Interstate Fire and Casualty v. Dimensions Assurance Ltd.

Favorite Healthcare Staffing is an employment agency that provides nurses and other health care professionals to Laurel Regional Hospital. The contract between the Agency and the Hospital (the “Staffing Agreement”) states that the Agency-provided practitioners assigned to the Hospital are the employees of the Agency, not the Hospital. At issue in this case is whether a nurse employed by a staffing agency and assigned to work at a hospital qualifies as an “employee” of the hospital under the hospital’s insurance policy (the "Dimensions Policy"). The district court answered in the negative and granted summary judgment in favor of the hospital's insurer. The court concluded, however, that the term “employee” as used in the Dimensions Policy is not ambiguous and that it includes those workers who qualify as employees under the right-to-control test. Therefore, Dimensions has an independent obligation to provide coverage to those workers who meet the definition of “employee,” without regard to how those workers may be classified under the Staffing Agreement executed by the Hospital and the Agency. Because the evidence contained in the record establishes that the nurse is the Hospital’s employee under the right-to-control and the borrowed-servant standards, the court concluded that she is a “protected person” who qualifies for coverage under the professional-liability portion of the Dimensions Policy. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Interstate Fire and Casualty v. Dimensions Assurance Ltd." on Justia Law