Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 24SMCV01384, Date: 2025-02-04 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 24SMCV01384    Hearing Date: February 4, 2025    Dept: I

The demurrer is OVERRULED.

This is a products liability case against various defendants, including TeamOne and Lopez.  Plaintiff was working at Skechers USA as a mechanic.  Plaintiff alleges that while she was working on a conveyer belt at the facility.  When she reached under the belt to remove a foreign object from the roller, Lopez, who was employed by TeamOne, turned on the power (plaintiff had turned it off before she began working on the machine).  That caused plaintiff’s hand to be caught and pulled into the roller, leading to injuries.  TeamOne demurs to the third cause of action, which alleges negligence.

As an initial matter, plaintiff’s second and third amended complaints have only been received, but not filed.  That is because the complaint cannot be amended as of right; rather an order was required.  However, for purposes of this case, the court will ORDER that the third amended complaint be filed.  Because TeamOne assumed that the TAC was the operative pleading, the demurrer is joined.

Defendant demurs in part on uncertainty.  That is a disfavored ground to demur and only applies in extreme cases, of which this is not one.  The demurrer on that ground is OVERRULED. 

The real thrust of the demurrer is that TeamOne had no duty to plaintiff at all, and neither did Lopez.  It was not her employer; it was simply an entity with an office in the building who supplied some people who could aid Skechers.  As such, TeamOne argues that plaintiff’s allegation that it should have trained Lopez on lock-out-tag-out procedures is merely conclusory because plaintiff was the mechanic.  But to accept that as defeating the cause of action requires the court to ignore plaintiff’s allegations about defendant’s training duties and infer that plaintiff and only plaintiff had control over the machine.  That is not a proper inference on demurrer.  Nor is the court persuaded that 29 C.F.R. section 1910.147 defeats the cause of action.  That regulation might lead to a good comparative fault argument down the road, but it is too far a stretch on a pleading motion to conclude that it defeats plaintiff’s cause of action entirely or relieves defendant from any responsibility or duty here with regard to its employee’s actions.

Beyond that, it is far from clear that there was no duty.  Here, plaintiff claims she was injured due to Lopez’s negligence.  To hold TeamOne liable for that, plaintiff needs to show that TeamOne violated a duty of care it owed to her or that the employee was liable for committing the tort that caused the injury while working within the course and scope of his employment.  It would seem obvious that the second prong is at least alleged here.  But the first prong is also adequately alleged.  Plaintiff alleges that Lopez was inadequately trained by TeamOne, which (plaintiff argues) should have taught him safety measures when dealing with machinery such as the conveyor belt.  That may or may not wind up being true, but it is sufficiently pled to withstand demurrer.

The court is aware that there is a lot of language in the TAC concerning tenancies and the like, but the court does not see any of that as being material for purposes of this demurrer.

TeamOne also argues Workers’ Compensation exclusivity.  However, that doctrine applies only as between an employee injured on the job who seeks redress from the employer.  That might well bar plaintiff from suing Skechers, her employer, but it does not bar her from suing TeamOne, for whom she does not work.  TeamOne relies on a joint venture argument—to the extent that Skechers and TeamOne were really a joint venture that employed plaintiff, plaintiff might be barred.  But that fails here.  First, plaintiff does not allege a joint venture arrangement.  What she does allege is that there was a special relationship because the TeamOne facility was a tenant.  The two are very different.  Even beyond that, whether there was a joint venture employment relationship is a fact-intensive inquiry that cannot be decided on demurrer.

The demurrer is OVERRULED.  The demurring defendant has 30 days to answer the TAC.