Florida: Unrelated Works Exception Does Not Apply to Employees of “Horizontal” Subcontractors

As is the case with the majority of jurisdictions, Florida employees generally may not sue co-employees in tort where the alleged tortfeasor was acting in furtherance of the employer’s business. Co-employee immunity is limited in Florida, however, where the co-employee is assigned primarily to unrelated works within private or public employment (the “unrelated works exception”). That exception does not apply where separate subcontractors at the same plant employed the two employees, held a Florida court. Here the two subcontractors were in a “horizontal,” instead of a “vertical” relationship. The two workers could not be considered co-employees at all.

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 Wert v. Camacho, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 13276 (2nd DCA, Sept. 2, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 111.03.

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