Gonzalez v. United States Steel Corp.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ROBERTS, Justice.

Cases involving less than two of the exceptions to the general rule that “the employer of an independent contractor is not liable for physical harm caused to another by an *281act or omission of the contractor or his servants,” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 409 (1965), are, in the words of Dean Prosser, “comparatively rare.”1 By Dean Prosser’s standard, this is not a rare case.

I. Background

United States Steel Corporation hired an independent contractor, Edward Gray Corporation, to “tear out” deteriorating bricks inside the Number 4 blast furnace at U.S.…