Case Title: San Juan v. PSC Industrial Outsourcing

Citation: 126 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 35

Docket Number: 

State: nevada

Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Date: 2010-10-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
126 Nev, Advance Opinion 35
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA

ELIAS SAN JUAN; CECILIO SAN No. 50033,
JUAN; RAUL GONZALEZ; AND PAULA |

LOPEZ, IN HER CAPACITY AS WIDOW

AND HEIR OF JAIME GONZALEZ, AS FILED
ADMINISTRATRIX FOR THE ESTATE, |

OF JAIME GONZALEZ, AND AS ocr g7 010
GUARDIAN FOR HEIRS, ROLANDO

GONZALEZ, JAIME GONZALEZ, JR.
SALVADOR GONZALEZ, AND |
FERNANDO GONZALEZ, MINOR

CHILDREN OF JAIME GONZALEZ,
Appellants,

PSC INDUSTRIAL OUTSOURCING,
INC., A DELAWARE CORPORATION, |
AJK/A PHILIP SERVICES
CORPORATION, A DELAWARE
CORPORATION, |
Respondent.

 

Appeal from a district court summary judgment, certified as
final under NRCP 54(b), in a tort action. Ninth Judicial District Court,
Douglas County; Michael P. Gibbons, Judge.

Affirmed,

Bolick & Boyer and R. Duane Frizell, Las Vegas; Callister & Reynolds and
Matthew Q. Callister, Las Vegas; Law Office of Federico Sayre and

Federico Sayre, Santa Ana, California,
for Appellants.

Laxalt & Nomura, Ltd., and Robert A. Dotson and Ilin L. Rocovits, Reno,
for Respondent.

 

BEFORE HARDESTY, DOUGLAS and PICKERING, JJ.

  

 
0 0

 

OPINION
By the Court, PICKERING, J.:

Our case law holds that a person who hires an independent
contractor is not, without more, vicariously liable to the independent
contractor's employees for their employer's torts, even though the job
involves inherent danger or “peculiar risk.” ‘The issue presented by this
appeal is whether this rule depends on the employer being solvent and
competent. We hold that it does not. The Nevada workers’ compensation
system covers injured workers without regard to their employer's solvency.
And competence, judged after the fact and without regard to the hirer's
knowledge or fault, does not differ meaningfully from nogligence. Holding
a person who hires an independent contractor vicariously liable when the
contractor turns out to be incompetent but not if he proves negligent
draws a distinction the law does not support. For these and the other
reasons below, wo affirm the district court’s summary judgment.
L

‘The appellants are Elias San Juan, Cecilio San Juan, Raul
Gonzalez, and Paula Lopez individually and as representative of Jaime
Gonzalez’s estate and minor children (collectively, “San Juan” or San Juan
appellants). The men worked for Depressurized Technologies, Inc. (DTD
in Minden, Nevada, sorting and decanting aerosol cans, Respondent
Philip Services Corporation (PSC) is in the business of treating and
recycling industrial waste.

 

SC contracted with DTI to decant aerosol
cans it collected from industrial and consumer recycling centers and
shipped to DT! for processing.

 
a

 

‘Most aerosols contain propellants, such as propane and
butane, which create a risk of fire or explosion if mixed with oxygen and
exposed to a spark or open flame. Relatively simple and commonplace
precautions can reduce, even eliminate the risk. ‘These precautions
include decanting the aerosols in a closed environment (like a glove box)
that has been purged of oxygen with nitrogen gas and adhering to the
National Electrie Code protocols for environments with volatile
concentrations of fuel

DTT had plants in California and Nevada. Its Nevada plant
was inspected by the Novada Department of Environmental Protection
(NDEP), as well as by existing and prospective customers, including PSC.
DTT developed and used a specially designed machine to automatically
decant aerosol cans. When NDEP or others inspected DTT’s plant, DTT
‘only showed them its automated process. However, the automated process
was slow and had trouble with hair and shaving foams, which tended to
clog. This led DTT to devise an alternative, manual decanting process,

‘The manual process took place in a closed 40-foot shipping
container. DTI employees would puncture aerosol cans on spikes and let
their contents drain into a drum. A wooden hood vented the gasses
released to the outside. DTI employees used a forklift to remove filled
drums from the shipping container.

