White v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.
| Decision Date | 06 June 2000 |
| Docket Number | AND,DEFENDANT-APPELLE,PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,No. 99-2457,99-2457 |
| Citation | 222 F.3d 146 |
| Parties | (4th Cir. 2000) DOUGLAS F. WHITE,, v. BETHLEHEM STEEL CORPORATION,KRUPP LONRHO GMBH SEESCHIFFART, DEFENDANT. Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Benson E. Legg, District Judge. (CA-97-3914-L) Argued: Edward J. Lilly, Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Benjamin Rader Goertemiller, Albright, Brown & Goertemiller, L.L.C., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. On Brief: Roger A. Doumar, John B. Bratt, Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant.
Before Wilkinson, Chief Judge, Murnaghan, Circuit Judge, and Henry M. Herlong, Jr., United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Murnaghan and Judge Herlong joined.
This case presents the question of whether appellant Douglas F. White was a borrowed servant of appellee Bethlehem Steel. The district court found that he was a borrowed servant, and thus an employee of Bethlehem Steel for purposes of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA). Because the LHWCA mandates that an employee's sole remedy with regard to his employer is through the LHWCA, the court dismissed White's tort action. See 33 U.S.C. § 905(a) (1994). Because White was under the authoritative direction and control of Bethlehem Steel at the time of his injury, we affirm the dismissal of his suit.
For twenty-six years, Douglas White worked as a heavy equipment operator for C.J. Langenfelder & Son, Inc. Langenfelder rented its construction equipment and the employees who operated that equipment to various companies, among them Bethlehem Steel. Of the approximately 500 employees who worked for Langenfelder, about 100 were assigned to Bethlehem Steel.
Langenfelder and Bethlehem Steel had a contract specifying the terms of agreement between the two companies. The contract stated that Langenfelder would maintain "exclusive direction, supervision [and] control" over its workers. While the contract between the two parties expired on December 31, 1993, it apparently continued to govern the parties' relationship at the time of the incident in question. Although Langenfelder paid its employees' wages and insurance, it passed those costs through to Bethlehem Steel. For all but two weeks of White's twenty-six year tenure, he worked at Bethlehem Steel.
Langenfelder would tell White where to report within Bethlehem Steel. Approximately one-eighth of the time, White was assigned to the New Ore Pier within the Bethlehem Steel yard. At the New Ore Pier, only Bethlehem Steel employees supervised White. When White arrived at the pier, a Bethlehem Steel foreman would tell him where to go. If a work-related problem arose, Bethlehem Steel supervisors would resolve it. Over the course of White's twenty-six years at the pier, no Langenfelder employee ever supervised his work. Bethlehem Steel also reserved the right to reject any Langenfelder employee at any time. If Bethlehem Steel dismissed a Langenfelder employee, Langenfelder would have no choice but to terminate that individual.
On August 24, 1995, White was working on the M/V JUNIPER, which was berthed at the New Ore Pier. After his shift ended, White attempted to exit a hold of the JUNIPER by ladder. As he climbed the ladder, he slipped and fell, injuring himself. White maintains that his injury was caused by a lack of light in the hold. White received workers' compensation for his injury under the LHWCA.
White also sued Bethlehem Steel, alleging that the company was negligent for allowing him to remain in the hold after dark without any light source, for failing to supervise him adequately, and for failing to provide him with any assistance in exiting the hold. The district court dismissed White's action, reasoning that although the LHWCA allows an employee to pursue personal injury actions against third parties, it does not allow an employee to maintain a tort action if the employee is a borrowed servant. The district court then concluded that White was a borrowed servant of Bethlehem Steel due to the control that Bethlehem Steel supervisors exercised over him, the length of his tenure at Bethlehem Steel, and the pass-through arrangement by which Bethlehem Steel would effectively pay his wages and insurance. The court further concluded that the ability of Bethlehem Steel to exclude him from the work site effectively gave the company the power to fire him. White now appeals.
The LHWCA is a no-fault federal compensation scheme designed to give protection to injured maritime workers while at the same time affording employers some degree of predictability with regard to those workers' recoveries. See Rodriguez v. Compass Shipping Co., 451 U.S. 596, 616 (1981). Covered employees cannot bring a personal injury action against their employer; their only remedy with regard to their employer is through the LHWCA. See 33 U.S.C. § 905(a). In 1972, Congress substantially increased the level of nofault compensation. During the debate on the 1972 amendments, maritime employers took the position that they could provide higher benefits "only if the LHWCA were to again become the exclusive remedy against [the employer] as it had been intended since its passage in 1927...." Peter v. Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corp., 903 F.2d 935, 948 (3d Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, a central purpose of these changes to the LHWCA was to "minimize the need for litigation as a means of providing compensation for injured workmen." Rodriguez, 451 U.S. at 616; see also Peter, 903 F.2d at 952 ().
While the LHWCA does not explicitly adopt the borrowed servant doctrine, the word "employer" in 33 U.S.C.§ 905(a) encompasses both general employers and employers who "borrow" a servant from that general employer. See Huff v. Marine Tank Testing Corp., 631 F.2d 1140 (4th Cir. 1980); Peter, 903 F.2d at 938-39; Gaudet v. Exxon Corp., 562 F.2d 351 (5th Cir. 1977). A person can be in the general employ of one company while at the same time being in the particular employ of another "with all the legal consequences of the new relation." See Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 212 U.S. 215, 220 (1909). In order to determine whether an employee is a borrowed servant, courts "must inquire whose is the work being performed... by ascertaining who has the power to control and direct the servants in the performance of their work." Id. at 221-22. The Supreme Court noted, however, the importance of "distinguish[ing] between authoritative direction and control, and mere suggestion as to details or the necessary cooperation." Id. at 222.
The authority of the borrowing employer does not have to extend to every incident of an employer-employee relationship; rather, it need only encompass the servant's performance of the particular work in which he is engaged at the time of the accident. See id. at 220; McCollum v. Smith, 339 F.2d 348, 351 (9th Cir. 1964). When the borrowing employer possesses this authoritative direction and control over a particular act, it in effect becomes the employer. In that situation, the only remedy of the employee is through the LHWCA.
In order to determine direction and control, a court may look at factors such as the supervision of the employee, the ability to unilaterally reject the services of an employee, the payment of wages and benefits either directly or by pass-through, or the duration of employment. Ultimately, any particular factor only informs the primary inquiry -whether the borrowing employer has authoritative direction and control over a worker.
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