Kevin Brobson
PHILADELPHIA – Contractors in Pennsylvania can breathe a little easier following a ruling by the state Supreme Court that protects them from paying for injuries to workers.
Justice Kevin Brobson and his colleagues on Thursday refused to undo decades of precedent that hold a general contractor who hires a subcontractor is, according to the law, an employer of the sub’s employees.
This means personal injuries by those employees go through the Workers’ Compensation system and not courthouses. It’s a setback for Jason Yoder, who had obtained a $5 million verdict in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
That court will now determine if McCarthy Construction was the statutory employer of Yoder after previously rejecting that idea. It could be difficult, considering the manner in which the 32-page opinion turned down his arguments.
At issue was a decision known as Fonner that said contractors still have immunity from negligence suits even when the sub is the company that pays the Workers’ Comp benefits. His lawyers proclaimed “the time has come for this Court to intervene to finally put an end to the severe injustices” facing injured workers. He was joined in his argument by the state’s association for plaintiff lawyers – the Pennsylvania Association for Justice.
Insurance, construction and defense lawyer groups supported McCarthy.
“In the present case, Yoder does not advance a special justification to overrule Fonner,” Justice Brobson wrote. “Instead, he reiterates the same claims that the appellant in Fonner raised and this Court rejected.”
Yoder said amendments requiring contractors to ensure subs carry Workers’ Comp coverage helped his argument that the contractor is not his employer, but the Supreme Court said that actually hurt his case.
“This is because, clearly, the General Assembly has demonstrated its ability to enact changes to the Act to align with its intent,” Brobson wrote.
“Yet, since this Court decided Fonner over two decades ago, the General Assembly has done nothing to suggest that it disagrees with our interpretation of Section 302(b) of the Act.”
Yoder was injured working on the roof of the Norwood Public Library. He worked for RRR Contractors, which was hired by McCarthy.
Yoder fell through an uncovered hole and suffered permanent injuries.
Justice Daniel McCaffery filed a concurring opinion but lamented the five-prong test Pennsylvania courts have used since 1930 for determining who is a statutory employer.
He calls the McDonald test a “shield protecting negligent general contractors” and a “relic from a different time.”
(N)otwithstanding the repeated calls that ‘the General Assembly act, that policy-making branch has enacted no change to suggest that our decades-old interpretation of the Act is contrary to its intent,’” he wrote.
“Nonetheless, I am compelled to make that call once again — and advocate for a legislative mandate that requires an employer seeking statutory employer immunity to demonstrate that it actually paid the injured employee’s workers’ compensation benefits before receiving the benefit of statutory employer status and its concomitant immunity from liability.”