DTI kept its manual decanting operations a secret, hiding
them from NDEP, PSC, and other outsiders. When PSC inspected the
plant and asked what the shipping container was for, a DTI representative
said that NDEP required it for storing unprocessed waste. DTI told San
Juan and its other employees to halt manual decanting work, hide the

spikes, and lock the container’s doors if government inspectors or clients

 
om

 

came, It also added a night shift and directed employees, including San
Juan, to work behind closed doors during the day.

An explosion occurred while DTI employees were manually
decanting cans of hair styling foam. (The cans were full, the hair product
being unmarketable for some reason.) The foam smelled good and wasn't
thought dangerous, so the ventilation hood, such as it was, had been
turned off, A forklift engine caused a spark that ignited inadequately
ventilated gasses in the shipping container. The explosion injured five
workers, one fatally. Appellants are the representative of the DTI
employee who died and three of the four injured workers who survived.

The San Juan appellants received benefits from the Nevada
workers’ compensation system.! Separately, they sued PSC, alleging that
PSC should answer for DTY's negligence. PSC responded by moving for
summary judgment on the grounds DTI was an independent service
provider, over whose employees PSC exercised no control and for whose
negligence PSC was not legally responsible. ‘The district court denied

PSC's motion without projudice. It agreed with San Juan that it would be

'Their recovery came from the Nevada State Uninsured Employer:
Claim Fund because DTI had not paid into the system. The district judge
took judicial notice of the fact that, also in his court, DTI's principal,
Walter Gonzalez, was convicted of two category C felonies for his role in
this horrific tragedy. As part of Gonzalez’s sentence, the judge required
Gonzalez and DTI to reimburse the State Uninsured Employers’ Claim
Fund for the victims’ industrial insurance benefits. There is no evidence
that suggests PSC knew of DTI's nonpayment. The summary judgment
order notes that when the court sentenced Gonzalez in 2004, the victims
had received workers’ compensation benefits of $796,240.67.

 

 
unfair to decide the case on summary judgment without giving San Juan a
chance to probe PSC's relationship with DTI.

Fairly extensive discovery followed. ‘The San Juan appellants
were deposed, as were the principals of DTI, PSC, and the East Fork Fire
Department, and the experts each side retained. When discovery finished,
PSC renewed its summary judgment motion. San Juan filed a
countermotion for partial summary judgment. San Juan argued that PSC
owed DTT's employees a nondelegable duty of care, subjecting PSC to strict
liability for DTY's safety defaults,

‘The evidence submitted with the cross-motions for summary
judgment showed that PSC and DTI had no shared or common ownership
DTI did not fund its start-up or operating costs through PS

 

(C, as San Juan

 

originally suspected; DTI generated its cash flow by factoring its accounts

 

receivable with an outside bank. PSC was DT's largest customer and
inspected the Nevada plant before shipping cans to it. However, PSC had
no ownership, leasehold, or possessory interest in the plant and no control,
over its day-to-day operations. Like other DTI customers, PSC paid DTI
on a per job basis.

