Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05095/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05095-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sun Oil Company and Scaffolding Rental and Erector Service, Inc.
Appellee
Ronald D. Woodrome
Appellant

Document Text:

• UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

RONALD D. WOODROME, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

) 

) 

) 

) 

FILED 

United Stares Coun of Appeals 

Tenth Cir::uit 

OCT 12 1990 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. ) No. 89-5095 

) (D.C. No. 88-C-533-E) 

SUN OIL COMPANY AND SCAFFOLDING 

RENTAL AND ERECTOR SERVICE, INC., 

) (N.D. Okla.) 

) 

) 

Defendant-Appellee. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * 

Before ANDERSON and BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and CHRISTENSEN,** 

District Judge. 

**Honorable A. Sherman Christensen, District Judge, United States 

District Court for the District of Utah, sitting by designation. 

This diversity action arises out of an accident suffered by 

plaintiff-appellant Ronald Woodrome while he was working at the 

Tulsa County oil refinery of defendant-appellee Sun Oil Company 

(Sun). 1 At the time of the accident, Woodrome was performing 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

1 Sun asserts that its proper corporate name 

and Marketing Company. 

is Sun Refining 

Appellate Case: 89-5095 Document: 010110059606 Date Filed: 10/12/1990 Page: 1 
maintenance and repair work on the refinery's petroleum processing 

units as an employee of Sun's subcontractor, Nooter Construction 

Company (Nooter). As a result of injuries suffered in the 

accident, Woodrome brought a worker's compensation action against 

Nooter and was awarded benefits. He then brought this tort action 

against Sun and another party for damages relating to his on-thejob injury. Sun moved for summary judgment on the ground that it 

was Woodrome's principal employer at the time of the accident and 

was therefore secondarily liable for Woodrome's workers' 

compensation benefits and immune from tort liability under 

sections 11 and 12 of Oklahoma's Workers' Compensation Act, Okla. 

Stat. tit. 85, §§ 11-12 (1970 & Supp. 1990). The district court 

granted Sun's motion and Woodrome timely appealed. We affirm. 

On appeal, Woodrome challenges only the district court's 

determination that Sun qualified as his "principal employer" as 

2 that term is used in Oklahoma's Workers' Compensation Act. Under 

Oklahoma law, this determination required two separate showings by 

Sun. The first, which Woodrome does not challenge here, is that 

his work at Sun's refinery qualified as "hazardous employment" 

within the meaning of the statute. See Huffman v. Mobil Oil 

Corp., 554 F.2d 1361, 1366 (5th Cir. 1977)(construing Okla. Stat. 

tit. 85, SS 2, 3 (1970)). The second is that Woodrome's work at 

the refinery was necessary and integral to Sun's day-to-day 

2 If Sun qualifies as Woodrome's principal employer under the 

Act, then Woodrome concedes that Sun is secondarily liable under 

the Act for his workers' compensation benefits and is therefore 

immune from the tort liability asserted in this action. Brief of 

Appellant at 7; see Okla. Stat. tit. 85, SS 11, 12. 

2 

Appellate Case: 89-5095 Document: 010110059606 Date Filed: 10/12/1990 Page: 2 
business operations. See id.; Murphy v. Chickasha Mobile Homes, 

Inc., 611 P.2d 243, 244-45 (Okla. 1980). This requirement is 

satisfied if the tasks performed by Nooter, as the independent 

contractor that employed Woodrome, 

(1) are directly associated with the day-to-day activity 

carried on by [Sun's] line of trade, industry or 

business or (2) would customarily be done in that line 

of business. The activities encompassed by the 

contractual relationship of (Sun] and the skills needed 

for their performance must necessarily be germane to, 

and considered part and parcel of, [Sun's] day-to-day 

business operations. 

Murphy, 611 P.2d at 248. 

