LAWRENCE TAYLOR AND MARIE TAYLOR, APPELLANT,
v.
SCHOOL BOARD OF BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 2001-07-13
No. 5D00-842
COBB and SAWAYA, JJ., concur.
790 So. 2d 1156 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2001) Positive Treatment
Cited by 10 cases

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Holding

The court held that employees operating in furtherance of the employer's business are considered engaged in related works if they share a common purpose, such as providing transportation services.


Headnotes

[1] An employer is generally immune from suit for negligence when an employee is injured and covered under the Workers' Compensation Law.

[2] The "unrelated works" exception to employer immunity under Workers' Compensation Law applies when employees of the same employer are assigned primarily to unrelated tasks…

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Facts & Procedural History

An employee was injured when a wheelchair lift on a bus fell on him due to worn rivets. The lift had been recently repaired and inspected. The employe…

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Opinion of the Court
THOMPSON, C.J.

THOMPSON, C.J.

Lawrence Taylor and his wife, Marie (collectively “Taylor”) appeal a summary final judgment entered in favor of the School Board of Brevard County (“school board”). We affirm.

Taylor was injured in the course of his work as a bus attendant, when a wheelchair lift affixed to the bus fell on him. Two people were involved in the deployment of the lift: the bus driver, who operated the control; and Taylor, the attendant, who was stationed outside the bus to open the doors. On the day of the accident, the emergency release pin plate on the mechanism was loose because the rivets had worn off. This caused the lift to fall as soon as the doors opened.

The lock assembly on the lift was repaired some four months prior to the accident. A week before the accident, the lift was re-positioned by a school board mechanic after a complaint that the lift had “bound up.” The lift was last inspected and lubricated in the shop two days before the accident. A school board mechanic testified that the rivets may have worn out due to the lift having become “bound up.” He also testified that an inspection of the lock assembly should have revealed the problem.

On October 2, 1998, Taylor brought the instant action against the school board. Taylor subsequently filed a motion for partial summary judgment seeking a declaration that his work for the school board was unrelated to that performed by the school board’s school bus maintenance personnel. The school board filed a cross motion for summary judgment on the ground it was immune under Florida’s Worker’s Compensation Law. Following a hearing on the motions the trial court denied Taylor’s motion and granted the motion of the school board. A final judgment in favor of the school board was entered and Taylor appeals.

This case turns on the intended scope of the “unrelated works” exception to the immunity from suit provision in Florida’s Workers’ Compensation Law. §§ 440.01-440.60, Fla. Stat. (1999). Under the worker’s compensation law, an employer is immune to suit for its negligence when the injured employee is covered under the chapter. Similarly, the employer is immune to suit when its employee is injured by another employee in certain instances. The Legislature has created an exception to that immunity: “fellow employee immunities shall not be applicable ... to employees of the same employer when each is operating in furtherance of the employer’s business but they are assigned primarily to unrelated works within private or public employment.” § 440.11, Fla. Stat.1 The trial court granted a summary judgment in favor of the school board on the grounds that the alleged negligent employees, school board transportation department mechanics, and Taylor, a school bus attendant whose responsibilities included operation of the wheelchair lift which caused his injury, were assigned to related works. As the trial court reasoned, because both the former and the latter were employees of the school board involved in the same project, they had in common the “provision of transportation services to Brevard County school children.”

It is undisputed that both Taylor and the alleged negligent mechanics worked out of the same transportation facility and that Taylor, as a part of his job, was responsible for the operation of the wheel- • chair lift while the mechanics, as a part of their job, were responsible for the lift’s maintenance and repair. Under these circumstances, we agree with the trial court’s application of the statute. See Turner v. PCR, Inc., 732 So. 2d 342 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998), quashed on other grounds, 754 So. 2d 683 (Fla.2000); Dade County School Bd. v. Laing, 731 So. 2d 19 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999), Vause v. Bay Medical Center, 687 So. 2d 258 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996), rev. denied, 695 So. 2d 703 (Fla.1997), and Abraham v. Dzafic, 666 So. 2d 232 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995); but see Lopez v. Vilches, 734 So. 2d 1095 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999) (holding that where the plaintiff worked as a driver for a funeral home and the defendants were responsible for the maintenance of the fleet of vehicles owned by the funeral home and at least four interrelated business entities that operated other funeral homes and cemeteries as well, the unrelated works exception may apply and reversing summary judgment for the defendants), rev. denied, 749 So. 2d 504 (Fla.1999).

AFFIRMED.

COBB and SAWAYA, JJ., concur. . Section 440.11(1), Florida Statutes, provides in pertinent part:

The liability of an employer prescribed in s. 440.10 shall be exclusive and in place of all other liabilities of such employer to any third-party tortfeasor and to the employee.... The same immunities from liability enjoyed by an employer shall extend as well to each employee of the employer when such employee is acting in furtherance of the employer’s business and the injured employee is entitled to receive benefits under this chapter.. .. Such fellow-employee immunities shall not be applicable ... to employees of the same employer when each is operating in the furtherance of the employer’s business but they are assigned primarily to unrelated works within private or public employment ....

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Citator

Cited By

  • Taylor v. Sch. Bd. OF Brevard Cnty., 888 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 2004)
    …related works exception would, therefore, never be applicable. This is an approach with which I do not agree. Finally, in 2001, the Fifth District analyzed the unrelated works exception in the instant case, Taylor v. School Board of Brevard County, 790 So. 2d 1156 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001). Although the Fifth District did not specify a particular test to be utilized for analytical purposes, the court relied upon factors such as physical loca [*13] tion — the co-employees were assigned to work from the same transpor…
    1 / 2
  • Fitzgerald v. S. Broward Hosp. Dist., 840 So. 2d 460 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003)
    …s in the various cases arise from a lack of consensus on the role of the exemption in the worker’s compensation law. We .note that the unrelated works doctrine is currently under review by the supreme court. See Taylor v. Sch. Bd. of Brevard County, 790 So. 2d 1156 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001), review granted, 819 So. 2d 140 (Fla. Apr.25, 2002); Sanchez v. Dade County Sch. Bd., 784 So. 2d 1172 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001), review granted, 819 So. 2d 139 (Fla. Apr.30, 2002). The express legislative intent behind the worker’s com…
  • Aravena v. Miami-Dade Cnty., 928 So. 2d 1163 (Fla. 2006)
    …co-employee”). Case Law Interpreting the Unrelated Works Exception The scope of the unrelated works exception has been addressed by all of the district courts of appeal. See, e.g., Kelly, 810 So. 2d at 561-62; Taylor v. Sch. Bd. of Broward County, 790 So. 2d 1156, 1157-58 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001), approved, 888 So. 2d 1, 6 (Fla.2004); Lopez v. Vilches, 734 So. 2d 1095, 1096-98 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999), disapproved of by Taylor v. Sch. Bd. of Brevard County, 888 So. 2d 1, 6 (Fla.2004); Dade County Sch. Bd. v. Laing, 731…

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