INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR LIABILITY TO
OTHER PERSONS ON THE JOB SITE
There have been some recent court decisions which have
advanced the cause of worker's safety in the construction industry. One of the cases
involved residential construction and another involved a commercial construction project.
In the case of Pool v. Mavco, Minn. Ct. of App., No. C1-98-1080 (Jan. 12, 1999),
the Court reversed the trial court's ruling that an independent contractor had no duty to
warn another contractor about an obvious hazard at a job site where they worked together.
The facts of the case showed that the two independent contractors were involved in
residential construction. While working on a scaffold, Mr. Pool backed up onto a fir plank
that bridged a 8-foot span. The plank broke and he fell approximately 8 feet fracturing
his heel.
The other independent contractor had placed the fir
plank on the scaffold. After so doing, he saw a clearly visible knot near the center of
the plank. He knew the knot would weaken the plank and make the platform unsafe but failed
to notify the other contractor about the weakened plank. The trial court threw out the
case concluding that there was no duty of one independent contractor to warn another
because the knot was an open and obvious condition.
The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and
reinstated the Complaint holding that, when one person is engaged in work with another,
there is a duty to exercise ordinary care and skill for the safety of all persons. This is
consistent with other cases which have held that, where one independent contractor creates
an unsafe condition which endangers or jeopardizes other contractors, then it has the duty
to correct the hazard and, if that cannot be done, to warn others of the danger.
In another case, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that a
independent contractor was liable for injuries caused by a dangerous condition at a work
site after the company had left the site and turned its work over to the property owner.
The case was Brent v. Unicol, Inc., Alaska No. S8178 (12-24-98).
In this case, an injured worker sued Unicol after he
fell into a hole that Unicol had left on the work site. The injured worker was an employee
of another independent contractor which was installing pipe next to Unicol's work site.
The Alaska Supreme Court found that Unicol had a duty to disclose the condition to the
property owner and insure that the owner recognized the nature of the hazard. As the Court
stated, "The party creating the danger is required to act reasonably in insuring not
only that the property owner is informed, but that other potential victims will be aware
of their peril."
A fundamental principal of construction site safety is
the concept of safety redundancy. This means that contractors will have overlapping safety
responsibilities for the their own workers, as well as the obligation not to create
hazards for other workers. As this duty upon contractors becomes more entrenched in the
law, it should result in safer construction sites and fewer deaths and injuries since
contractors will know if they do not pay for safety, they will pay for its consequences.
