NY State; An emploee who has an employee

[PrinceCharming]

First the facts:

I have an employee who also runs a business in my site.
She has an emploee who works for her, but does NOT work for me.


Hypethetical question:

If my emploee's employee would injure herself, would I be liable?

Please, any responses should have a source. Thank you.

 

[You Are Guilty]

For purposes of workers comp? No, she's not YOUR employee. For general negilgence purposes? Potentially. Google "premises liability" and "non-delegable duty".

 

[PrinceCharming]

How about if we hired an independent contractor. Can they sue for personal injury?

 

[You Are Guilty]

How about if we hired an independent contractor. Can they sue for personal injury?

Of course. A bum who broke in off the street in the middle of the night can sue also. (That's what non-delegable duty means).

 

[PrinceCharming]

I wasn't sure. Because employees cannot sue their employer. I was wondering about independent contractors. I was also reading that sometimes the courts could consider independent contractors as employees with regards to workers compensation. After researching for two hours, my brain is now fried. So all this could be wrong.

 

[You Are Guilty]

I wasn't sure. Because employees cannot sue their employer. I was wondering about independent contractors. I was also reading that sometimes the courts could consider independent contractors as employees with regards to workers compensation. After researching for two hours, my brain is now fried. So all this could be wrong.

Ah, I got you. The bar for workers to sue their employers is only if they receive workers' comp benefits. (The idea being that WC is the sole recourse for an injured employee). Obviously, IC's are not entitled to WC, so this bar would not apply to them.

And, like everything else, there are exceptions, even for salaried employees. You can get all the gruesome details here, under the Workers' Compensation Law (WKC): http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS but if you're short on time, skip to s. 11 (in Article 2).

Hope that clears things up.