Opinion ID: 1897018
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: C.D. Clark

Text: The plaintiff alleged that C.D. Clark, president of Clark Construction Company, was responsible for the works, ways, machinery and safety precautions of said job site. On appeal, the plaintiff argues that C.D. Clark was responsible for the training and responsible for the equipment. The record reveals that during the trial, the plaintiff called Clark as an adverse witness and elicited from him the following testimony: Q. As part of your job as president, you were interested in the safety of your employees, weren't you? A. Very much so. Q. And you were interested in having the equipment safe? A. Right. Q. And you considered that part of your responsibility as president of the corporation? A. Right. Q. To maintain safety in every way you could? A. That's correct. The question for defendant D.C. Clark is whether this testimony was sufficient, in light of the holdings in Kennemer v. McFann, 470 So.2d 1113 (Ala.1985), and Welch v. Jones, 470 So.2d 1103 (Ala.1985), to show that Clark had either been delegated or had voluntarily assumed the responsibility for the plaintiff's safety. In Welch we affirmed a co-employee judgment against James C. Welch, the president of the James C. Welch Construction Company, because the evidence revealed an active participation on his part in the day-to-day field operation of his construction company. This involvement included regular visits at the jobsite at least once and sometimes twice a week. While there, he would undertake to look for unsafe practices and hazards at the workplace. Should he see a condition of which he did not approve, he would immediately order it changed. Welch also received all of the jobsite surveys from his insurance carrier and would personally verify that his job superintendent had rectified any of the unsafe practices or conditions that his carrier had noted. Finally, the evidence showed that Welch had last inspected the very area where the accident occurred within two weeks of the fall. Thus, a jury could have reasonably inferred from the evidence that Welch had personal knowledge of the dangerous condition that proximately caused the plaintiff's injury. In light of this evidence, we found that James C. Welch had personally assumed the employer's duty to provide a safe place to work. On the other hand, we did not find the assumption of the duty by the defendant Charles Partain in Kennemer v. McFann . Partain had the general administrative responsibility for a company-wide safety program that included the formulation and distribution of safety procedures and regulations to the various field operations of his company. One of the written procedures required that all rubber-tired vehicles have brakes in good service. The evidence showed that the truck that caused the plaintiff's injury was maintained in violation of these written procedures and that the lack of adequate brakes proximately contributed to the accident in question. There was no evidence, however, that Partain had any first-hand knowledge of the poor maintenance of the vehicle. We reversed the judgment against Partain because we found that his job title alone did not impose upon him the individualized duty to verify the compliance of each piece of the company's equipment with the established written procedures. Partain's general administrative responsibilities were too remote in regard to the defective instrumentality that caused the plaintiff's injuries for co-employee liability to be imposed upon him. The evidence of record in the instant case reveals that C.D. Clark's involvement in his company is more closely akin to Partain's administrative responsibilities than to Welch's voluntary assumption of the employer's duty to provide a safe place to work. Although he was the president of his construction company, the evidence here does not show any visits by Clark to the Pickens County jobsite before the plaintiff was injured. There is no indication that Clark was personally involved in the training of the employees at the jobsites, nor is there any evidence showing his presence at, or supervision of, a pile driving operation at any jobsite. Finally, the record is devoid of any evidence revealing any personal knowledge by Clark of the plaintiff's having ridden the cable to the ground at the Tuscaloosa jobsite. Rather, the evidence indicated that C.D. Clark only supervised the operation from his company's corporate offices in Dozier, Alabama. We can find no evidence of any actions by C.D. Clark that would substantiate the claim that he had assumed a personal duty to provide for the plaintiff's safety; the record shows only the assumption of a generalized administrative responsibility. We have repeatedly held that [a] co-employee cannot be held liable merely because he has a general administrative responsibility; the fact that a person is in an administrative or supervisory position alone does not make that person liable. Clements v. Webster, 425 So.2d at 1060. Therefore, as it relates to C.D. Clark, we find that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a judgment against him. C.D. Clark was entitled to a directed verdict at the close of the evidence, and not getting this, to a J.N.O.V.