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Two employers can be held jointly responsible for workers’ compensation benefits for an injured worker whom they both classified as an independent contractor, a Massachusetts court has ruled.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court said the case presented the first appellate opportunity for deciding on joint employers’ responsibility under workers’ compensation.

In ruling that the claimant was an employee, not an independent contractor, for both of the businesses he was working for on a joint project at the time of his injury, the appeals court affirmed a decision by the Industrial Accident Reviewing Board.

While Leo Whitman was working on a project in Ipswich for both Stephen Sarcia and PPM, a scaffold collapsed, causing him to fall about 16 feet. He has been partially disabled ever since. Neither Sarcia nor PPM had workers’ compensation for him; both saw him as an independent contractor.

The administrative judge concluded that Whitman was a covered employee of both firms. The employers disputed that they were joint employers, arguing that there was no evidence that they operated as a single employer with common management, ownership and financial controls.

But the appeals court said that state law does not require that joint employers must be integrated or single by ownership, management and finances. “Workers’ compensation law in Massachusetts allows separate entities to constitute joint employers,” the court said.

Topics Legislation Workers' Compensation Massachusetts