Preview:

LOUISIANA WORKERS' COMPENSATION CORPORATION VERSUS NATIONAL SERVICE INDUSTRIES, INC. OF CALIFORNIA, NATIONAL LINEN AND UNIFORM SERVICES, LLC, SCOTT CASSANOVA AND AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE COMPANY

* * * * *******

NO. 2007-CA-1089 COURT OF APPEAL FOURTH CIRCUIT STATE OF LOUISIANA

APPEAL FROM CIVIL DISTRICT COURT, ORLEANS PARISH NO. 2006-5462, DIVISION "F-10" Honorable Yada Magee, Judge ****** Judge Edwin A. Lombard ****** (Court composed of Chief Judge Joan Bernard Armstrong, Judge Patricia Rivet Murray, Judge Edwin A. Lombard)

Musa Rahman JOHNSON, STILTNER & RAHMAN 2237 South Acadian Thruway Suite 102 P.O. Box 98001 Baton Rouge, LA 70898-8001 COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF/APPELLANT George J. Nally, Jr. Rebecca Davis NALLEY & DEW, A PLC 2121 Ridgelake Drive Suite 200 Metairie, LA 70001 COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/APPELLEE AFFIRMED MARCH 5, 2008

Plaintiff, The Louisiana Workers' Compensation Corporation ("LWCC"), appeals the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to Defendants, National Service Industries, Inc. of California, National Linen and Uniform Services, LLC, Scott Casanova, and American Home Insurance Company (sometimes hereinafter collectively referred to as "Defendants"). For the reasons more fully set forth below, we affirm. Relevant Facts This lawsuit arose out of an automobile accident that occurred on or about July 26, 2005, on Interstate 10 in Metairie, Louisiana, when Scott Casanova, an employee of National Linen and Uniform Services, LLC, rear-ended the car in front of him causing a multi-car collision. Victor Saraceno, a fifty-eight year old electrical engineer employed by Davies Engineering, was fatally injured as a result of the accident. Two weeks after his death, Mr. Saraceno's son-in-law, Mr. Peter Scalfani, filed a claim for death benefits under a workers' compensation insurance policy Mr. Saraceno had obtained in 1993 when he was working as an independent

1

contractor.

For unknown reasons, Mr. Saraceno had continued to pay the

premiums on this policy up until the time of his death, despite the fact that his employer, Davies Engineering, provided him with workers' compensation insurance coverage as part of his employee benefits package. According to the deposition testimony of Mr. Saraceno's employer, on the day of the accident, Mr. Saraceno came to work, as usual, and met with a client to turn over a project that he had completed. After this meeting, Mr. Saraceno, his supervisor, and the client, spontaneously decided to go to lunch. Afterward, Mr. Saraceno returned to the office. Having completed the project he was working on, Mr. Saraceno decided to leave the office early that day. No one knows where he went from the time he left work until the time that the fatal accident occurred at 5:45 that evening. After a cursory investigation conducted by LWCC's adjuster, Andrew Davis, LWCC concluded that Mr. Saraceno was in the course and scope of his employment as an independent contractor at the time of the fatal accident and that death benefits should be made payable to Mr. Saraceno's only living dependent, his eighty-four year-old mother, Bessie Saraceno. LWCC's conclusion that

benefits were payable under the policy was based on information allegedly gleaned from conversations with Mr. Scalfani and Mr. Gary Laiche, Mr. Saraceno's supervisor at Davies Engineering, that Mr. Saraceno was paid hourly and had a flexible schedule. After LWCC paid the death benefits to the decedent's mother, it brought suit against Defendants to recover the payments made.

2

Trial Court and Arguments on Appeal Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, which the trial court granted, on the basis that LWCC paid the death benefits in error as Mr. Saraceno was not in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident. The court further found that LWCC was not entitled to pursue a lawsuit against the Defendants for benefits it erroneously paid to Mrs. Saraceno. Plaintiff now appeals the trial court judgment, arguing that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the Defendants since there are genuine issues of material fact as to whether Mr. Saraceno was in the course and scope of his employment as an independent contractor at the time of the accident. LWCC further argues that regardless of whether it paid the death benefits to Mrs. Saraceno in error, it is still entitled to recover the benefits it voluntarily paid. Law and Discussion Under the Workers' Compensation Act, employers are responsible for compensation benefits to employees or their dependent survivors only when the injury results from an accident "arising out of and in the course of his employment." LSA-R.S. 23:1031; O'Regan v. Preferred Enterprises, Inc., 98-1602 (La. 3/17/00), 758 So. 2d 124; Mundy v. Department of Health and Human Resources, 593 So. 2d 346 (La. 1992). Additionally, Louisiana Revised Statute

Download 203113.pdf

Louisiana Law