Gerald McClain v Birnimwood Condominium Assoc., et al
Release Date: Dec. 15, 2020 (April 8, 2015) (temporary award)
Venue: St. Louis
Plot Summary: Claimant fell from a roof and the parties disputed whether either named entity was a statutory employer due to the tree cutter showed a comp certificate but did not have coverage at the time of the accident.
Cast
Boresi, AL
Johnson, C
Quotes:
The ALJ noted:
"no employer shall be liable, if the employee was insured by his immediate or any intermediate employer. Based on the finding Birnamwood is the statutory employer, no further analysis is necessary regarding Efthim purported status as a statutory employer. Efthim is not an intermediate employer in the chain to Claimant; rather Efthim is the agent of Birnamwood - it acted on behalf of its principal but never entered into a contract or hired workers in general or Claimant in particular on its own accord
The Commission noted:
We agree with the administrative law judge that the answer would be yes. As we found above, the terms of the contract between Birnamwood and Efthim already contemplated hiring employees to perform the essential maintenance of the property's grounds. Accordingly, we conclude that Birnamwood would have hired an employee to trim trees if it could not have contracted out the work and it would have used Efthim to hire and pay employees on behalf of Birnamwood. We further agree that the tree trimming services performed by Meyers Trees over the years of service to Birnamwood was not merely specialized or episodic work, but was within Birnamwood's usual business."
Comments:
The ALJ uses the parties' adoption of the name of a defendant as Meyers, noting an apostrophe, Meyers', would have been more grammatically appropriate..
