Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment entered in favor of the construction company’s president, finding that fact issues remained about whether the president ordered the company’s employee to place a tarp on a roof without also providing appropriate safety equipment.
Navarro v. Borges arises from a construction accident where a construction company’s employee was severely injured after falling off a roof while securing a tarp to the roof. The employee had worked for the company exclusively for two years and was paid bi-weekly. In early October 2017, the president of the construction company sent the employee to install a tarp on a residence where the roof had been damaged by Hurricane Irma. The employee installed the tarp, without any safety equipment, without incident.
A couple of weeks later, the employee, on another jobsite, overheard other employees discussing that there was an issue with the tarp and that the president of the company had ordered the employees to go correct it. When the president of the company arrived at the job site later that day, the employee and another assured him they would go to the other house in the morning and correct the issues with the tarp. The following morning, the employee climbed the roof to repair the tarp without any safety equipment and ultimately fell, suffering significant injuries. The employee then sued his employer, the construction company, over his injuries.
The construction company president moved for summary judgment, arguing that he had no duty to provide safety equipment where he had not instructed the employee to go to the site to repair the tarp. The trial court granted the motion for summary judgment, and the employee appealed.
On appeal, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal first noted that “it is axiomatic that a contractor has a duty to provide a safe work site,”: and can be held liable for dangerous conditions if “negligently created or approved.” The court also noted that individual officers or agents of a corporation can be personally liable where they committed a tort in the course of their employment if they are “actively negligent” as opposed to merely “passively negligent.”
Against the backdrop of these legal concepts, the appellate court reversed summary judgment, first recognizing that the president originally sent the employee to the roof, without any safety equipment, to install the tarp. The court also recognized that the conversations the day before the employee fell off the roof further illustrated that the president had given a second order to fix the tarp on the roof, again without providing any safety equipment. Based on this, the appellate court felt that fact issues remained that should have precluded summary judgment because the record demonstrated that the president of the company possibly engaged in “active negligence” rather than merely passive negligence.
The immediate takeaway from this case is that contractors should always make sure they provide appropriate safety equipment and instructions on how to use it to their employees. This case also illustrates that in certain circumstances even people acting within the scope of their employment can be personally liable if their conduct actively contributes to injuries suffered by another employee. Contractors should be cautious and also do their best to ensure that they have insurance coverage for as many possible risks as could occur on a project.