Fabio A. Sciarrino and Bernadette Irace of MOODK’s New Jersey office obtained summary judgment dismissing all claims with prejudice against their client, a nursing home facility. Plaintiff was working as a nurse at the client’s facility when she slipped on a wet floor causing injury. As a result of the injury, Plaintiff received Workers’ Compensation Benefits. In New Jersey, it is well settled that the Workers’ Compensation Act bars employees from recovering in a civil suit against their employers for injuries sustained on the job. In this case, Plaintiff argued that since she was hired by and received her paychecks from a staffing agency and not the client’s facility, the agency was her employer, and she was not barred from recovering from the facility in a separate lawsuit. The case centered on the issue of whether Plaintiff was a special employee of the facility and thus limited to the exclusive remedy of workers’ compensation benefits. The staffing agency provided administrative human resources services to the client’s facility such as hiring and issuing the Plaintiff weekly paychecks, while the client’s facility controlled every other aspect of Plaintiff’s employment. Notwithstanding Plaintiff’s attempts to categorize the staffing agency as Plaintiff’s employer, MOODK attorneys successfully established that Plaintiff was a special employee of the client’s facility, and because Plaintiff received worker’s compensation for her injuries, her claims against the client’s facility were barred by the Workers’ Compensation Act.
