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Parent company not liable for subsidiary’s worker death

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Parent company not liable for subsidiary’s worker death

The widow of a man who was killed by a crane failed to show his employer’s parent company was negligent for his death, a federal court ruled.

In Grimsley v. Manitowoc Co. Inc., the U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday granted summary judgment to the man’s employer, Grove U.S. LLC of Shady Grove, Pennsylvania, along with parent company Manitowoc Co., based in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and several other subsidiaries after holding that Grove was entitled to the exclusive remedy provision under the Workers Compensation Act and Manitowoc did not exercise significant control over Grove to establish liability.

In 2013, the employee died at a Shady Grove worksite when he was pinned between two cranes. After a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation into the incident, Grove was fined and the employee’s widow received workers compensation death benefits.

In 2015, she filed a wrongful death and survival action asserting negligence and strict liability. She argued that Manitowoc was her husband’s employer, and that since he received workers comp from Grove, the parent company was therefore not immune from a lawsuit. The companies moved for summary judgment, which was granted by the district court. 

Although the court noted that documents filed by the workers comp insurer demonstrated some apparent confusion on its part by listing Grove with Manitowoc’s federal employer identification number with its claim filed with the state’s Workers Compensation Bureau, the court noted that the insurer later amended the deceased worker’s employer to Grove U.S. LLC and changed the FEIN.

The widow claimed that Manitowoc exercised control over her husband, arguing that the crane was owned by Manitowoc and branded with its logo. However, the court held that nothing in the record demonstrated that Manitowoc represented itself as the man’s employer instead of Grove. The court noted that unrebutted testimony indicated that Grove, not Manitowoc, owned the cranes, and that even if the cranes and manuals were branded with Manitowoc’s logo, she failed to show that Manitowoc exercised a level of control that goes beyond the normal parent-subsidiary control to owe a duty to provide a safe environment to the deceased worker.

The companies involved could not be reached for comment.

 

 

 

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