In their depositions, D's principal, Walter Gonzalez, PSC
representatives, and several San Juan appellants testified without

contradiction that PSC, like NDEP (who inspected the plant 17 days

  

before the explosion), did not know about DT!'s rogue manual decanting
program. The district court found it undisputed that “DTT did not keep
PSC informed as to the details and methods of its work, hid the [manual
decanting] work from its customers, and performed [this] work at a time of
day to minimize possible discovery by others.” It concluded that PSC

 

 
 

red DTI on an independent contractor basis, a point the San Juan
appellants “appear to concede,” both in the district court and on appeal.
The district court wrote a thorough and thoughtful opinion, It
held that, as a matter of law, a person who hires an independent
contractor is not vicariously liable to the contractor's employees for torts

they or their employer commit. Finding no evidence of active negligence

 

or breach of affirmative duty by PSt

 

it granted summary judgment in

 

favor of PSC and against San Juan.? From this order, San Juan appeal

 

Applying the de novo review appropriate to summary judgment,
Sustainable Growth v, Jumpers, LLC, 122 Nev. 53, 61, 128 P.3d 452, 458,
(2006), and questions of legal duty, Lee v. GNLY Corp, 117 Nev. 291, 295,
22 P.8d 209, 212 (2001), we affirm.
Th

At common law, the general rule was that “the employer of an
independent contractor is not liable for physical harm caused to another
by an act or omission of the contractor or his servants.” Restatement
(Gecond) of Torts § 409 (1965), cited in Renown Health v, Vanderford, 126
Nev. __, __, 235 P.3d 614, 616 (2010). Exceptions grew up, some

  

 

statutory, many having to do with landowners contracting for work
creating a risk of harm to neighbors or passersby. See Dixon v, Simpson,
74 Nev. 358, 332 P.2d 656 (1958) (landowner liable for injuries to a

*The district court also found that San Juan did not establish that
the cans of hair mousse being decanted when the explosion occurred came
from PSC. San Juan disputes whether PSC’s motion for summary
judgment gave fair notice that it challenged proximate cause

 

 
os

 

pedestrian who fell into a trench the landowner hired an independent
contractor to dig); Anderson v. Feutsch, 31 Nev. 501, 103 P. 1013 (1909)
(same; statute imposed liability on landowner who commissioned
excavation in the sidewalk fronting his business).? In Chapter 15, the
Restatement (Second) of Torts catalogues the exceptions to the general
rule of nonliability stated in section 409, It divides the exceptions into two
categories or “topics,” depending on the presence (§§ 410-415) or absence
(§§ 416-429) of hirer fault—ite,, personal negligence versus vicarious
liability:

The rules stated in... §§ 416-429, unlike those
stated in... §§ 410-415, do not rest upon any
personal negligence of the employer [of an
independent contractor]. They are rules of
vicarious liability, making the employer liable for
the negligence of the independent contractor,
irrespective of whether the employer has himself
been at fault, They arise in situations in which,
for reasons of policy, the employer is not permitted
to shift the responsibility for the proper conduct of
the work to the contractor.

“The peculiar-risk doctrine, although historically tied to owners and
occupiers of land, has been applied in other contexts. See Restatement
(Second) of Torts § 416 cmt. d (1965) (giving as an example of a peculiar-
risk case an independent contractor hired to haul giant logs who fails to
take special precautions to anchor the logs to the truck, injuring a third
party).

To reduce confusion, given that the San Juan appellants are the
independent contractor's employees, we have used “hirer” rather than
“employer” to refer to the person who hires the independent contractor.

 
See Restatement (Second) of Torts ch. 15, topic 2, introductory note, at 394
(1965).

In this appeal, San Juan relies on vicarious liability rules.
‘Thus, San Juan maintains that PSC, as the hirer of independent
contractor DTI, is vicariously liable to them as employees of DTI, under
the peculiar-risk doctrine restated in the Restatement (Second) of Torts
sections 416 and 427. Section 416 subjects the hirer of an independent
contractor to vicarious liability to others for work the hirer “should
recognize as likely to create during its progress a peculiar risk of physical
harm to_others unless special precautions are taken, [where]... the
contractor [fails] to exercise reasonable care to take such precautions
(Emphasis added.) Section 427 similarly provides that one who hires “an
independent contractor to do work involving a special danger to others
which the [hirer] knows or has reason to know to be inherent in or normal
to the work ...is subject to liability for physical harm caused to such
others by the contractor's failure to take reasonable precautions against
such danger.” (Emphasis added.)

