NY Braces for Fight Over Law That Lets Injured Workers Sue Employers
- Legislative sources say they are bracing for a fight over a law that allows workers injured in gravity-related falls, such as from scaffolding, to sue their employers, business owners or property owners when required safety protections fail; New York’s scaffold law can hold those parties fully liable except in limited circumstances, and advocates say it gives workers leverage to push employers to keep job sites safe.
- The potential fight is expected to surface in the upcoming budget cycle if Gov. Kathy Hochul puts forward a proposal to change the scaffold law, following a new Empire Center poll showing 67% of New Yorkers support responsibility-based limits on workplace injury liability.
- Andrew Rein of the Citizens Budget Commission argues New York is the only state where owners, contractors and employers pay full damages even when an injured worker is partly at fault, saying this drives up construction insurance costs. Tom Stebbins of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York noted most states repealed similar laws decades ago in favor of the workers’ compensation system.
- Opponents of reform warn that limiting the scaffold law could leave injured workers with fewer options for recourse than the workers’ compensation system alone would provide.
Municipal InsurerAgrees It’s Subject to Public Records and Open Meetings Laws
- Cities & Villages Mutual Insurance Company has agreed, as part of an enforceable court settlement, that it is a governmental entity subject to Wisconsin’s Public Records and Open Meetings Laws, resolving a lawsuit brought by its former workers’ compensation claims director Greg Gilsinger.
- CVMIC, created in 1987 by 20 Wisconsin municipalities and now serving about 57 municipal members plus three municipal utilities, writes workers’ compensation as one of its main lines of coverage alongside liability and automobile liability, and its seven-member board consists entirely of municipal representatives.
- Before the settlement, CVMIC had argued it was not a governmental entity and therefore exempt from public-records and open-meetings requirements, while simultaneously claiming government-related benefits including tax exemptions and participation in public retirement and employment programs.
- Gilsinger challenged the company after alleging that meetings held in Dane, Door, and Milwaukee counties lacked the public notice and open sessions required under Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law, filing complaints in March and a Dane County lawsuit in July.
- The settlement formally stipulates CVMIC is a “governmental body” and an “authority” under the relevant laws, a ruling that could have broader implications for similar municipal insurers like the League of Wisconsin Municipalities Mutual Insurance and Wisconsin Municipalities Mutual Insurance Company.
Judge: Truck Drivers Were Misclassified as Independent Contractors
- Judge Elaine Bucklo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in August that truck drivers for Channahon, Illinois-based Direct Trucking, doing business as Sparc Transport, are employees under Illinois law rather than independent contractors, a central win in a class-action lawsuit that could cover several hundred drivers.
- The lawsuit alleged drivers worked 50-70 hours a week exclusively for Sparc Transport, received loads through company dispatchers who checked in throughout the day, drove trucks bearing the company’s logo and DOT number, and had to report electronic logging device data while undergoing company-mandated background and driving record checks.
- Applying Illinois’s ABC test, which requires employers to satisfy all three prongs to classify a worker as an independent contractor, Bucklo rejected Sparc Transport’s arguments that its control measures were merely for insurance and customer-identification purposes.
- The judge noted that a company’s reasons for exerting control don’t change the fact that control existed, and that the drivers’ signed “independent contractor agreements” carry no legal weight since employment status is determined by statute, not contract language.