NY Hospital Employee’s Tort Action Against Outside Management Services Company Barred by Exclusive Remedy Doctrine
Where a hospital entered into a contract with a management services company (“the management company”), pursuant to which the management company trained and sometimes supervised the hospital’s “housekeepers,” but where the hospital continued to pay the housekeepers, maintain workers’ compensation insurance with regard to them, and had the final decision to hire, discipline, or fire them, the housekeepers continued to be employees of the hospital for purposes of New York workers’ compensation law, held the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion [Reyes v. Crothall Healthcare, Inc., 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 5398 (Feb. 21, 2020)]. Accordingly, where a hospital employee sustained injuries in a slip and fall accident in a hospital hallway, she could not maintain a tort action against the management company. The alleged tort was committed by her co-employees and the action was, therefore, barred by exclusivity.
Background
Plaintiff slipped and fell on a wet hospital hallway that was maintained by hospital housekeepers. The hospital had entered into a contract with the management company pursuant to which the latter provided training and some supervision over the day-to-day activities of the housekeepers. Plaintiff sought and received workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries, but she filed the instant civil action against the management company in state court. The defendant management company removed the matter to federal court on diversity grounds. The management company moved for summary judgment, which the federal district court granted. The district court held, in pertinent part, that workers’ compensation was Plaintiff’s exclusive remedy under New York law. Plaintiff appealed.
Two Employers
Initially, the Second Circuit noted that under New York law, two employers could share the same employee, and that in Thompson v. Grumman Aerospace Corp., 78 N.Y.2d 553, 585 N.E.2d 355, 578 N.Y.S.2d 106 (1991), New York’s Court of Appeals had explained that a general employee of one employer may also be in the special employ of another, notwithstanding the general employer’s responsibility for payment of wages and for maintaining workers’ compensation and other employee benefits.
The Second Circuit continued that even assuming that the management company’s provision of equipment, training, and management services was sufficient to create a special employment relationship between itself and the housekeepers, there could be no genuine dispute that the hospital retained ultimate control over these employees. It continued to pay housekeepers their salaries and benefits, possessed the exclusive right to make final decisions on discipline and termination, and required the management company’s housekeeping supervisors to comply with hospital policies at all times.
In the Same Employ
The Court concluded that because the housekeepers remained general employees of the employee, they were “in the same employ” as Plaintiff. Plaintiff’s exclusive remedy was within the workers’ compensation system [see N.Y. Workers’ Comp. Law § 29(6)].