Opinion ID: 1343570
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: replacement of product as important part of trade

Text: In Marchbanks v. Duke Power Company, 190 S.C. 336, 366, 2 S.E.2d 825, 837 (1939), this Court held that a person who was injured while weatherproofing a power company's transmission pole was a statutory employee of the power company because the activity was an important part of the company's business. Here, Workers are not statutory employees of Dow because replacing the facade panels containing Sarabond with the product of another manufacturer is not an important part of Dow's business. Workers' activities were not related to the basic operation of Dow's business of manufacturing Sarabond. Instead, Workers' activities stemmed simply from Dow's desire to avoid litigation costs. Additionally, where repairs are major, specialized, or of the sort which the employer is not equipped to handle with its own work force, they are not part of the business. Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 49.16(e) (1996). Here, the major task of dismantling the outer walls of MUSC and of completely replacing facade panels required technical knowledge that was highly specialized. Additionally, Dow was completely unable to handle the repairs with its own work force because its immediate employees were not trained in construction.