Texas: Appeals Court Overturns $43 Million Verdict on Exclusive Remedy Grounds

Where a general contractor enters into a written agreement under which the general contractor provides workers’ compensation insurance coverage to a subcontractor and the subcontractor’s employees through a contractor-controlled insurance program (CCIP), the general contractor is deemed to be the statutory employer of the subcontractor and the subcontractor’s employees for purposes of state workers’ compensation laws [see Tex. Lab. Code § 406.123]. The result is to treat the workers covered under the CCIP arrangement as co-employees, even if they are technically employed by separate entities. Accordingly, when the contractor’s project superintendent sustained serious injuries in a crane accident that required the amputation of one of the superintendent’s legs above the knee, he could not maintain a civil action against the crane contractor and its employees; his claim was barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act. Nor could he utilize the intentional injury exception to the exclusive remedy rule; the evidence was legally insufficient to support a finding that an employee of the subcontractor intended to produce the specific consequences of his conduct.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Berkel & Co. Contrs., Inc. v. Lee, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 6414 (July 13, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 111.04.

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