms of its trade, business, or occupation, but a governmental entity has duties, obligations, and responsibilities imposed upon it by statutes and charter provisions. See id. Consequently, local governments' trade, business, or occupation must be judged according to the public duties they are "authorized and empowered by legislative mandate to perform." Ford, 239 Va. at 669, 391 S.E.2d at 273. See Nichols v. VVKR, Inc., 241 Va. 516, 521, 403 S.E.2d 698, 701 (1991).

The City of Alexandria clearly is authorized and empowered to provide medical services to the jail's inmates. The City owns the jail under the statutory mandate that the "governing body of every county and city shall provide ... a jail." Code § 15.1-257. Even though the Sheriff, a constitutional officer, operates the jail, Code §§ 53.1-116 to -118, and provides medical services to the jail population, Code § 53.1-126, the costs of operating the jail, paid in part by the state, ultimately are the responsibility of the City. According to the evidence, the funding for the Sheriff's operation of the jail is provided, in part, from the City's general fund revenues. Indeed, the record shows that the City pays the whole cost of the medical services provided to the jail inmates under the CMS contract.

As the City argues, the fact that the Sheriff, rather than the City, actually operates the jail does not negate the City's authority to do so itself. Code § 15.1-882 specifies that a "municipal corporation may provide and operate ... detentive, correctional and penal institutions; or may contract with others for supplying the services and facilities provided at such institutions." Likewise, the Alexandria City Charter empowers the City to "establish,...