Sixth Circuit Reverses District Judge’s Grant of Summary Judgment for Paper Mill for Jury To Determine Whether Certain Work Is the Kind Its Employees Would Perform

The estate of an employee of a crane manufacturing and service company who was fatally electrocuted filed a wrongful death action against the paper mill where the worker was performing electrical work on a crane at the time of the injury.  The district court granted summary judgment to the paper mill on the basis that it was entitled to “up-the-ladder” immunity under Kentucky’s workers’ compensation scheme (the estate received workers’ compensation benefits through the crane manufacturer’s plan).  Under Kentucky’s regime, the key is whether actual work being performed at the time of the injury involved the “regular or recurrent” work of the company for which the work is being performed.

The Sixth Circuit reversed, finding that there was sufficient evidence to raise a genuine dispute as to whether the worker was performing “work that is customary, usual, or normal to the particular business or work that the business repeats with some degree of regularity, and … of a kind that the business or similar businesses would normally perform or be expected to perform with employees.”  The court, for example, pointed to evidence that the limit-switch wiring the worker was performing was never performed by the paper mill’s employees.