‘The parties assume, and so shall we, that decanting aerosol
cans involves a “peculiar risk” within the meaning of sections 416 and

427.5 The dispute comes over who can sue the hirer when the independent

 

Restatement (Second) of Torts sections 416 and 427 are “closely
related to, and to a considerable extent a duplication of” each other, § 427
emt. a, and “have been applied more or less interchangeably,” § 416 emt. a.
‘The main difference is that section 416 usually applies where the hirer
“should anticipate the need for some specific precaution, such as a railing
around an excavation in the sidewalk,” while section 427 “is more
commonly applied where the danger involved in the work calls for a
number of precautions, or involves a number of possible hazards, as in the
continued on next page .

 

 

 

 
 

contractor performing peculiarly risky work turns out to be insolvent
and/or incompetent. In Sierra Pacific Power Co. v. Rinehart, we held that
the “others” to whom the Restatement section 416 makes a hirer
vicariously liable for its independent contractor's negligence does not
include the latter’s employees. 99 Nev. 557, 562-63, 665 P.2d 270, 273-74
(1983). Nonetheless, in dictum, Sierra Pacific left open the possibility that
the hirer could be liable to the independent contractor's employees if the
hirer had superior competence and knowledge of the risks associated with
the work and/or if the independent contractor was insolvent. Id, at 562-
63, 665 P.2d at 273-74 (quoting Nelson v, United States, 639 F.2d 469, 478
(8th Cir. 1980)); see also Knutson v, Allis-Chalmers Corp., 358 F. Supp. 24
983, 994-95 (D. Nev. 2005) (Sierra Pacific leaves Nevada law unclear on
whether “a distinction might be present where the [hirer] was in a better

 

position than the contractor to anticipate dangers and implement
precautions, or where there was a question as to the competency or
solvency of the independent contractor.” (citing Littlefield v, U.S,, 927 F.2d
1099, 1104 (9th Cir. 1991))).

Sierra

  

icific does not establish the competency/insolvency

exception San Juan urges. Sierra Pacific was an appeal from a judgment

 

- continued

case of blasting, or painting carried on upon a scaffold above the highway.”
Id. § 416 cmt. a. Both involve work that, if adequate precautions are
taken, does not carry an unreasonable risk of harm. Id, § 427 emt. d
“Abnormally dangerous activity” under sections 427A, 519, and 520 is
different. Although San Juan argued sections 519 and 520 in the district
court, it does not on appeal. For simplification, we use “peculiar-risk
doctrine” to refer to sections 416 and 427 together.

 
om

 

after trial in favor of the widow of a deceased employee of an independent
contractor that Sierra Pacific hired to construct a cooling tower on ite land.
99 Nev. at 559-60, 665 P.2d at 272. This court reversed judgment for the
employee's widow, finding no liability as a matter of law. Id. at 559, 665
P.2d at 271-72, It held that “the lower court improperly ruled that
appellants [the hirers] breached their nondelegable duties, under sections
413 and 416 of the Restatement of Torts, to provide special precautions
because [the independent contractor's] employees are not included in the
15 P.2d at
272 (emphasis in original). Sierra Pacific's actual holding, as opposed to
its dictum, thus supports PSC.

