Dave Neumeister and Jan Farmans obtained summary judgment and victory on appeal in the Moiseyev v. Rot's Bulding and Development.
The Third District Appellate Court affirmed a summary judgment in favor of the defendants, a construction site owner and general contractor, on the basis that the defendants did not have sufficient control over the operative details of the plaintiff's work. The plaintiff, a plasterer, sued the defendants for negligent failure to provide safe working conditions at the construction site.
The Appellate Court found insufficient evidence to show that the defendants retained sufficient control over the plasterer's work so as to create any duty to him to provide safe working conditions. There was no contract between the defendants and the plasterer's employer. The scaffold off which the plasterer fell, along with the tools and instruction to build it, was supplied by the subcontractor. The defendants never supervised the subcontractor's workers or instructed on how to do the job. In affirming the trial court's summary judgment order, the Appellate Court adopted for all courts in the Third Appellate District the rule of Rangel v. Brookhaven Constructors that an owner or general contractor at a construction site has no duty to employees of a subcontractor unless the owner or general contractor controls the operative details of the employee's work.
