New York: Affiliate Company Must Pay Half of Claimant’s Workers’ Comp Benefits

Substantial evidence supported the Workers’ Compensation Board’s ruling that an affiliate company, Quality Carriers, was claimant’s special employer and, therefore, liable for 50 percent of the workers’ compensation benefits owed to an injured driver, where the evidence established that Eaton’s Trucking Service (“Eaton”) and Quality had an arrangement whereby Eaton's drivers, including claimant, hauled products exclusively for Quality's customers and did so in furtherance of Quality's business, and that Eaton operated under Quality's logo and license without which Eaton could not have conducted its hauling operation. The court observed that while Quality did not control the day-to-day oversight of claimant, this is not dispositive as both Eaton and claimant operated entirely under Quality's authority and pursuant to its policies. As a result, Quality had sufficient control over the “details and ultimate result” of claimant's work, and Quality's working relationship with claimant was sufficient in kind and degree so that Quality could be deemed to be his employer.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis

See Matter of Mitchell v Eaton's Trucking Serv., Inc., 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 6806 (3rd Dept., Oct. 11, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 68.03.

Source:Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law