Legal Question in Construction Law in Georgia

Re: independent contractor quallifications

Well, if you pose the question like that, probably not. Suppose I am a plaintiff's/tort lawyer (which I am on some days). Suppose, your "independent contractor," has a wreck and kills someone on the weekend. Can I get your companies Ins. policy and maybe your company. Based on what you wrote, probably. The WC question is somewhat tricker. It is "possible" that you could write some contracts that would allow IDs to use Co trucks and equip. on the weekends and not be covered under WC Ins. However, if I am the lawyer for the injured weekend worker, I might try to get back in under that umbrella of WC Ins. if there is a bad injury and no third party liabilty policy to go after. If, perhaps, the ICs worked on the weekend for a different LLC and that LLC actually "rented" the trucks and equip. from your Co. on the weekend, I think that would break the chain. However, it would also break the chain on the truck liability ins. policy. If you are going to actually do this, you need to sit down with a local lawyer and go through these issues. If you don't and something really bad happens, I think you will get the worst possible outcome in a lawsuit. The Court will find they are your workers, and your truck fleet policy may argue you breached the terms of the fleet policy by using the trucks out of the scope of the underwriting of the original fleet policy. The former outcome is more likely than the latter. Good Luck. HCW