Opinion ID: 1692753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: General Contractor's Duty of Care

Text: Whalen argues that U S West breached its duty as a general contractor. Whalen points out that U S West admitted in its initial answer and response to the discovery request that it was the owner and general contractor of the jobsite where Whalen was injured. It was on the basis of these two admissions that the district court denied U S West's first motion for summary judgment. An admission made in a pleading on which the trial is had is more than an ordinary admission; it is a judicial admission and constitutes a waiver of all controversy so far as the adverse party desires to take advantage of it, and therefore it is a limitation of the issues. Sleezer v. Lang, 170 Neb. 239, 102 N.W.2d 435 (1960). However, in the present case, after U S West's first summary judgment was denied, U S West filed a motion for leave to file an amended answer and a motion to amend its discovery response, stating that counsel had misstated that U S West was the general contractor over Diamond, on the basis of a misunderstanding of the facts. The district court granted U S West leave to amend its answer and discovery response, and U S West filed an amended answer and accordingly served Whalen with an amended discovery response. In Sleezer v. Lang, 170 Neb. at 252, 102 N.W.2d at 444-45, we addressed a situation similar to the case at bar and explained: A pleading which has been superseded by an amended pleading is only evidence of the facts therein alleged, and must be introduced as any other evidence in order to be considered.... The rule that a party may at any and all times invoke the language of his opponent's pleading as rendering facts therein alleged indisputable applies only to statements in the pleadings upon which the case is tried. Therefore, U S West's admission that it was the general contractor may be used as evidence that it was the owner and general contractor of the worksite, but it cannot be treated as a judicial admission because of the amended answer. We conclude that even if U S West acted as its own general contractor, U S West's actions do not constitute a breach of a general contractor's duty of care. The duty of a general contractor to the employees of a subcontractor extends only to provide a reasonably safe place to work and does not include a duty to inspect equipment that is owned, directed, or controlled by the subcontractor for the use of its employees. Hand v. Rorick Constr. Co., 190 Neb. 191, 206 N.W.2d 835 (1973). The case at bar does not involve a general contractor's liability for failing to provide a reasonably safe place to work, sometimes called premises liability, but involves injury caused by the misuse of defective equipment. The parties agree that the cable sling apparatus used the day Whalen was injured had only three operable cables, even though such an apparatus is normally equipped with four cables. It is also undisputed that Whalen's injury was caused because Whalen and Anderson, both Diamond employees, attached only two of the three available cables to the manhole cover assembly. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to Whalen, the evidence reveals that the accident occurred because Diamond used defective equipment and two Diamond employees failed to use that equipment properly. As indicated, a general contractor is not responsible for maintaining equipment used by subcontractors. Thus, there is no evidence to support the claim that U S West breached a general contractor's duty of care to Whalen.