Case Title: Nucor Holding Corp. v. Rinkines

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1996-10-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
NUCOR HOLDING CORPORATION and Yamato Holding
Corporation d/b/a Nucor-Yamato Steel Company,
Limited Partnership v. Rickey L. RINKINES and
Gloria Rinkines

95-1200                                            ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
                Opinion delivered October 7, 1996


1.   Appeal & error -- denial of summary-judgment motion -- neither
     reviewable nor appealable. -- The general rule is that the
     denial of a motion for summary judgment is neither reviewable
     nor appealable.

2.   Appeal & error -- denial of summary-judgment motion --
     appealability based on qualified immunity firmly established.
     -- The appealability of a denial of summary judgment based on
     qualified immunity from suit is clearly established.

3.   Appeal & error -- appellate court will not address arguments
     where effect is tantamount to reviewing denial of summary-
     judgment motion. -- The supreme court has repeatedly refused
     to address arguments where the effect of doing so is
     tantamount to reviewing the denial of a motion for summary
     judgment; the court has also made it clear that the denial of
     a motion to dismiss an appeal is not an appealable order and
     that a disputed ruling on the subject-matter jurisdiction of
     the trial court does not automatically render the order
     appealable.

4.   Appeal & error -- appeal dismissed for lack of finality. --
     Where the supreme court had voiced a decided preference
     against accepting appeals from denials of motions for summary
     judgment and had never held that an employer's immunity
     defense obliged it to favor accepting such an appeal in
     workers' compensation cases, the supreme court dismissed the
     appeal for lack of finality.

5.   Prohibition, Writ of -- standard of review -- workers'
     compensation context. -- A writ of prohibition is an
     extraordinary writ that is appropriate only when the lower
     court is wholly without jurisdiction; in deciding whether the
     writ will lie, the supreme court confines its review to the
     pleadings; the writ will be granted where the encroachment on
     workers' compensation jurisdiction is clear; but when facts
     are in dispute, a writ of prohibition is not appropriate;
     prohibition will not lie where the remedy may be afforded by
     appeal.

6.   Contracts -- status of prime contractor presupposes work to be
     done for third party -- appellant was not prime contractor --
     petition for writ of prohibition denied. -- The status of
     prime contractor presupposes work to be done for a third
     party; here, the parties agreed that was not the case because
     there was no obligation to a third party to purchase steel
     scrap refabricated by appellee's employer at the time of
     appellee's injury; without the existence of that essential
     factor, the supreme court concluded that appellant did not
     occupy the status of prime contractor as defined by Arkansas
     case law and denied appellant's petition for writ of
     prohibition.

7.   Contracts -- subcontractor may also qualify as independent
     contractor. -- The supreme court emphasized that, by denying
     the petition for writ of prohibition, it was not endorsing the
     apparent finding by the trial court that an independent
     contractor cannot occupy the status of subcontractor; although
     the status of independent contractor differs from that of
     subcontractor, a subcontractor may also qualify as an
     independent contractor that has entered into an agreement with
     a prime contractor.


     Appeal from Mississippi Circuit Court; Samuel Turner, Jr.;
appeal dismissed; Petition for Writ of Prohibition denied.
     Reid, Burge, Prevallet & Coleman, by: Robert L. Coleman, for
appellants.
     Banks, Dobson & Spades, by: Charles A. Banks, for appellees.

     Robert L. Brown, Justice. 
     This matter combines an appeal from a denial of a motion for
summary judgment and a petition for a writ of prohibition. 
Appellee Rickey L. Rinkines worked for Alexander Mills Services
(AMS), which had a contract to recycle scrap steel for Nucor-Yamato
Steel (Nucor).  Nucor is in the business of manufacturing
structural steel beams from scrap metal.  Part of Rinkines's duties
required him to cut rejected beam blanks into suitable sizes so
that they could be remelted and remolded.
     On August 5, 1993, Rinkines suffered an injury on the job.  At
the time of the injury, AMS employees performed their duties on the
Nucor premises.   According to Rinkines's complaint, he had cut
about six inches into a beam with a torch when the beam "exploded." 
The 24-ton beam moved approximately four feet, pinning Rinkines
against another beam and crushing his legs.  This resulted in the
amputation of both legs.  Rinkines sought and received workers'
compensation benefits from AMS.  He then sued Nucor under theories
of negligence and products liability and specifically alleged that
the beam blank that exploded was defective and unreasonably
dangerous due to residual stress in the beam.  He also asserted
that Nucor had been negligent in permitting the beam to acquire
residual stress and in failing to inspect the beam properly, to
warn employees of potential dangers, and to instruct employees on
the beam's safe use.
     On August 8, 1994, Nucor answered and moved to dismiss.  It
denied that the beam blank was distributed to AMS as a product
because it was not finished material but only scrap that needed to
be remelted.  Nucor further contended as an affirmative defense
that the circuit court had no subject matter jurisdiction because
Rinkines's exclusive remedy was under the Workers' Compensation
Act.  More specifically, Nucor asserted that as a prime contractor,
it was the statutory employer of Rinkines and, thus, was immune
from tort liability under Act 796 of 1993, now codified at Ark.
Code Ann.  11-9-105(a) (Repl. 1996).  The affidavit of John
Alexander, the president of AMS, was attached to Nucor's answer and
motion to dismiss.  In it, Alexander stated that his company was a
subcontractor of Nucor and that he considered Nucor to be a prime
contractor.  In his response to the motion to dismiss, Rinkines
asserted that he was not a "statutory employee" of Nucor and
further claimed that the Workers' Compensation Act did not act as
a bar to claims against third parties.  
     On April 17, 1995, Nucor filed a motion for summary judgment. 
It maintained in that motion that there was no genuine issue of
material fact and further asserted (1) that Rinkines's complaint
was barred because AMS was an independent contractor with exclusive
control over the workplace, and (2) that it was immune from suit
under the Workers' Compensation Act because Nucor was the "prime
contractor of the employer" of Rinkines.  Nucor also advanced the
theory that there was no proximate causation under the obvious-
danger rule.  On April 27, 1995, Rinkines responded that his suit
lay outside the jurisdiction of the Workers' Compensation Act
because it was not a suit about standard negligence against a
subcontractor's employee.  Rather, the suit concerned Nucor's
"defective product either in negligence or strict liability." 
Rinkines further stated that "[t]he purpose of the exclusive remedy
of workers' compensation is not to protect manufacturers of
unreasonably dangerous products."
     On July 25, 1995, the trial court denied the motion for
summary judgment and stated in part in its letter opinion:
     Defendant furthermore contends that it is entitled to
     summary judgment because "NYS is immuned (sic) from suit
     and plaintiff's tort claim against it is barred based on
     the exclusive remedy provisions codified at A.C.A.
     section 11-9-105(a) because NYS was the prime contractor
     of the employer of Mr. Rinkines at the time of the
     accident.
          The defendant is trying to have it's [sic] cake and
     eat it too.  In its second contention, it stated that the
     plaintiff was employed by an independent contractor.  Now
     it wants to say that plaintiff was not employed by an
     independent contractor but by a sub-contractor.
          The employer of an independent contractor is simply
     a third party to the relationship between the independent
     contractor and his employees.  The worker compensation
     Act (sic) was not intended to extend to an employer for
     an injury to an employee's cause of action against a
     third party. . . .

      I. Appeal From Denial of Motion for Summary Judgment
     The general rule is that the denial of a motion for summary
judgment is neither reviewable nor appealable.  Amalgamated
Clothing v. Earle Indus., Inc., 318 Ark. 524,