En route to its holding, the Sierra Pacific court notes the then-
current “split of authority” on whether “others” for purposes of

term ‘others’ for the purposes of those sections.” Id. at 559, 64

 

Restatement sections 413 and 416 includes the hirer’s independent
contractor's employees. 99 Nev. at 562, 665 P.2d at 278.° It cites Nelson

“Section 413 falls into the “personal negligence” category established
by the Restatement (Second) of Torts ch. 15, topic 1. It subjects a person
who hires an independent contractor to liability for harm to others arising
out of work by the contractor that the hirer “should recognize as likely to
create, during its progress, a peculiar unreasonable risk of physical harm
to others unless special precautions are taken” where the hirer fails to
require such precautions or “fails to exercise reasonable care to provide in
some other manner for the taking of such precautions.” Restatement
(Second) of Torts § 413 (1965). The distinction between section 413 as a
direct liability rule and sections 416 and 427 as vicarious liability rules is
difficult to grasp, and in Toland v. Sunland Housing Group, Inc., 955 P.2d
604, 512-18 (Cal. 1998), was rejected as a basis for allowing a hirer to be
held liable to its independent contractor's employees in the section 413
“personal negligence” context but not the section 416 vicarious liability
context per Privette v. Superior Court (Contreras), 864 P.2d 721 (Cal

continued on next page

  

10

 
ome

 

v, United States, 639 F.2d 469 (9th Cir. 1980), a section 413 case, as one
“example” among others, of the rule it was adopting. See Sierra Pacific, 99
Nev. at 562-68, 665 P.2d at 273-74 (citing Welker v. Kennecott Copper

Company, 408 P.2d 380 (Ariz. App. 1965), rejected on other grounds by
Lewis v. Riebe Enter., Inc,, 825 P.2d 5, 9-10 (Ariz. 1992); Celender v.
Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, 222 A.2d 461 (Pa, Super. 1966)).”

Like the widow in Sierra Pacific, the injured employee in
Nelson won a judgment against his employer's hirer, the United States,
Nelson, 639 F.2d at 470. The Ninth Circuit reversed, finding the hirer not
liable to the independent contractor's employee as a matter of law. Id, at
478-79. But in reversing, Nelson states:

= continued

1993); but see Toland, 955 P.2d at 516 (Werdegar, J., concurring and
dissenting). We do not reach section 413 here, because the San Juan
appellants only assert section 416 and 427 claims for vicarious liability.
We note the section 413 issue for the light it may shed on Sierra Pacific
and Nelson, both of which, unlike this case, involved direct personal
negligence claims against the hirer under section 413. (Indeed, it appears
that the employee in Nelson relied solely on section 413.) Citing the
contractor's solvency and competence as a reason for not holding the hirer
liable under section 413, where the hirer’s personal negligence in
requiring or not requiring precautions determines the hirer’s liability,
makes more sense, at least superficially, than it does in the vicarious
liability context.

*San Juan also cites Peck v. Womack, 65 Nev 184, 192 P.2d 874
(1948), but its reliance is misplaced. ‘The injured worker in Peck worked
for the person who hired the independent contractor. Id, at 197, 192 P.2d
at 880. The hirer was held liable for putting its own employee in harm's
way. Nor were workers’ compensation benefits available. Id. at 190, 192
P.2d at 877.

u

 
‘As long as an independent contractor is informed
about particular safety risks, and is competent
and solvent, there is no reason in law or policy
why he alone should not be fully responsible for
injuries to workmen arising out of the
performance of inherently dangerous jobs in which
the contractor has special skill and experience not
shared with the owner.

 

Id. at 478. San Juan reminds us that Sierra Pacific quotes this passage
from Nelson, 99 Nev. at 563, 665 P.2d at 274, using it to tease out of

 

jerra Pacific the competeney/insolvency exception it advocates,

No modern case has adopted San Juan's proposed exception.
What was a “split of authority” in the early 1980s, when Sierra Pacific and
Nelson were decided, has turned into “an overwhelming majority” of state
and federal courts now agreeing that a person who hires an independent
contractor is not liable to the contractor's employees under the peculiar-
risk provisions of Chapter 15 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Monk
v. Virgin Islands Water & Power Authority, 63 F.3d 1381, 1391-92 &
nn.27-31 (8d Cir, 1995) (collecting cases and noting that some

 

