Texas: Statutory Employer Was Not Immune from Tort Liability

In a decision that may produce ripples within the Texas construction industry, a state appellate court held that in order to enjoy the exclusive remedy defense, Tex. Lab. Code Ann. § 406.123(a) requires a general contractor to do something more than simply pass the onus of obtaining coverage to the subcontractor. Accordingly, where a general contractor’s agreement with a subcontractor required the latter to secure workers’ compensation coverage, but did not provide any mechanism for coverage directly, the general contractor could be sued in tort by the subcontractor’s injured employee. The Court distinguished an earlier decision by the Supreme Court of Texas, HCBeck, Ltd. v. Rice, 284 S.W.3d 349 (Tex. 2009), in which the general contractor agreed that it would provide workers' compensation insurance through an owner-controlled insurance program (OCIP) at its own option and cost.

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 Halferty v. Flextronics Am., LLC, 2018 Tex. App. LEXIS 1294 (Feb. 15, 2018)

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

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