Houston Partners Secure Dismissal of Negligence Claims in Wrongful Death Case

Houston partners Ryan Marlatt and Tom Machisak obtained a summary judgment dismissing all negligence claims against a commercial property owner in a wrongful death case.

Negligence Claims After Jobsite Accident

Plaintiff, an employee of a sub-subcontractor, was electrocuted while cleaning out a hyrodvac truck on Defendant’s property. The accident occurred when Plaintiff was emptying water from the truck and raised the tank into power lines, which caused electricity to arc from the power lines to the truck. After living for three days, the Plaintiff ultimately died from his injuries.

His estate brought numerous claims of negligence and gross negligence against Defendant related to safety training, inspections of work environment, failure to protect workers from unsafe conditions, a lack of safety programs or safeguards, failure to maintain jobsite properly or provide safety equipment, failure to comply with State and Federal regulations concerning work new high voltage power lines, failure to de-energize power lines while workers were present, and failure to install electric power lines at the proper height.

The court was tasked with determining if the power lines constituted a dangerous condition due to their height and the fact that they were energized while the work was being performed, and if so, was that condition open and obvious. Further the court was asked to determine if Defendant retained such control over the work being performed that it could be held liable for the death of a sub-subcontractor’s employee.

Independent Contractors Working in Open and Obvious Dangerous Conditions

In reviewing, the court found that the power lines themselves do not constitute an unreasonably dangerous condition because the undisputed evidence establishes Decedent had been trained to not dump his hydrovac vehicle near overhead power lines, acknowledged the risk of doing so on his job safety analysis completed that morning, and had dumped his hydrovac vehicle in different locations on the date of the accident with no issues. As such, Defendant did not owe any duty to warn or make safe this “condition” as it did not pose an unreasonable risk of harm to the Decedent. Additionally, even if the power lines did constitute an unreasonably dangerous condition, Defendant had no duty to warn the Decedent as the power lines were open and obvious, an undisputed fact the Decedent specifically noted on the job safety analysis that morning.

The court agreed that since the Decedent was an independent contractor working on an improvement to the real property owned by Defendant at the time of the accident, the Defendant cannot be held liable to Decedent because Defendant did not exercise control over the details of how the Decedent performed his job duties. Therefore, Plaintiffs have no evidence to support necessary elements of their premises liability and purported negligence claims against Defendant.

The court determined that there was no evidence to support a finding of gross negligence against Defendants. The court dismissed all claims against Defendant.