Opinion ID: 2635943
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: compliance with the workers' compensation act

Text: {18} Because Defendant is Plaintiff's special employer, Defendant is immune from tort liability if it complies with the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act. Rivera, 118 N.M. at 677, 884 P.2d at 833 (citing § 52-1-8). Defendant has complied by requiring Orion to carry workers' compensation insurance and by paying premiums through the Direct Labor Multiplier component of its contract with Orion. See id. at 680, 884 P.2d at 836. There is more than a vague connection between that multiplier and the benefits received by Plaintiff. See St. Claire v. Minnesota Harbor Serv., Inc., 211 F.Supp. 521, 528 (D.C.Minn.1962); see also Sorenson v. Colibri Corp., 650 A.2d 125, 127 (R.I.1994) (finding that the plaintiff's special employer had covered workers' compensation by tak[ing] judicial notice that [the general employer] is not an eleemosynary corporation and would therefore include in its charge all necessary expenses together with an amount for profit). {19} Our holding is consistent with the policy behind the Workers' Compensation Act: [A]llowing an employee who has received workers' compensation benefits to maintain a tort action against his special employer[] destroys the compromise that is the foundation of the act. Such a construction would have the effect of encouraging litigation by employees that have received workers' compensation benefits, the exact opposite of what the Legislature intended. Sorenson, 650 A.2d at 129. Allowing Plaintiff to sue the company that paid for his workers' compensation would strike[] at the heart of the Act. See St. Claire, 211 F.Supp. at 528.