Federal: Leased Employee May Not Sue Leasing “Employer”

Where corporation A supplied licensed truck drivers to corporation B—an affiliated entity—under a three-year agreement under which the drivers worked at B’s facilities, but remained employees of A, who paid the drivers their wages and taxes, and retained total control over labor negotiations, employee grievances, and collective bargaining, both A and B were joint employers. Accordingly, an injured driver’s exclusive remedy against B was under the Indiana workers’ compensation law. He could not maintain a civil action against B for negligence, held a federal district court. The court observed that Ind. Code. § 22–3–2–6 provided, among other things, that “[a] parent corporation and its subsidiaries shall each be considered joint employers of the corporation’s, the parent’s, or the subsidiaries’ employees” and “[both] a lessor and lessee of employees shall each be considered joint employers of the employees provided by the lessor to the lessee.” Noting that the facts were quite similar to those in Taylor v. Ford Motor Co., 944 N.E.2d 78 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), the federal court held the exclusive remedy provision of the Indiana Workers’ Compensation Act clearly barred the truck driver’s civil action. Summary judgment in favor of the corporate defendant was appropriate under these circumstances.

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 McFerrin v. Howmet Castings and Servs., Inc., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71701 (N.D. Ind., June 1, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 111.01.

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

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