Seabright Ins. v. US Airways, S182508

Independent contractor and hirer’s labor and torts duties in California: generally, when employees of independent contractors are injured in the workplace, they cannot sue the party that hired the contractor to do the work.  (Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 (Privette).)  Here, we consider whether the Privette rule applies when the party that hired the contractor (the hirer) failed to comply with workplace safety requirements concerning the precise subject matter of the contract, and the injury is alleged to have occurred as a consequence of that failure.  We hold that the Privette rule does apply in that circumstance. By hiring an independent contractor, the hirer implicitly delegates to the contractor any tort law duty it owes to the contractor’s employees to ensure the safety of the specific workplace that is the subject of the contract.  That implicit delegation includes any tort law duty the hirer owes to the contractor’s employees to comply with applicable statutory or regulatory safety requirements.  Such delegation does not include the tort law duty the hirer owes to its own employees to comply with the same safety requirements, but under the definition of “employer” that applies to California’s workplace safety laws (see Lab. Code, § 6304), the employees of an independent contractor are not considered to be the hirer’s own employees. (Not present here is a situation in which the relevant statutes or regulations indicate an intent to limit the application of Privette, supra, 5 Cal.4th 689, or preclude delegation of the tort law duty, if any, that the hirer owes to the contractor’s employees) (Cal. S. Ct., S182508, 22.08.11, Seabright Ins. v. US Airways).

Responsabilité du maître de l’ouvrage à l’égard des employés de l’entrepreneur engagé par le maître (en droit californien) : ces employés n’ont pas de droit d’action contre le maître (jurisprudence Privette). Cette règle n’est pas modifiée si le maître omet de se conformer aux règles de sécurité qui régissent le type de chantier en cours. En effet, de par l’engagement d’un entrepreneur indépendant, le maître lui délègue implicitement toutes les obligations pouvant entraîner responsabilité civile en cas de dommage subi par un employé de l’entrepreneur. Cette délégation à l’entrepreneur ne s’applique bien entendu pas s’agissant de la responsabilité du maître envers ses propres employés. Cette affaire ne concerne pas des situations dans lesquelles une règlementation vise à limiter l’application de la jurisprudence Privette, ou régit différemment le partage des responsabilités entre le maître et l’entrepreneur.