Labor & Employment – Workers’ Compensation Act – Special-Employee Doctrine

The trial court properly determined that the Workers’ Compensation Act provided the exclusive remedy for Plaintiff’s workplace injuries, thereby depriving the court of subject- matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s civil claims. However, the court erred by dismissing Plaintiff’s amended complaint with prejudice.

We affirmed in part but vacated that portion of the trial court’s order dismissing the amended complaint with prejudice and remanded for entry of an order dismissing the amended complaint without prejudice.

Global Environmental Control III, Inc. is a staffing company that provides temporary workers with skilled-labor specialties to other companies. Prime Demolition and Contracting, LLC is a company that focuses on structural demolition and interior strip-outs.

Plaintiff appealed from the trial court’s order granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s amended complaint with prejudice pursuant to N.C. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Among other things, Plaintiff argued “the trial court erred in granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject[-]matter jurisdiction in finding that [he] was an employee of Defendant Prime Demolition,” thereby limiting Plaintiff’s remedies to those provided under the Workers’ Compensation Act. Plaintiff asserted that “[u]nder the facts of this particular case, particularly in light of the detailed [Staffing Agreement], it is clear that Prime [Demolition] cannot claim the exclusivity provisions of the [Workers’ Compensation] Act as [Plaintiff’s] ‘special employer.’ ” We disagreed. Plaintiff maintained that the Staffing Agreement supports his contention that he was not a special employee of Prime Demolition. However, in the cases cited by Plaintiff, the contracts expressly provided that the worker in question was employed solely by the general employer. In the instant case, there is no contractual provision declaring that Plaintiff was solely the employee of Global. The Staffing Agreement did not expressly retain the temporary employees as Global’s employees or preclude them from also being employed by Prime Demolition. Plaintiff accepted an assignment to work for and under the supervision of Prime Demolition. Consequently, there was competent evidence supporting the trial court’s finding that an implied contract existed between Plaintiff and Prime Demolition. Moreover, the record contains ample other evidence that Plaintiff and Prime Demolition had an implied employment contract.

Having satisfied the three prongs of the Collins test, we concluded that the court’s findings of fact as to Prime Demolition’s special-employer status are supported by competent evidence of record. The trial court did not err in determining that “Prime [Demolition] was Plaintiff’s special employer,” or that Plaintiff’s remedies were limited to those provided by the Workers’ Compensation Act. Therefore, the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims against Prime Demolition.

Affirmed in part; vacated in part and remanded.

Solis-Santos v. Lester (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 011-265-25, 19 pp.) (Valerie Zacharie, J.) Appealed from Forsyth County Superior Court (David L. Hall, J.) A.G. Linett & Associates, PA, by Adam G. Linett and Eliu F. Mendez, and Hill, Peterson, Carper, Bee & Deitzler, PLLC, by C. Michael Bee, pro hac vice, for plaintiff-appellant. McAngus Goudelock & Courie, PLLC, by Luke A. Dalton, for defendants-appellees. North Carolina Court of Appeals