Opinion ID: 6357543
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Dual Persona Doctrine

Text: [¶ 13] Clark and Benton, LLC, dispute whether Hammond Lumber Company's unquestioned immunity from suit pursuant to section 104, which resulted from Hammond Lumber Company having secured payment of Clark's worker compensation claim, extends as a matter of law to Benton, LLC, according to the dual persona doctrine, discussed infra ¶¶14-18. See Peavey , 637 A.2d at 451 ; LaBelle , 593 A.2d at 654-55 . The Act mandates that [a]n employer is liable ... if personal injury is caused to an employee, who, at the time of the injury, is in the exercise of due care. 39-A M.R.S. § 901 (2017). Title 39-A M.R.S. §§ 104, 107, 901, and 908 (2017) make up the foundations of the compact constructed by the [L]egislature whereby the employer gives up his normal defenses and assumes automatic liability, while the employee gives up his right to common-law verdicts. Hatch v. Lido Co. , 609 A.2d 1155 , 1156 (Me. 1992) (quotation marks omitted). [¶ 14] We have applied the dual persona doctrine as an exception to the immunity afforded by the Act to a defendant employer or corporate officer. See id. at 1156-57 . In applying that doctrine, we held in Hatch that an otherwise exempt employer (or officer) may become liable to suit as a third party 'if-and only if-he possesses a second persona so completely independent from and unrelated to his status as employer that by established standards the law recognizes the employer as a separate legal person.'  Id. at 1156 (alteration omitted) (quoting Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 72.81 (1989) ). [¶ 15] Emphasizing the doctrine's inquiry into whether the employer claiming immunity owed the plaintiff any duties totally separate from and unrelated to those of the employment, id. (quotation marks omitted), Benton, LLC, asserts that it does not owe Clark any such duties because Clark's claims against [it] arise out of the identical duty of care that Hammond Lumber Company owed to Clark with respect to his work at the Property. Benton, LLC, ignores the doctrine's first inquiry into whether the entity in question is an otherwise exempt employer. Id. Its argument stands the dual persona doctrine on its head and invites us to create new law that would expand the scope of Hammond Lumber Company's immunity, disregarding that doctrine's widely understood function as an exception to the employer immunity provisions of workers' compensation statutes. See Peavey , 637 A.2d at 451 ; Hatch , 609 A.2d at 1156 . We decline that invitation. [¶ 16] The attempt by Benton, LLC, to cast its duty to Clark as identical to the workers' compensation obligations of Hammond Lumber Company and its reliance on Hatch and Peavey are to no avail. As Benton, LLC, recognizes, the defendant in Hatch was the plaintiff's actual employer, 609 A.2d at 1155-56 , and in Peavey , the defendant was an officer and landlord of the employer, 637 A.2d at 449-50 . Distinguishing the instant case, there is no employment relationship between Benton, LLC, and Clark. Benton, LLC, is neither Clark's employer nor an officer or a shareholder of Hammond Lumber Company. Rather, Benton, LLC, is a legally separate  entity from Hammond Lumber Company, with separate duties as a property owner. See LaBelle , 593 A.2d at 655 . Hammond Lumber Company and Benton, LLC, do have in common one shareholder, and Hammond Lumber Company possibly contributes towards the operating expenses of Benton, LLC. 3 Benton, LLC, and Hammond Lumber Company are connected with each other, but not in any way that alters their separate and distinct obligations to Clark. See id. [¶ 17] Furthermore, our decision in LaBelle -holding that the defendant landowner was not immune-strongly suggests that Benton, LLC, is not immune from Clark's premises liability suit. See 593 A.2d at 655 . Similar to Clark's cause of action, Labelle's claim sought to recover from the owner of the property leased to his employer after he was injured on that property. Id. at 654 . The landowner owned 98% of the stock in the same paint and auto body corporation that employed LaBelle, and LaBelle's employer had secured workers' compensation for his injuries. Id. at 654-55 . We held that the landowner was not afforded immunity by the Act because he was not sued in his capacity as employee or corporate officer. Rather, he was sued individually as the owner of premises he leased to a separate corporate entity, and for his alleged breach of the duty to assure that those premises were safe. Id. at 655 ; see also Li v. C.N. Brown Co. , 645 A.2d 606 , 607, 609 (Me. 1994). The same is equally true, if not more so, of Clark's suit and the separate nature of the respective duties of Hammond Lumber Company and Benton, LLC. 4 [¶ 18] Accordingly, the court did not err as a matter of law by holding that the dual persona doctrine's exception to an employer's immunity is inapposite to the assertion of immunity by Benton, LLC, nor did it err by denying the motion for a summary judgment on that ground. 5 See Peavey , 637 A.2d at 451 ; LaBelle , 593 A.2d at 654-55 . [¶ 19] Benton, LLC, portrays this case as novel and requiring us to make a logical extension of our dual persona doctrine to equitably resolve the competing interests  of the parties here. Its argument, however, disregards the patent reality that it does not employ Clark or anyone else and contradicts the common understanding that the dual persona doctrine is an exception to the immunity conferred by workers' compensation laws. We decline the invitation from Benton, LLC, to announce new law that shields an entity superficially affiliated to the employer against its independent potential liability as a property owner. Instead, applying LaBelle v. Crepeau, 593 A.2d at 654-55 , we conclude that Benton, LLC, is not immune from suit pursuant to section 104. The entry is: Judgment affirmed.