Title: Hill v. Pacific Power & Light Co.

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Hill v. Pacific Power & Light Co.1988 WY 152765 P.2d 1348Case Number: 88-136Decided: 12/13/1988Supreme Court of Wyoming
CECIL HILL, APPELLANT 
(PLAINTIFF),

v.

PACIFIC POWER & LIGHT 
CO., APPELLEE (DEFENDANT).

Appeal from the District 
Court, SweetwaterCounty, Kenneth G. Hamm, 
J.

Donald L. 
Painter, Casper, 
for appellant.

Jeffrey J. Gonda 
of Lonabaugh and Riggs, Sheridan, for 
appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY 
and GOLDEN, JJ.

GOLDEN, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Appellant Cecil Hill 
filed a negligence action to recover damages for injuries he received in an 
industrial accident at the Jim Bridger Power Plant (Plant) in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The plant is owned by appellee 
Pacific Power & Light Company (PP & L). Hill appeals the district 
court's order granting summary judgment to PP & L which was based on PP 
& L's showing that Hill was employed by an independent contractor when he 
was injured, and on Hill's failure to refute PP & L's showing that it did 
not assume affirmative duties with respect to safety or retain control over the 
details of the work that caused Hill's injury.

[¶2.]     We 
affirm.

[¶3.]     During March 1986, Hill 
worked at the Plant as a journeyman plumber for the North American Energy 
Services Corporation (NESCO), a services contractor for PP & L. The services 
contract between the two companies expressly stated that NESCO was an 
independent contractor for all work it performed at the Plant. Under the 
contract, PP & L was to identify work to be done at the Plant and then 
instruct NESCO on how it wanted that work completed. NESCO, in turn, was to 
employ and direct persons to do that work as PP & L instructed. NESCO 
expressly retained the right to control the persons it hired and sign their 
paychecks and was obligated to maintain state worker's compensation insurance 
for them. PP & L retained the right to inspect the work being done by NESCO 
employees and obligated itself to supply some tools, equipment, materials, and 
facilities necessary to complete the work.

[¶4.]     Hill was injured at the 
Plant on March 26, 1986. While standing on some scaffolding, he tried to hand a 
torch to another employee and the handrail he was holding onto with his other 
hand broke loose causing him to fall to the ground below. Hill testified in his 
deposition that, on the day he fell, the scaffolding appeared be in a different 
place than it was the day before. He agreed that the handrail might have been 
removed by NESCO carpenters during the previous evening of March 25, 1986, and 
may not have been properly wired back onto the scaffolding when 
replaced.

[¶5.]     Hill filed his 
complaint on March 30, 1987. He alleged that agents and employees of PP & L 
supervised and directed his work to such an extent that PP & L was liable to 
him for negligence associated with the loose handrail. After discovery, PP & 
L filed a motion for summary judgment with supporting affidavits and argument. 
The motion asserted that no genuine issue of material fact existed showing that 
PP & L maintained control over construction or safety of the scaffolding 
Hill fell from. PP & L pointed to Hill's own deposition testimony that, to 
his knowledge, only NESCO employees would have moved the scaffolding. Terrence 
Becker, a PP & L employee, testified in his deposition that the scaffolding 
involved in Hill's fall was built and designed by NESCO, using materials 
provided by PP & L. Dan Magnuson, a NESCO employee, and Don Vincent, a PP 
& L employee, testified by affidavit that PP & L did not direct or 
instruct NESCO employees on how to perform the details of their work at the 
Plant.

[¶6.]     Hill presented no 
evidence showing that anyone other than NESCO employees would have removed and 
replaced the loose handrail. He also admitted that he never personally received 
any work instructions from PP & L personnel. He did argue, however, that 
certain deposition testimony concerning the conduct of several PP & L 
supervisory personnel showed PP & L control over the work of NESCO 
employees, establishing a duty PP & L owed to Hill for the safety of the 
loose handrail. Specifically, Hill asserted that PP & L owned the Plant, 
inspected the work of NESCO employees, and supplied tools for that work from the 
PP & L tool room. He pointed to instructions his welder, Jimmy Nicodemus, 
received from PP & L employee Gene Woods. PP & L personnel were alleged 
to have supervised Hill's foreman and to have been engaged in the same kind of 
work as NESCO employees. Hill also claimed that PP & L fired a NESCO 
supervisor shortly after his accident. The district court reviewed both parties' 
submissions and granted summary judgment to PP & L on April 11, 
1988.