Woodrome argues on appeal that the district court erred in 

holding on summary judgment that his work in maintaining and 

repairing Sun's petroleum processing units was necessary and 

integral to Sun's day-to-day operations. We review this 

determination de novo under the standard set forth in Rule 56(c) 

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Abercrombie v. City 

of Catoosa, 896 F.2d 1228, 1230 (10th Cir. 1990). 

Woodrome first challenges the district court's "necessary and 

integral" determination on the ground that "day-to-day business 

operations" for purposes of this test may only include activities 

that are immediately associated with the alleged principal 

employer's primary business activity. Because Sun's primary 

business is the refining and marketing of petroleum products, not 

the repair of refinery equipment, Woodrome maintains that his and 

Nooter's repair work at the refinery cannot, as a matter of law, 

be deemed "necessary and integral" to Sun's refinery business as 

required by the Act. We disagree. On more than one occasion, the 

3 

Appellate Case: 89-5095 Document: 010110059606 Date Filed: 10/12/1990 Page: 3 
Oklahoma Supreme Court has held that repair and maintenance work 

that is not part of the employer's primary line of business, but 

is nonetheless necessary and integral to the continued operation 

of that business, is sufficient to establish a company's status as 

a principal employer under the Act. See, e.g., Sumpter v. Lawton 

Coop. Ass'n, 384 P.2d 908, 910 (Okla. 1963)(holding that repair 

work performed by independent contractor on equipment necessary to 

alleged principal employer's day-to-day operations was necessary 

and integral to those operations); Baldwin v. Big X Drilling Co., 

322 P.2d 647, 649 (Okla. 1958)(same); see also Murphy, 

611 P.2d at 246 n.8 (citing both Sumpter and Baldwin as proper 

applications of the Act's necessary and integral test). Thus, 

Nooter's maintenance and repair activities, including the services 

performed by Woodrome, may constitute activities that were 

"necessary and integral" to Sun's day-to-day business operations 

as required by Oklahoma's Workers' Compensation Act. 

Woodrome also argues that the district court erred in 

granting summary judgment to Sun because the question of whether 

Nooter's work was necessary and integral to Sun's operations is a 

factual question that may not be decided on summary judgment. 

This is only true, however, where there are disputed facts 

relevant and material to that determination. See 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(c); cf. w. P. Atkinson Enterprises, Inc. v. 

District Court, 516 P.2d 541, 544 (Okla. 1973)(summary judgment 

granted in favor of the principal employer in tort action brought 

by employee of independent contractor because it was undisputed 

that the independent contractor's work was necessary to the 

4 

Appellate Case: 89-5095 Document: 010110059606 Date Filed: 10/12/1990 Page: 4 
principal employer's business). In this case, Woodrome failed to 

present any evidence disputing Sun's affidavit evidence that 

Nooter's maintenance and repair work at Sun's refinery was 

necessary and integral to Sun's continued operation of that 

refinery. As a result, Woodrome failed to establish the existence 

of any disputed issues of fact material to the question of whether 

Sun was Woodrome's principal employer at the time of his 

on-the-job injury. Accordingly, the district court acted properly 

in deciding this question on summary judgment and in entering 

judgment in favor of Sun. 3 See Atkinson, 516 P.2d at 542, 544. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Oklahoma is AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

3 Contrary to Woodrome's claims, this case is also easily 

distinguishable from the Oklahoma Supreme Court's reversal of 

summary judgment in Murphy v. Chickasha Mobile Homes, Inc., 

611 P.2d 243 (Okla. 1980). In Murphy. the Oklahoma Supreme Court 

determined that the district court had employed an overbroad 

definition of "necessary and integral" and hence remanded the 

action for reconsideration under the proper standard. See id. at 

248-49. In this case, by contrast, the district correctly applied 

the necessary and integral test approved in Murphy in determining 

that Sun was Woodrome's principal employer. 

5 

Appellate Case: 89-5095 Document: 010110059606 Date Filed: 10/12/1990 Page: 5