Federal: Resort Is Statutory Employer of Staffing Company’s Parking Attendants

A parking attendant, who worked for a staffing company that contracted with a resort hotel to supply workers for valet parking is barred by the exclusive remedy doctrine from suing the resort in tort for injuries he sustained when he slipped on water while on his way to retrieve a parked vehicle; the resort was his statutory employer and the attendant’s receipt of workers’ compensation benefits from his direct employer, the staffing company, meant he could not recover further. In Florida, a statutory employer is immune from suit if it sublets any part of its contract work to a subcontractor. Here a property agreement between the hotel and the owners of the underlying property required the hotel to provide valet parking services to its guests. The staffing company was the subcontractor performing that service and its employees were, therefore, statutory employees of the hotel.

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. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Lache v. Bal Harbour Hotel, LLC, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61756 (S.D. Fla., May 12, 2015) [2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61756 (S.D. Fla., May 12, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 70.06 [70.06]

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