Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/4th/5/689.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 23:50:14+00:00

Document:
FRANKLIN PRIVETTE, Petitioner, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Respondent; JESUS CONTRERAS, Real Party in Interest.
Ropers, Majeski, Kohn, Bentley, Wagner & Kane, Mark G. Bonino and Justice C. McPherson for Petitioner.
Horvitz & Levy, David M. Axelrad, Christine T. Hoeffner, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold and Frederick D. Baker as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner.
Seltzer & Cody, Christopher T. Cody and Richard Seltzer for Real Party in Interest.
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 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 nonnegligent party-advances no societal interest that is not already served by the workers' compensation system. Accordingly, we join the majority of jurisdictions in precluding such recovery under the doctrine of peculiar risk.
Franklin Privette hired Jim Krause Roofing, Inc. (hereafter Krause) to install a new tar and gravel roof on his duplex. Using a kettle and pumping device parked in a driveway next to the duplex, the roofing crew transported hot tar to the roof. When the gravel truck arrived, the crew moved the kettle and pumping device to make room for the truck.
After the gravel was deposited on the roof, crew members realized they needed 50 more gallons of tar to complete the job. The foreman then directed employee Jesus Contreras to carry 10 five-gallon buckets of hot tar up a ladder to the roof. While performing this task, Contreras fell off the ladder and was burned by hot tar.
Contreras sought workers' compensation benefits for his injuries. He also sued Privette, the owner of the duplex, alleging two theories of recovery: that Privette had been negligent in selecting Krause as a roofer; and that, because of the inherent danger of working with hot tar, Privette should, under the doctrine of peculiar risk, be liable for injuries to Contreras that resulted from Krause's negligence.
In a pretrial motion for summary judgment (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c), Privette sought termination of Contreras's action. Among the arguments Privette made was that the availability of workers' compensation to Contreras for injuries resulting from his employer's conduct should bar him from any recovery from Privette under the doctrine of peculiar risk. fn. 1 In support of his motion, Privette presented these undisputed facts: Privette, a school teacher, owned some rental properties, including the duplex where roofing employee Contreras was injured. Privette had hired the Krause roofing firm [5 Cal. 4th 693] to reroof his duplex only after checking references and determining that Krause was licensed and carried workers' compensation insurance for its employees. Privette was not present when Contreras was injured during the roofing process, nor did he participate in the foreman's decision to have Contreras carry buckets of hot tar up a ladder to the roof.
The trial court denied Privette's motion for summary judgment. Following Privette's unsuccessful attempt to obtain relief from the Court of Appeal, we granted his petition for review and issued an alternative writ to determine the applicability of the peculiar risk doctrine in this case.
Over time, the courts have, for policy reasons, created so many exceptions to this general rule of nonliability that " ' "the rule is now primarily important as a preamble to the catalog of its exceptions." ' " (Van Arsdale v. Hollinger, supra, 68 Cal.2d at p. 252, quoting Pacific Fire Ins. Co. v. Kenny Boiler & Mfg. Co. (1937) 201 Minn. 500 [277 N.W. 226]; Rest.2d Torts, §§ 410-429 and § 409, com. b, at p. 370 [describing the nonliability rule as " 'general' only in the sense that it is applied where no good reason is found for departing from it"].) One of these exceptions pertains to contracted work that poses some inherent risk of injury to others. This exception is commonly referred to as the doctrine of peculiar risk.
[1b] As we have seen, in its original form the doctrine of peculiar risk made a landowner liable to innocent bystanders or neighboring property owners who were injured by the negligent acts of an independent contractor hired by the landowner to perform dangerous work on his or her land. In turn, the landowner could sue the contractor for equitable indemnity.
Gradually, the peculiar risk doctrine was expanded to allow the hired contractor's employees to seek recovery from the nonnegligent property owner for injuries caused by the negligent contractor. California is among the minority of jurisdictions that has adopted this view. We applied this expansion of the doctrine for the first time in Woolen v. Aerojet General Corp. (1962) 57 Cal. 2d 407, 410-411 [20 Cal. Rptr. 12, 369 P.2d 708], seeing "no reason to hold otherwise." Since Woolen, we have approved peculiar risk liability in favor of an independent contractor's employee in several decisions. (See, e.g., Ferrel v. Safway Steel Scaffolds (1962) 57 Cal. 2d 651 [21 Cal. Rptr. 575, 371 P.2d 311]; Van Arsdale v. Hollinger, supra, 68 Cal. 2d 245; Griesel v. Dart Industries, Inc., supra, 23 Cal. 3d 578; Aceves v. Regal Pale Brewing Co., supra, 24 Cal. 3d 502.) Privette, the property owner sued here, recognizes this. He urges us, however, to reconsider Woolen and its progeny. He argues that when the person injured by negligently performed contracted work is one of the contractor's own employees, the injury is already compensable under the workers' compensation scheme and therefore the doctrine of peculiar risk should provide no tort remedy, for those same injuries, against the person who hired the independent contractor. We agree, for reasons that follow.