[¶7.]     This court's standard 
of review of an order granting summary judgment is set out in Johnston v. 
Conoco, Inc., 758 P.2d 566, 568 (Wyo. 1988). That standard applies 
here.

[¶8.]     Several times in recent 
years, this court has addressed the law concerning the duty an independent 
contractor's employer, who owns the workplace, might owe to the employees of the 
independent contractor who work there. In Jones v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 718 P.2d 890, 892 (Wyo. 1986), Jones, the 
employee of Chevron's independent contractor, received electrical shock injuries 
while painting an H-frame power pole owned by Chevron. On review of summary 
judgment favoring Chevron, we reiterated our adoption of the general proposition 
set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 409 (1965), stating 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." Id. at 894 n. 1. See also 
Noonan v. Texaco, Inc., 713 P.2d 160, 164-167 (Wyo. 1986). The holding in Jones, however, 
reversed summary judgment favoring Chevron by recognizing an exception to that 
general rule. Based on the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 414 (1965), we held 
that the owner of the workplace, who employs an independent contractor 
and

retains the right to 
direct the manner of an independent contractor's performance or assumes 
affirmative duties with respect to safety owes a duty of reasonable care to an 
employee of the independent contractor even if the employee is injured doing the 
very work the [independent] contractor was hired to 
perform.

Jones, 718 P.2d  
at 896 (emphasis added).

[¶9.]     Less than a year later, 
in Stockwell v. Parker Drilling Co. Inc., 733 P.2d 1029 (Wyo. 1987), this court 
reviewed an order granting summary judgment in a similar fact situation. 
Stockwell was the employee of an insulation subcontractor of an independent 
contractor hired by Parker Drilling to construct a building on land owned by 
Parker Drilling. Stockwell sued Parker Drilling for injuries he received when a 
roof panel of the building he was trimming insulation from for the subcontractor 
buckled and threw him to the ground. Id. at 1030. In that opinion we held that the 
employee of an independent contractor is not the "other" to whom the employer of 
the independent contractor owes a duty of care under the language of the 
Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 413, 416, or 424 (1965). Stockwell, 733 P.2d  at 
1031-1033. We then reiterated the holding in Jones, and quoted the Restatement 
(Second) of Torts § 414 comment (c) (1965), as support for the rule that the 
employer of a general contractor must retain more than the general right to 
order the contractors to stop work, to inspect the progress of the work, to make 
recommendations thereon, or to prescribe alterations or deviations in the work, 
to fall within the § 414 exception. Applying that analysis, we concluded that 
summary judgment favoring Parker was proper because "Parker did not retain 
control of safety or any operative detail or method of work." Stockwell, 733 P.2d  at 1033.

[¶10.]  In Johnston v. Conoco, Inc., 758 P.2d  at 570, we 
affirmed summary judgment in favor of Conoco, the owner/operator of an oil and 
gas lease, and against the injured employee of the drilling contractor employed 
by Conoco to drill the well. Although the drilling contractor's injured employee 
alleged that Conoco, through its on-site company man, exercised control over 
drilling operations and was negligent in allowing the drilling contractor's 
driller to drill in an impaired condition, and with a shorthanded crew, that 
injured employee failed to present evidence indicating Conoco exercised control 
over the details of drilling or the supervision of employees. We noted that the 
district court's summary judgment decision was consistent with our recent 
opinions in Stockwell, Jones, and Noonan. Johnston, 758 P.2d  at 
570.

[¶11.]  The facts here fit within the rule 
described in those cases. PP & L, as movant for summary judgment, put forth 
evidence showing that PP & L did not retain the right to direct NESCO's 
construction or later modification of the scaffolding that caused Hill's fall. 
Likewise, PP & L showed that it did not assume affirmative duties for the 
safety of that scaffolding. Jones, 718 P.2d  at 896. Deposition testimony, 
affidavit testimony, and the contract between PP & L and NESCO, factually 
established that assertion.

[¶12.]  The burden then shifted to Hill to 
present the district court with facts refuting PP & L's initial summary 
judgment showing. See Johnston, 758 P.2d  at 568. Hill tried to meet 
his burden by showing various instances in which PP & L allegedly exercised 
actual control over NESCO employees. While Hill may have highlighted situations 
in which PP & L personnel made recommendations to a NESCO foreman or 
inspected the work being done, he did not submit any facts to the district court 
showing that PP & L retained control over the details of the work that 
caused his injury, or assumed affirmative safety duties for that work. Hill 
failed to refute PP & L's initial summary judgment showing, and no genuine 
issue of material fact existed. Summary judgment for PP & L was 
proper.

[¶13.]  AFFIRMED.