Contractor On Well Site To Remove Drilling Rig Held Business Invitee Of Well Site Lessee Following Injury
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania held that a well site lessee and its subsidiary can be held liable for negligence in connection with an independent contractor’s personal injury action. Specifically, the court found that the independent contractor, who was present at the well site at the time of his injuries, could be considered a business invitee for the purposes of his negligence claims.
The injured contractor sued to recover for injuries he suffered when he was exposed to a hazardous dust cloud caused when a dump truck emptied a load of soil cement during a clean-up operation on the well site. The contractor was at the well site to haul away a drilling rig. The court found that although the contractor was contracted by another company, he had sufficiently alleged that he was a business invitee of the well site lessee because he was on the lessee’s property conducting activities related to the lessee’s business of oil and gas drilling and exploration. Further, the court found that the lessee owed the contractor a duty to prevent the dumping or to warn him of the hazard where the dumping of the cement was a standard procedure within the context of the lessee’s business.
With respect to the lessee’s subsidiary, the court found that under Pennsylvania law, the subsidiary could be considered a possessor of the well site where (1) it occupied the well site by virtue of its relationship with the lessee and (2) it oversaw the clean-up operation of the premises. Further, the court found that the contractor could also be the subsidiary’s business invitee because the task he was contracted to perform benefitted the subsidiary. Similarly, the court found that the contractor’s allegations that the subsidiary instructed that the dump truck come to the well site were sufficient to show that the subsidiary owed him a duty. Because of the subsidiary’s superior knowledge about the dump truck, the court concluded that the subsidiary owed the contractor a duty to inspect the truck and to warn the persons likely to be injured.
