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Braxton v. ANCO Electric Inc.11/7/1991
The plaintiff, Larry Gordon Braxton, a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina brought this tort action against the defendant, Anco Electric, Inc., on 22 February 1989, alleging that defendant's negligence had proximately caused his injury on a construction site where he was working, and seeking punitive and compensatory damages.
Mr. Braxton was employed as a plumber's helper by Dubberly & Son Plumbing, a North Carolina corporation and a subcontractor of Bailey and Associates, Inc., another North Carolina corporation and general contractor engaged in the construction of the South Hampton Shopping Center in Franklin, Virginia. The defendant, also a North Carolina corporation, was an electrical subcontractor of Bailey and Associates, Inc. for this project.
The plaintiff alleged that as he climbed a ladder in a building on the construction site in Virginia, he came into contact with an electrical wire, sending an electrical shock through his body and causing him to fall. The plaintiff alleged that defendant negligently caused the electrical wire to become exposed and that defendant was negligent in the installation, inspection, and utilization of electrical equipment, and in its failure to give adequate warning for the protection of the plaintiff.
The plaintiff received workers' compensation benefits pursuant to the North Carolina Workers' Compensation Act for his injuries.
On defendant's motion pursuant to N.C. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the trial court ruled that because Virginia substantive law bars actions against another subcontractor by an employee for injuries negligently caused by an employee of such subcontractor, the plaintiff's action was barred pursuant to the doctrine of lex loci delicti commissi. The Court of Appeals reversed, recognizing that Virginia law does bar such actions, but holding that North Carolina substantive law should apply because of overriding state interests and public policy reasons. We affirm, but for partially different and additional reasons.
In the present case we begin with a common law tort action for the personal injury of a North Carolina citizen. Since the injury occurred in the course of the plaintiff's employment, we must look to statutory law on workers' compensation to see whether there exists any prohibition or bar to such suit. Under North Carolina law, we find that an employee who is injured by the negligence of a third-party subcontractor may bring a negligence action against that subcontractor because in interpreting our statute North Carolina courts have deemed such a subcontractor not to be a "statutory employer" of the plaintiff and therefore not shielded from liability by the "exclusive remedy bar" of our workers' compensation statute. See Lewis v. Barnhill, 267 N.C. 457, 148 S.E.2d 536 (1966); Weaver v. Bennett, 259 N.C. 16, 129 S.E.2d 610 (1963).
However, since the injury occurred in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the case presents a conflict of laws question as to which state's compensation law to apply in determining whether plaintiff's cause of action is barred. The conflict arises from the divergence between our statute and the Commonwealth of Virginia's workers' compensation statute, Code ยง 65.1-40, which extends the definition of "statutory employer" to include all subcontractors working under the general contractor's umbrella, thus shielding from liability a third-party tortfeasor such as the defendant in the present case.
Thus, this court is faced with a novel question of first impression. The question is a threshold one of whether to apply Virginia's or North Carolina's compensati
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