 

jurisdictions, like California and Missouri, have “even overrulled their
own] prior interpretations of the Restatement” (citing Privette v. Superior
Court (Contreras), 854 P.2d 721, 730 n.4 (Cal. 1993) (overruling Woolen v,
Aerojet General Corporation, 369 P.2d 708 (Cal. 1962)), and Zueck v.
Oppenheimer Gateway Properties, 809 S,W.2d 384, 390 (Mo. 1991)
(overruling Mallory v. Louisiana Pure Ice & Supply Co., 6 S.W.2d 617
(1928)), to which should be added Michigan, DeShambo v, Nielsen, 684
N.W.2d 332, 340 (Mich. 2004) (overruling Vannoy v. City of Warren, 166
N.W.2d 486 (Mich. Ct. App. 1968)), and the District of Columbia,
Velasquez v, Essex Condominium Ass'n, 759 A.2d 676, 681-82 (D.C. 2000)

 

 
ne

 

(rejecting Lindler v. District of Columbia, 502 F.2d 495 (D.C. Cir. 1974), as
“not binding’).

‘This substantially uniform body of cases returns to tort
fundamentals. It emphasizes that, absent control, negligent hiring, or
other basis for direct liability, a person who hires an independent
contractor to provide a service is not ordinarily liable for the torts the
independent contractor commits. Courts created the peculiar-risk
exception to this general rule of nonliability “in the late 19th century to
ensure that innocent third parties injured by inherently dangerous work
performed by an independent contractor for the benefit of the hiring
person could sue not only the contractor, but also the hiring person, so
that in the event of the contractor's insolvency, the injured person would
still have a source of recovery.” Toland v, Sunland Housing Group, Inc.,
965 P.2d 504, 507 (Cal. 1998). “{A]s between two parties innocent of any
personal wrongdoing—the person who contracted for the work and the
hapless victim of the contractor's negligence—the risk of loss occasioned
by the contracted work was more fairly allocated to the person for whose
benefit the job was undertaken.” Privette, 854 P.2d at 725,

‘These public policy justifications for an exception to the
normal rule of nonliability don't apply when the claimants are “the
contractor's employees [who] are compensated for the risks of their
employment by a combination of wages, benefits, and entitlement to
workers’ compensation in the event of an accident.” Anderson v,
Marathon Petroleum Co., 801 F.2d 986, 941 (7th Cir. 1986).

When an employee of the independent contractor
hired to do dangerous work suffers a work-related
injury, the employee is entitled to recovery under
the state's workers’ compensation system. ‘That
statutory scheme, which affords compensation

13

 
os

 

regardless of fault, advances the same policies
that underlie the doctrine of peculiar risk. ‘Thus,
when the contractor's failure to provide safe
working conditions results in injury to the
contractor's employee, additional recovery from
the person who hired the contractor—a non-
negligent party—advances no societal interest
that is not already served by the workers’
compensation system.

Privette, 854 P.2d at 723. Because workers’ compensation “shields an

 

independent contractor from tort liability to its employees, applying the
peculiar-risk doctrine to the independent contractor's employees would
illogically and unfairly subject the hiring person, who did nothing to create
the risk that caused the injury, to greater liability than that faced by the
independent contractor whose negligence caused the employee's injury.”
Toland, 955 P.2d at 506. Also, “an owner should not incur greater
exposure by hiring a qualified independent contractor than he would have
by using his own employees, who would be limited to a compensation
remedy.” Nelson, 639 F.2d at 475.

San Juan's argument that a hirer’s vicarious liability to its
independent contractor's employees should depend on the contractor's

solvency is unpersuasive. An employee's right to recover workers’

SNelson was a maritime case, so workers’ compensation was not an
available remedy. 639 F.2d at 470-72. Nonetheless, Nelson notes that,
“[tJo the extent that workmen's compensation laws represent a preferred
scheme for redress of occupational injuries, it does appear anomalous and
fortuitous for an employee to be in a better position through a revived, as
it were, claim against a third party owner than he would be in had his
injury occurred in the scope of employment by the owner directly.” Id, at
476.

