Camargo v. Tjaarda Dairy

In Camargo v. Tjaarda Dairy (2001) 25 Cal.4th 1235, the California Supreme Court rejected an attempt to assert "direct" liability against the hirer of an independent contractor. There, the plaintiffs' decedent Camargo was killed when his tractor rolled over. Camargo had been an employee of an independent contractor, Golden Cal Trucking, which had been hired by a dairy to clear the manure out of its corrals. Camargo's heirs sued the dairy, asserting it was directly liable to them on a theory of negligent hiring, since the dairy had failed to determine whether the trucking company and Camargo were qualified to operate the tractor decedent was operating at the time of his death. (Id. at p. 1238.) This effort to recast the dairy's possible vicarious liability as a "theory of direct liability" was rejected; Camargo ruled the liability of the hirer of an independent contractor was necessarily vicarious and derivative rather than direct, because such liability derives from the act or omissions of the hired contractor who caused the injury by failing to use reasonable care. (Id. at p. 1244.) In addition, the high court pointed out that it is unfair as a matter of policy to subject the hirer of an independent contractor to such "direct" liability for negligent hiring as a result of injuries to its own employees, when the independent contractor itself is immune from suit. Workers' compensation exclusivity principles prevent employees from suing their own employers for failure to provide a safe working environment, and the same rule should apply to the hirers of those independent contractors. (Id. at pp. 1244-1245.) The Supreme Court discussed the peculiar risk doctrine again. In that case, a dairy hired an independent contractor to scrape manure out of its corrals and haul it away. One of the contractor's employees died when his tractor rolled over as he was driving on top of a large mound of manure. The employee's wife filed suit against the dairy, alleging that it had been negligent in hiring the independent contractor (the employee's employer) because the dairy had failed to determine if the employee could operate the tractor safely. The Supreme Court held that the dairy was not liable. As the court stated: "Section 411 of the Restatement Second of Torts, entitled 'Negligence in Selection of Contractor,' provides: 'An employer is subject to liability for physical harm to third persons caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care to employ a competent and careful contractor(a) to do work which will involve a risk of physical harm unless it is skillfully and carefully done, or(b) to perform any duty which the employer owes to third persons.' (Rest.2d Torts, at p. 376, ) "The dairy contends an employee of a contractor is not a third person for the purposes of section 411 . . . .. . . "As we explained in Toland, the rationale of our decision in Privette extends to cases where the hirer is directly negligent in the sense of having failed to take precautions against the peculiar risks involved in the work entrusted to the contractor. To repeat: In Toland, we rejected the plaintiff's argument that Privette did not bar recovery for direct liability under section 413, but only for vicarious liability under section 416. . . . '. . . In either situation, it would be unfair to impose liability on the hiring person when the liability of the contractor, the one primarily responsible for the worker's on-the-job injuries, is limited to providing workers' compensation coverage.' . . . "For the same reasons, an employee of a contractor should be barred from seeking recovery from the hirer under the theory of negligent hiring set forth in section 411 . . . ." (Camargo, supra, 25 Cal.4th at pp. 1241-1244.)