In S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations, supra, 48 Cal. 3d 341, 354, we articulated four distinct objectives of the Act: "(1) to ensure that the cost of industrial injuries will be part of the cost of goods rather than a burden on society, (2) to guarantee prompt, limited compensation for an employee's work injuries, regardless of fault, as an inevitable cost of production, (3) to spur increased industrial safety, and (4) in return, to insulate the employer from tort liability for his employees' injuries. [Citations.]"
As mentioned earlier, we have, since our decision in Woolen v. Aerojet General Corp., supra, 57 Cal. 2d 407, adhered to the view that under the doctrine of peculiar risk an employee of an independent contractor injured on the job may seek tort damages from the person who hired the contractor. Until today, we have had no occasion to attempt to reconcile our decision in Woolen with the provision of the workers' compensation scheme limiting employer liability for an employee's work-related injury to providing workers' compensation coverage.
Our most recent application of the peculiar risk doctrine occurred in Aceves v. Regal Pale Brewing Co., supra, 24 Cal. 3d 502, a case in which an employee of a wrecking firm hired by a brewery to demolish some of its buildings was awarded tort damages against the brewery owner for on-the-job injuries. In discussing the issue of the workers' compensation insurance carrier's entitlement to reimbursement from the brewery for benefits paid to the employee, we made only a passing reference to the employee's receipt of workers' compensation. We did not address the propriety of imposing vicarious liability on the brewery owner for a workplace injury that was subject to workers' compensation coverage. To justify imposition of liability on the brewery owner for injuries to the independent contractor's employee, we merely reiterated policy reasons supporting peculiar risk liability generally, including the ability of persons held liable under the peculiar risk [5 Cal. 4th 701] doctrine to seek indemnification from the negligent contractor. (Aceves v. Regal Pale Brewing Co., supra, at p. 508.) Not considered in Aceves, however, was the unavailability of equitable indemnity from a negligent employer whose employee is covered by workers' compensation, an issue we address here.
The availability of equitable indemnity, as mentioned earlier, is but one of several policy reasons that generally support the imposition of peculiar risk liability. In addition, the peculiar risk doctrine seeks to ensure that injuries caused by contracted work will not go uncompensated, that the risk of loss for such injuries is spread to the person who contracted for and thus primarily benefited from the contracted work, and that adequate safety measures are taken to prevent injuries resulting from such work. (Aceves v. Regal Pale Brewing Co., supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 508.) But in the case of on-the-job injury to an employee of an independent contractor, the workers' compensation system of recovery regardless of fault achieves the identical purposes that underlie recovery under the doctrine of peculiar risk. It ensures compensation for injury by providing swift and sure compensation to employees for any workplace injury; it spreads the risk created by the performance of dangerous work to those who contract for and thus benefit from such work, by including the cost of workers' compensation insurance in the price for the contracted work; and it encourages industrial safety.
Therefore, when considered in light of the various goals that the workers' compensation statutes seek to achieve, our conclusion in Woolen v. Aerojet [5 Cal. 4th 702] General Corp., supra, 57 Cal. 2d 407, that peculiar risk liability should extend to the employees of the independent contractor, does not withstand scrutiny. fn. 4 Moreover, such a broad extension of the doctrine of peculiar risk is inconsistent with the approach taken by a majority of jurisdictions, and with the view expressed by the drafters of the Restatement Second of Torts.
In his complaint against Privette (the owner of the duplex where roofing employee Contreras was injured while installing a roof), Contreras asserted Privette's liability under the doctrine of peculiar risk for the injuries suffered. Without question, Contreras's injuries arose "out of and in the course of ... employment," and thus are subject to workers' compensation coverage. (§ 3600.) Thus, the doctrine of peculiar risk affords Contreras no basis for seeking damages from Privette for the same injuries compensable under the workers' compensation scheme.
The complaint also alleged as a separate cause of action that Privette was negligent in his hiring of the Krause roofing firm, which employed Contreras. But, as mentioned at the outset, Contreras abandoned that theory of recovery.
Throughout this litigation, Privette has asserted that the injury-causing conduct, transporting hot tar up a ladder in a bucket, was a "collateral" as opposed to a "peculiar" risk of tar and gravel roofing. We need not address this contention in view of our conclusion that because workplace injuries are covered by workers' compensation, liability under the doctrine of peculiar risk does not extend to the employees of an independent contractor hired to do dangerous work.
When, as here, the injuries resulting from an independent contractor's performance of inherently dangerous work are to an employee of the contractor, and thus subject to workers' compensation coverage, the doctrine of peculiar risk affords no basis for the employee to seek recovery of tort damages from the person who hired the contractor but did not cause the injuries. Thus, in this case, roofing employee Contreras is precluded from suing duplex owner Privette for injuries compensable under the workers' compensation system.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed with directions to grant the petition for writ of mandate ordering respondent court to enter judgment for defendant. The alternative writ is discharged. [5 Cal. 4th 703] Lucas, C. J., Mosk, J., Panelli, J., Arabian, J., Baxter, J., and George, J., concurred.
FN 1. At the time of the summary judgment motion, it was uncontested that Contreras, in response to interrogatories, had abandoned his theory that Privette was negligent in hiring Krause.
FN 3. Further statutory references are to the Labor Code.
FN 4. To the extent that they hold to the contrary, Woolen v. Aerojet General Corp., supra, 57 Cal. 2d 407, and its progeny are overruled.

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