Subcontractor’s employee who was attacked on the job sues for negligence

The general rule is that if you hire an independent contractor to do a job, you aren’t responsible for injury to the contractor’s employees—but with a big exception that led to liability in a recent case.

Facts

The Hunters Point East-West construction project involved the rehabilitation of 27 buildings containing residential units. The project site was in an area known to have a high crime rate.

John Stewart Company (JSC) owned the property and hired Cahill Contractors as general contractor on the project. Cahill in turn hired Janus Corporation as a subcontractor to perform demolition work at the site. Abraham Degala was a foreman employed by Janus who was attacked on the job in January 2017.

Degala was attacked and seriously injured while he was working at a construction site at the Hunters Point East-West housing complex in San Francisco. He sued the general contractor and the owner of the site for damages, alleging they breached their duty to take reasonable security precautions at the site, which was located in a high-crime area.

Both Cahill and JSC asked the court to end the case without trial under the Privette doctrine that only the independent contractor is liable for on-the-job injuries sustained by the contractor’s employees, absent some exception. The court agreed and dismissed the case. An appeal followed.

Who had control of security?