South Carolina: HVAC Worker Was Employee, Not Independent Contractor

Where a heating and air-conditioning worker did not bid for work on any projects performed by the purported employer, was not disclosed by the purported employer as an independent contractor to general contractors on the various work projects, and was required to wear a uniform bearing the purported employer’s logo, as well as carry business cards and service contracts supplied by the purported employer, it was not error for the Commission to hold that the worker was an employee, and not an independent contractor. Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the court indicated that the primary consideration in determining whether an employer/employee relationship exists was whether the alleged employer had the right to control the employee in the performance of the work and the manner in which it is done. There was evidence of such control. The court stressed that the test was not the actual control exercised, but whether there existed the right and authority to control and direct the particular work or undertaking. The court placed some importance also on the fact that most of the tools at the work site had been supplied by the purported employer.

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 Sellers v. Tech Serv., Inc., 2017 S.C. App. LEXIS 68 (Aug. 9, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 61.07.

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