Takeaway: A property owner and management company were not liable for injuries sustained by an employee of a lighting contractor where the conditions that led to the worker's injury—a broken roof hatch and a too-short ladder—were reasonably ascertainable by the contractor.
An electrical technician was injured when a broken hatch providing access to the roof of a commercial building in Riverside, Calif., slammed shut on his back, herniating several of his discs. He sued the building's owner and management company, contending that the defendants had failed either to repair a dangerous condition of which they were aware or to warn him of it. A jury awarded the worker more than $12.6 million in damages. The defendants appealed.
A California appellate court recently reversed the award of damages, holding that under California's Privette doctrine, named after a 1993 California Supreme Court case, a property owner who hires an independent contractor may be liable to the contractor's employee for injuries sustained on the job only if the owner exercises control over any part of the contractor's work in a manner that affirmatively contributed to the worker's injuries, or the employee was injured by a concealed hazard that was unknown to and not reasonably ascertainable by the contractor.
In this case, the court said, the injured worker did not claim that the defendants exercised any control over the worksite, and the undisputed evidence established that the worker and his employer...
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