Read The Following And Answer The 3 Questions.

The stakes were high for Gene Elliot, whose on-the-job

injuries were estimated to be serious enough to merit at

least a $2.4 million settlement. But who should pay for his

injuries: Turner Construction or B&C Steel? Or should

Elliot be forced to pay for at least part of his injuries because

of his own carelessness?

Gene Elliot worked for Mabey Bridge and Shore, a

small business that rented temporary steel pedestrian foot

bridges to other companies. The temporary bridges had to

be put together by the renter, and Elliot’s job was to go to

the site where the steel bridge was going to be installed,

show the renter how to bolt the bridge sections together

and how to install the bridge over a river or waterway, and

inspect the bridge to make sure it was done properly and

according to Mabey Bridge’s high standards. Elliot was a

devoted hard worker who strove to do everything possible

to ensure that a bridge installation was successful and according

to Mabey Bridge’s standards.

Turner Construction was a general contractor hired to

build Invesco Field at the Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado.

Part of the job involved installing a temporary pedestrian

bridge over the Platte River near the stadium. Turner

Construction subcontracted (hired) B&C Steel to build and

install the bridge, which Turner Construction would pay

for. B&C Steel was a small company that specialized in putting

together and installing steel structures like those Mabey

Bridge rented out. B&C Steel would pick up the bridge, put

it together, and install it for Turner Construction.

Turner Construction rented the long steel bridge

from Mabey Bridge. Mabey Bridge agreed that the rental

included the services of Gene Elliot, who would be loaned

to Turner Construction to instruct and inspect the bridge

assembly and installation. B&C Steel’s workers picked up

the bridge sections from Mabey Bridge’s warehouse and

drove them to the river, but did not unload the bridge sections

where they had to be assembled. B&C Steel then had

to move the sections to the correct site, but did not plan

for the fence, guardrails, and trolley tracks that were in

the way and later had to work around these obstructions.

B&C Steel began bolting the bridge sections together.

When Elliot inspected the job, he found the bridge had

been bolted together upside down. Elliot made B&C Steel

do the job over, while he climbed up and down and over

the bridge, continuously checking and making sure that all

the bolts were tight and all the pieces were in the right

place so that the installation would be a success. When

the bridge was finished, B&C Steel workers used a truck

to move the long steel structure to the edge of the river.

Unfortunately, B&C Steel had not adequately checked the

route and their truck hit a low-hanging power line, which

sparked and started a fire. The fire department arrived and

put out the fire. Afterwards, the installation job continued.

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ETHICS AND THE EMPLOYEE 457

B&C Steel workers set up a crane on the other side of

the river near a retaining wall, and a strong nylon strap was

strung from the crane, over the water, and tied to one end

of the bridge, which was set on rollers. The B&C Steel

crane would lift and pull the bridge over the river to its

side, while workers on the other side of the river pushed

on their end of the bridge. The work began, and as the

pulling crane held the bridge suspended in the air about

a quarter of the way over the river, Elliot noticed that

the retaining wall which was supporting the crane on the

other side of the river was beginning to collapse, causing

the crane to begin to tip sideways. The B&C Steel crane

operator on the other side began to untie the strap holding

the bridge. Concerned that once the strap was cut the

bridge would fall into the river and the installation would

end in failure, Elliot ran up on the bridge and gave the

standard emergency OSHA all-stop signal that all construction

workers know means not to move anything. But

the bridge, still attached to the crane, somehow moved,

and Elliot fell, sustaining numerous pelvic injuries and a

severed urethra (the tube that carries urine). The cause of

the movement was never established.

Elliot sued Turner Construction and B&C Steel for

negligence resulting in economic losses of $28,000, noneconomic

injuries of $1,200,000, and permanent impairment

of $1,200,000. These figures were established by a

qualified expert in the field of worker injuries and were not

seriously contested.

Turner Construction, however, denied its responsibility.

It claimed that Turner was Elliot’s temporary employer

and workers’ compensation law required employers

to pay only the economic losses, here only $28,000, suffered

by their employees. Turner Construction pointed to

the law, which stated: “Any company leasing or contracting

out any part of the work to any lessee or subcontractor,

shall be construed to be an employer and shall be liable

to pay [only] compensation for injury resulting therefrom

to said lessees and subcontractors and their employees.”

Turner Construction claimed that Mabey Bridge was

a subcontractor to Turner to the extent that it provided

the services of Elliot to Turner, so Turner should be construed

to be Elliot’s temporary employer. Moreover, Colorado’s

workers’ compensation law, which was designed

to ensure that employers always paid for worker injuries

“grants an injured employee compensation from the employer

without regard to negligence and, in return, the

responsible employer is granted immunity from common

law negligence liability.”

B&C Steel claimed that it, too, was not responsible,

because according to the law a company is not responsible

for negligence when an injury is not “reasonably foreseeable”

to the company. B&C Steel contended that a reasonable

person could not have anticipated that placing the

crane near to the retaining wall and subsequently attempting

to remove the nylon strap holding up the bridge might

end by prompting someone to get on the bridge in an attempt

to save it from falling into the river. On the other

hand, B&C Steel claimed, since “Elliot chose to remove

himself from a secure and safe position and placed himself

in one that he understood was potentially unsafe,” Elliot

was himself responsible for his injuries.

Elliot claimed that he was not really Turner Construction’s

employee, since he was working for Mabey

Bridge. He also argued that B&C Steel had shown

a pattern of negligence from the time that the bridge

was received until the time that it was installed. B&C

Steel and its employees, he said, were unprepared for

the project and negligently failed to adequately plan

for it, as shown by the sequence of events leading up

to his injury. B&C Steel, therefore, did not exercise the

degree of care that a reasonably careful person should

have exercised in similar circumstances and so was liable

to him for his injuries. He himself was not responsible,

Elliot said, because a good, devoted employee would try

his best to ensure that the bridge installation did not

end in failure, and he would have been perfectly safe if

the standard OSHA all-stop signal had been followed

by B&C Steel employees, as he had a right to expect it

to be.

Questions

1. In your judgment, and from an ethical point of view,

should Turner Construction and/or B&C Steel pay

for all or part of the $2,428,000 (if part, indicate which

part)? Explain your view.

2. In your judgement, and from an ethical point of view,

should Elliot be held wholly or partially responsible

for his injuries and left to shoulder all or part of the

$2,428,000 cost of his injuries (if part, indicate which

part)? Explain.

3. In your judgement, is the Colorado worker’s compensation

law to which Turner Construction appealed

 

fair? Explain your view.