Seckinger & Co. v. Foreman

• Decision Date: 24 April 1984
• Docket Number: No. 40744,40744
• Citation: 314 S.E.2d 891,252 Ga. 540
• Parties: SECKINGER & COMPANY et al. v. FOREMAN et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 891

314 S.E.2d 891

252 Ga. 540

SECKINGER & COMPANY et al. v. FOREMAN et al.

No. 40744.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

April 24, 1984.

Rehearing Denied May 15, 1984.

Thomas C. Holcomb, McLain & Merritt, P.C., Atlanta, for Seckinger & co. et al.

James E. Yates III, Savannah, John M. Williams, Savell, Williams, Cox & Angel, Atlanta, Benjamin H. Terry Lester B. Johnson III, Martin, Thomas & Bass, P.C., Savannah, for Theodore Foreman et al.

HILL, Chief Justice.

In this worker's compensation case, the administrative law judge awarded benefits to Foreman, an injured employee of Aqualine Environmental Services, against both his employer, Aqualine, ¹ and Aqualine's partner in a joint venture, Seckinger and Company. Seckinger and its insurer appealed to the board, which affirmed the award, and to the superior court, which also affirmed. The Court of Appeals denied their application to appeal, but we granted the application on certiorari in order to settle the question of whether a joint venturer is liable for the worker's compensation benefits of the employees of its partner in the joint venture.

Seckinger and Aqualine bid upon and were awarded a government contract at Hunter Airfield. The contract between Seckinger and Aqualine, denominated a joint venture agreement, provided that each of them would perform separate parts of the government contract and would receive the corresponding portion of the proceeds from the government. It was understood that each would use their own employees and equipment on their respective parts of the government contract, that each would supervise and control their own employees, and that each would pay their own employees. Each employer had worker's compensation insurance on its own employees (except that Aqualine's insurance was found not to cover its employees in Georgia). However, the contract provided that it was to be construed and deemed to be a joint venture. The employee was injured while working on Aqualine's part of the government contract.

1. Seckinger argues that its agreement with Aqualine did not constitute a joint venture because profits and losses were not shared, because there was no pooling of labor or equipment, and because the employees were not paid and controlled by the joint venture but were paid and controlled by the partners who employed them. Seckinger argues further that we should look to the provisions of the contract rather than to its label.

The agreement was denominated a joint venture agreement and provided that it should be construed and deemed to be a joint venture. Thus the evidence authorized the finding against Seckinger that it was a joint venture. Carroll v. Mission Ins. Co., 147 Ga.App. 262, 263, 248 S.E.2d 542 (1978).

2. In Boatman v. Geo. Hyman Construction Co., 157 Ga.App. 120, 123, 276 S.E.2d 272 (1981), a tort suit involving a worker's compensation immunity defense the Court of Appeals said "an employee engaged in activities of the joint venture is an employee of each of the joint adventurers under ordinary principles of agency." There, the injured employee of the joint venturer was barred from suing a partner in the joint venture and its employee for his injuries in tort, because under the rules governing worker's compensation the partner in the joint venture was plaintiff's employer and its employee was plaintiff's fellow servant. The conclusion logically follows that one partner in a joint venture may be liable for the worker's compensation benefits of...