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Coho Resources6/27/2002
y, or recognizing it but failing to specifically instruct the workers.
. While the general rule is that the owner of the premises does not have a duty to protect an independent contractor against risks arising from or intimately connected with the work, there is an exception where the owner maintains substantial de jure or de facto control over the work to be performed. The contract and testimony at trial sufficiently created a jury question as to whether Coho retained substantial control over the workover site. As such, this issue is without merit.
(2) The owner is not liable for the death or injury of an independent contractor or his employees resulting from dangers that the contractor, as an expert, knows or reasonably should know.
. Coho and Cockrell next argue that the contract charges Smith Brothers with knowledge of the site conditions, and Smith Brothers' employees were in a superior position to observe the response of the soil and site conditions to their work. They argue that Langley testified that the site was soft and that is why Smith Brothers decided to use a double wide beam to support the workover rig. Also, Stroo and Langley had observed the sinking of the pipe mat on which they the racked the pipes several days before the accident and decided to add additional boards for support. Coho and Cockrell contend that under the holding of Jones, they had no duty to warn of a danger Smith Brothers and its employees should reasonably have appreciated. In Jones, we held:
even if there existed a duty on the part of Howard [the owner] to make the premises safe, the only way in which that duty would remain intact is if . . . site supervisor, did not know of the condition of the soil. In City of Jackson v. Ball, 562 So.2d 1267, 1270 (Miss. 1990), we held that no warning need be given to employees of a contractor so long as the contractor knows of the danger. Jones, 701 So.2d at 783.
In Jones, there was a factual dispute as to whether the site supervisor actually knew of the soil conditions. Id. However, this Court charged the independent contractor with that knowledge anyway, because the independent contractor was charged with knowledge of the soil conditions as a prerequisite to signing the contract. Id. In the present case, as in Jones, the contract between Coho and Smith Brothers charged the latter with knowledge of the site conditions.
. If Coho had been a detached owner who had merely contracted with Smith Brothers to have them perform the workover with unfettered control, then Coho would only have the duty to warn of dangerous conditions unknown by Smith Brothers. However Coho was not just a detached owner who hired an independent contractor to perform some work. Coho provided Smith Brothers with a prognosis that detailed, step-by-step, how to perform the work. Coho had a company man at the work site and retained substantial control over the job . Coho's district production manager, Gerald Ruley, admitted that it had a duty to provide a safe work site in the following exchange:
Q: Well, as the Coho company man, did Coho have a duty or responsibility to provide a safe place to work for these men that you hired to come out there and rig up on Coho's property? Did you have that duty?
A: It's our - - it's our duty and this is what we try to do in all cases to provide as safe working conditions as we can for anybody. We are not going to let our thoughts about profits or anything override our concern for safety in any case that we see that we can do something about. That is our policy.
. Therefore, Coho had a duty not only to warn of dangerous conditions, it had a duty to supervise in a saf
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