 

uu

 
compensation benefits does not depend on the solvency of his employer.
Even when the independent contractor fails to pay into the industrial
insurance system, the employees remain entitled to recover benefits
through the Uninsured Employer's Claim Account, as San Juan did here.
‘See NRS 616C.220; supra note 1. ‘The person who hires an independent
contractor “is not an insurer of the employees of an independent
contractor. Nor should he be penalized in a case, such as the one here, for
the independent contractor's failure to obtain workmen's compensation
insurance.” Valdez v, Cillessen & Son, Inc., 734 P.2d 1268, 1263 (N.M.
1987) (internal citation omitted). Employers who fail to secure workers
‘compensation for their employees face criminal sanctions, NRS 616D.200,
and civil liability. NRS 616D.290. Those statutory measures achieve
employer compliance more directly and effectively than would a court-
created insolvency exception to the rule against holding a hirer vicariously
liable to its independent contractor's employees, See Bell v. Greg Agee
Const. Inc,, 23 Cal. Rptr. 3d 83, 38-39 (Ct. App. 2004); Lopez v. C. G. M.
Development, Inc,, 124 Cal. Rptr, 2d 227, 296-37 (Ct. App. 2002),

Nor are we persuaded by San Juan's argument that PSC’s

 

allegedly superior knowledge of the risks and competency, compared to
DTT, justifies imposing vicarious liability on PSC under sections 416 and

427.9 This argument reprises the concurring and dissenting opinion in

 

*0f note, San Juan does not assert a negligent hiring claim against
PSC under section 411. Its position is that a hirer’s superior knowledge
and competence justify imposition of strict liability—liability without
regard to what the hirer knew of the contractor's deficiencies before the
injury-produeing event. Although San Juan adds in passing that PSC
“should have known” that DTI was incompetent, it cites no evidence for
continued on next page .

 

 
Toland v, Sunland Housing Group, Inc., 955 P.2d at 516, And as the
Toland majority concludes, it “does not hold up under scrutiny.” Id, at
514. First, a comparative knowledge/competence exception would
“eviscerate” the rule that the hirer of an independent contractor whose
employees are covered by the workers’ compensation system is not
vicariously liable to them for their employer's torts because “[i]t would be
a rare case indeed” in which a hirer “was entirely ignorant of the methods
used and requirements of the work being performed.” Id, Second, the
exception is “impracticall:] ... How is a trier of fact to determine whether
to impose liability based on the relative knowledge{/eompetence] of two
parties, each of whom is ‘knowledgeable’ (and competent] in some form or
degree?” Id, Third, the exception would “effectively deprive” hiring
persons of “the right to delegate to independent contractors the
responsibility of ensuring the safety of their own workers.” Id. at 515.
Finally, “it is illogical and unfair that a landowner or other person who
hires an independent contractor should have greater liability for the
independent contractor's negligence toward the contractor's employees

than the independent contractor whose liability is limited to proving
continued

this assertion, noting only that the volume of eans being processed should
have aroused suspicion. Missing from this argument are citations to
record evidence that PSC knew what the machine’s processing capacity
was or that DTI would, when confronted with a backlog, resort to the
ridiculous manual decanting system it did. San Juan's negligence per se
claim based on the Douglas County Code also fails, again because of lack
of record references and proof that PSC maintained or possessed the
premises in which DTI conducted its Nevada operations.

 

 
workers’ comp

 

sation coverage.” Id, This would create an incentive for a
hirer to only use its own employees, even if an independent contractor
could perform the work more safely and efficiently. See Richards v
Republic Silver State Disposal, 122 Nev. 1213, 1223, 148 P.3d 684, 690
(2006).

 

For all of these reasons, we affirm the district court’s grant of

summary judgment in favor of PSC,

We coneur:

t New

Hardesty

Douglas