The New York Supreme Court, Albany division, has refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a motorist against a newspaper corporation over injuries she claimed to have sustained after being struck in a crosswalk by a delivery driver.
The court, in a Wednesday ruling, said a lawsuit filed by Karla Smith against The Hearst Corp., Hearst Communications Inc. and delivery driver Richard Ryder Jr. may proceed because questions remain unsolved over whether Mr. Ryder was a Hearst employee or independent contractor.
Ms. Smith alleges a claim of vicarious liability against Hearst, but the company argues it is not responsible for Mr. Ryder’s negligence because he is an independent contractor.
Ms. Smith argues that the state’s labor law and workers compensation law, which typically are at play in cases involving employment activities, and were cited by the company in its defense, have no bearing on the company’s vicarious liability in a civil tort suit.
Those statutes, she said, merely govern the determination of benefit eligibility for the worker and have no bearing on recovery of damages for a third-party uninvolved in the employer-employee relationship.
The lawsuit was allowed to proceed so a jury could determine whether Mr. Ryder was an employee, which may make the company vicariously liable for negligence.