Work Injury

Published on: April 10, 2016

Injuries Sustained Due to Property of a Texas University

In The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Munoz, the plaintiff was hurt by heavy equipment on which he worked near property owned by the university. Employed by Universal Controls, Inc. (UCI), he was an electrician. UCI subcontracted to retrofit an air-handling unit (a type of air conditioner in offices). UCI needed to install new computer panels and sensors. UCI had to run wiring for the system, including making decisions about where the wire would be run. Its employees were responsible to do the work. The university didn’t supply materials, but it owned the complex, including the towers to which air conditioning would be supplied.

The second tower was a 14-story building. The unit at issue was a pulley-driven motor system. Although it was supposed to have a safety cover, it was missing. The plaintiff started working on the unit in October and worked there for seven or eight days without a problem. He noticed the missing safety cover before the date of his injury, October 9.

On that day, he saw that UCI employees were there, but no university employees were there. He noticed that another employee had left wire in the walkway near an uncovered spinning wheel and realized it was dangerous. However, he simply walked around the wire instead of tying it on multiple occasions. One time, his leg got caught in the wire, which was entangled in the spinning wheel, and he was jerked as the wire pulled by the spinning wheel lifted him and twisted his knee. His knee and back were hurt, and he had to have two surgeries, both of which were unsuccessful.

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Published on: March 20, 2016

Texas Workers’ Compensation as Exclusive Remedy for Work Injury

By Carabin Shaw

In Palmer v. Newtron Beaumont, the plaintiff appealed on the basis that the trial court shouldn’t have granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff was an employee of Motiva who sued the defendant (Newtron Beaumont) when a Newtron employee stepped on him at the Motiva plant while getting down from scaffolding. The plaintiff argued that it was Newtron’s negligence that caused his injuries.

Newtron filed a summary judgment motion, claiming that it and Motiva had entered into an agreement whereby Motiva was to provide workers’ compensation insurance and employer’s liability insurance for Newtron and its employees when they worked for Motiva. The Motiva policy covered all of Motiva’s employees, including the plaintiff. Newtron argued that Texas law made Newtron Motiva’s deemed employee, and therefore it was the plaintiff’s fellow employee under the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act. This would make it immune from the plaintiff’s effort to recover workers’ compensation benefits.

In its summary judgment motion, the defendant argued that Motiva kept the right to implement and maintain its workers’ compensation and employer’s liability insurance. The motion further argued that the plaintiff was acting in the course and scope of his employment with Motiva at the time of the injury, and his exclusive remedy under the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act barred him from filing a civil suit for work-related injuries against any of his fellow employees (such as Newtron).

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Published on: March 20, 2016

Slip and Fall in Texas County Jail

By Carabin Shaw

In Jefferson County v. Akins, the plaintiff sued a county for personal injuries arising from her slip and fall in the hallway of the county jail. She was an employee of the jail, supervising inmates in the kitchen area in the middle of the night, and the fall occurred when she was leaving the jail after the end of her shift. Water often dripped in the hallway from trays being delivered from the kitchens.

Before falling, the plaintiff noticed an employee supervising a crew that was mopping the hallway. She didn’t know what she’d fallen on, but after she fell, she noticed her back was wet and the floor was shiny. Her supervisor witnessed the fall, and was of the opinion that she had fallen because the crew had just mopped the area where the plaintiff was injured.

The supervisor of the cleaning crew testified that there was a sign noting the floor was slippery on the mop bucket used by her crew. She also testified that she would dry-mop areas after mopping because she was concerned about safety. She also contradicted the plaintiff’s testimony about where she was when the plaintiff fell. She testified that she was standing about a foot from the accident and her crew hadn’t mopped the location of the fall. However, she had scolded the crew immediately after the fall, because she believed in that moment that they had left the area mopped and wet. Later she noticed drops of water on the floor in the door of the dining room and inside the dining area. It was her opinion that the trays from the kitchen carts had dripped and caused the plaintiff’s fall.

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Published on: December 10, 2015

Limits of Vicarious Liability in Texas

By Carabin Shaw

In Painter v. Sandridge Energy, Inc., a Texas appellate court considered the death of two oil field employees and injuries to a third oil field employee. The workers were doing drilling on behalf of their employer, Amerimex. Amerimex was hired by Sandridge, which had a lease to drill wells at a ranch. The contract described Amerimex as an independent contractor but specified that the crew worked under Sandridge’s control, supervision, and direction. Sandridge was obligated to pay bonuses to the Amerimex employees so that they wouldn’t be hired away by other drillers. Sandridge had an on-site supervisor who stayed in a trailer.

The accident happened after the workers’ shift while they were driving to a bunkhouse 30-40 miles away owned by Amerimex. There was no requirement that the workers live in the bunkhouse or ride with their crew leader to and from the drilling site, but since the crew leader was the only one with a car, they did drive to and from the bunkhouse with him every day. The crew worked in shifts of seven days on and seven days off. While driving, the crew leader ran into the back of another car. Two of the employees were killed, and another was injured. Later, the crew leader testified that nobody at Sandridge gave him any driving instructions.

The decedents’ relatives and the surviving employee sued the other driver in the crash, Amerimex, and Sandridge, the owner of the oil and gas lease. Their petition alleged that Sandridge was responsible for the crew leader’s actions because it gave a financial incentive to the crew leader to transport them in his car. They alternatively alleged the crew leader was the agent of Sandridge due to a transportation bonus, or that he was a “borrowed servant” of Sandridge.

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Published on: September 21, 2015

Meat-Cutting Work Injury in Texas

By Carabin Shaw

In Kroger Company v. Milanes, an employer that didn’t subscribe to workers’ compensation appealed from a final judgment in favor of its employee. The employee suffered serious injuries while cutting meat. On appeal, the employer raised multiple arguments, including the argument that the trial court had erred in submitting the plaintiff’s claim to the jury on a theory of general negligence rather than premises liability.

The plaintiff went through a one-day orientation before starting work in 2007. It didn’t include safety training, focusing instead on joining the union. He started out as a clerk in the meat department and was then promoted to apprentice meat cutter. As an apprentice, journeymen—more experienced meat cutters—trained him on how to use the meat cutters, including a bone-in band saw.

The plaintiff was trained a great deal by one particular journeyman, who he thought did a good job training him, but he never taught him to use a band saw blade guard as required by OSHA. He didn’t even know that the bone-in band saw had a blade guard for safety and was never given the operation manuals or warning labels. He thought it was used to line up the meat. The plaintiff eventually became a journeyman himself.

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