7 Principles of Borrowed Employee Cases

In Mature v. Angelo, 373 Pa. 593, 97 A.2d 59 (1953), the Supreme Court laid out seven principles to be followed in borrowed employee cases, as summarized by this Court in Daily Express, Inc. v. Workmen's Comp. Appeal Bd., 46 Pa. Commw. 434, 406 A.2d 600, 601-02 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1979): (1) One who is in the general employ of one employer may be transferred to the service of another in such a manner that he becomes an employee of the second employer; (2) whether or not the transferred employee becomes the employee of the second employer depends on whether the first employer passes to the second employer not only the right to control the employee's work, but also his manner of performing it; (3) it is enough to establish the employer-employee relationship if the employer has the right to control the employee's manner of performance of work, regardless of whether the right is ever exercised; (4) where one is engaged in the business of renting out trucks and furnishes a driver as part of the hiring of the truck,there is a presumption that the driver remains in the employ of his original employer until there is evidence that the second employer in fact assumed control over the employee's manner of performing his work; (5) facts which indicate that an employee remains in the service of his original employer include the original employer's right to select the employee to be loaned and to discharge him at any time and send another in his place, the loaned employee's possession of a skill or special training required by the work for the second employer, and employment at a daily or hourly rate for no definite period; (6) the fact that the second employer designates the work to be done and where it is to be done does not militate against the first employer-employee relationship; (7) when the facts are undisputed, the determination of who is the employee's employer is one of law, but when the facts are disputed, the determination is one of fact.