Hiring Someone to Work on Property - Liability

[plowhog]

For example, if someone hurts himself, you will be in trouble, but that isn't 100%. It would depend on your worker if it were his honest mistake.

Congratulations on your very first post in the forum, although I hope no one takes your advice!

 

[sunandsand]

It would depend on your worker if it were his honest mistake.

Doesn't work that way any more, unfortunately.

Anyone who gets hurt at anything immediately calls a personal injury lawyer. It is the lawyer's job to find SOMEONE who will pay, they don't particularly care who. (If it gets to court, sometimes there will be contributory negligence, so if there's a million dollar judgement, someone still has to come up with $500,000.) Most PI cases get settled out of court because the insurance companies know it is cheaper to write a check and raise everyone's rates a little more.

You see ads for personal injury attorneys everywhere - billboards, television, newspapers - their message is simple, if you get hurt, you will be in line for a BIG payday and you may never have to work again.

Years ago (we're talking 1970s), I was involved with someone who was a legal clerk at a lawyer's office in a major resort city. She told me they had a PARADE of people every day who said "I fell down at (such and such a hotel) and I want to sue them." 99.999999% of them had no case and no injuries or damages - other than to their ego.

I'm married to a lawyer (she only does bankruptcies, she can sleep at night) and she sees this all the time anyway. If anything, it is worse now than it was then. You simply HAVE to have some insurance coverage because sooner or later someone is going to sue you for something, whether it makes sense or not, and you have to defend or you will lose by default. Worse yet, it you decide to defend pro se (defend yourself in court) and you go up against a personal injury lawyer (or for that matter, ANY lawyer) you are guaranteed to promptly get sliced, diced and hung out to dry. (Remember the old saying, man who is his own lawyer has fool for a client, that is SO true!!!!!)

About a decade ago, I managed to trip over my own feet at a hotel in Daytona. Their manager came a'runnning and his first question was "Are you OK?" I said I wasn't sure yet, and he had a clipboard ready with a form on it. After the usual name and address stuff, the very next question was "Have you ever had a slip and fall accident claim against any other hotel?" The purpose of the form was to have their defense ready in writing if I decided to sue them later. I was fine, just a bit sore the next day. I also resolved never to go back to that hotel again because they were obviously interested in covering their own behinds and weren't overly concerned with the safety of their guests.

The law is a tricky thing, and it varies from place to place. For instance, there is something called the "Florida Recreational Lands Statute", which, according to my understanding (and remember, I am NOT a lawyer, so don't take anything I say as legal advice), says that if I give you permission to hunt/fish/ride ATVs on my land and you get hurt, it is your problem, not mine. (Of course there are exceptions to that - say I didn't mention the old mine shaft you could fall into or something). However, if I charge you so much as one thin dime to go play on my land, now it becomes MY problem if you get hurt. My answer to this is no trespassing signs. If anyone asks, it is due to liability issues and on the advice of my lawyer. If someone goes in anyway and gets hurt, they were on notice that they were trespassing - and believe it or not, I could STILL get sued! The signs help, but are not a guaranteed bulletproof defense ("Your honor, his signs were too far apart, statute says 500', his were 501', they were faded and unreadable blah blah blah" see why you want to have your lawyer there?)


So here's my policy for "outside" people (subcontractors, lawn service, etc.) who are going to do any work for me. I want to see written proof of valid and current workman's compensation insurance, and also proof of valid and current liability insurance, if you don't have these, I won't hire you. My requirement for workman's comp is obvious and has been discussed (to death) above. The requirement for liability insurance is to cover me if you manage to run your machinery into a building or a vehicle. This may sound harsh, and sometimes it costs me a little more now, but it could save me tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars "later" if something happens. (And any business I own which has employees WILL have workman's comp coverage.)

Why written and valid proof? Local roofer proudly showed everyone his insurance certificate to reassure them of his professionalism. Except someone did get hurt (fell off a roof) and it turned out his insurance had lapsed THREE YEARS earlier and he had altered the expiration date on the policy cover page. No coverage. Made the local papers, too.

I've also heard people say "Go ahead and sue me, I don't own anything!" This is dumb squared. Maybe they don't have anything NOW, but they might very well own things or have assets in the future. A judgement is good for 20 years in Florida and can be renewed for another 20. Forty years is a long time to expect to stay broke, and computers (like the ones public records are filed on) never forget . . .

While there is a good chance I could get lucky, and nobody would ever get hurt working for me or doing anything for me in my entire life, luck is not a strategy and I prefer to have insurance.

Remember what Will Rogers said "There's people who learn from the experiences of others, and there's people who have to p*** on the electric fence themselves." Don't be the second guy . . .

Best Regards,

Mike/Florida

 

[Diggin It]

C'mon gang, don't play with the spammer. Nothing to report yet, but expect to see a couple of more odd posts before they start dropping links to weird websites.

 

[Big Blue Florida]

This has turned out to be more interesting reading the many different level of replies.

Not advice from me. Only what we do here. If extra help is needed then I check w/ other land owners we know & get references before we even speak to a possible worker/helper. They never work on their own. Some adult family member is always there, working along side.

We've had nothing but the best experience w/ outside workers & most receive a cash bonus at the end of the project or time period needed.

Best of luck to you