Louisiana: Independent Contractors May Be Entitled to Benefits Under State’s “Manual Labor” Exception

Under Louisiana’s “manual labor exception,” an independent contractor may be protected by workers’ compensation law if he or she demonstrates that (1) a substantial part of his or her work time is spent in manual labor in carrying out the terms of the contract with the principal and (2) the manual work performed is part of the principal’s trade business or occupation. Accordingly, it was error for the workers’ compensation court to deny benefits merely upon its finding that an independent contractor relationship existed between the parties in the case. The worker argued that the facts supported compensation based upon the manual labor exception and the workers’ compensation court failed to examine whether the worker might have been entitled to benefits under the exception.

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 Martinez v. Rames, 2017 La. App. LEXIS 1315 (July 12, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 71.02.

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