Minnesota top court considers recognizing new tort claim

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) — Minnesota’s Supreme Court contemplated recognizing tort claims for negligent selection of independent contractors Tuesday in a case involving the state's growing beet farming industry.

At oral arguments before the Supreme Court Tuesday, the family of a truck driver injured in a crash with another trucker driving for a beet farmer argued for recognition of the plaintiff's negligent selection claims and that the negligence cases like these were best suited for juries, rather than dismissal at the summary judgment stage.

Recognizing such claims would make Minnesota part of a slight majority of states that do so, but the court’s seven justices were audibly wary of joining those ranks in their lines of questioning.

According to the family of the truck driver, who died two weeks prior to Tuesday's proceedings, Western Minnesota beet farmer Richard Menholt had a longstanding personal and business relationship with his neighbor Darcy Braaten, whose company Braaten Farms hauled Menholt’s harvested sugar beets each year for over 30 years.

In 2014, Braaten hired Alberto Lopez to drive his company’s large beet truck. Lopez was Braaten’s only employee in 2018, when he crossed over the center line in the truck and collided head-on with Pedro Alonzo, who was driving a semi-truck for another beet farmer. Both Lopez and Alonzo suffered serious injuries from the crash. 

Following the collision, law enforcement learned that Lopez was driving with a suspended license, and had been convicted of driving while impaired on four prior occasions. He had shown Braaten a driver’s license when Braaten inquired about it, but Menholt did not ask whether Lopez had a valid license or whether Braaten had looked him up on the Internet or elsewhere.

Alonzo and his wife sued Menholt, his wife and Menholt Farms in 2021, claiming that they had not used reasonable care in selecting Braaten as an independent contractor. 

Judge Jade Rosenfeldt of the Clay County District Court granted summary judgment to the Menholts in 2022, finding that while Minnesota recognized claims for negligent selection of independent contractors, such claims did not create a duty to vet contractors’ individual employees.

An appeal by the Alonzos to the Minnesota Court of Appeals did not improve their situation; the appellate court declined to recognize any such claims. 

Attorney Jim Hoy of Maring Williams argued for the Alonzos Tuesday that employers should be held liable for the actions of their independent contractors.

Justice Barry Anderson raised concerns about the knock-on effects of creating such a claim.

“Let’s assume that I hire somebody to do some yard work for me, and to do some construction work using heavy power equipment, things of that sort,” he asked Hoy. “Do I now have a duty as a homeowner to request an investigation of those I have hired? Do I request their drivers’ licenses, do I do a drivers’ license check? What are my obligations as a homeowner under this standard?”

“Your Honor, your obligations are to exercise reasonable care,” Hoy said.

Anderson remained skeptical, saying “One of the reasons I hire an independent contractor is that I want to move the liability from me to the independent contractor,” he noted. “You want us to make that no longer the case.”

Expanding on reasonable care duty, Hoy noted that the reasonableness of that care would vary with the danger involved in a particular activity. Trucking, he argued, involved more danger than plumbing a house or installing flooring. 

Chief Justice Natalie Hudson was wary of that contention.

“Yes, it’s important, driving a truck is important, and yes, they’re on a public road,” she said, “but at the end of the day they were hauling beets. It’s not like those were flammable liquids or something back there.” 

“At the end of the day, they’re driving trucks,” she added, “and I’m trying to figure out what is so dangerous about that.”

“Your honor, there’s an enormous book of federal regulations,” Hoy said. “And that’s because it’s dangerous.” 

Justice Karl Procaccini pointed out that while trucking could indeed be dangerous, the truck Lopez was driving required only a standard Class D driver’s license to operate, and was not subject to most of those regulations. 

Representing the Menholts, Mike Tomsche of the Minneapolis firm Tomsche, Sonnesyn & Tomsche presented Menholt and Braaten’s relationship as personal before professional, and argued that creating a duty to investigate every contractor and its employees would create liability well beyond the reasonable. 

“What appellants want this court to do is take a formalistic approach to how Minnesotans live their lives,” he said. “And judged by who? A jury!”

Reversal of the Court of Appeals, he continued, “will wreak havoc and chaos in this state.” 

The court’s questions for Tomsche focused heavily on the hypothetical boundaries of negligent selection claims should they be recognized. 

Tomsche argued that any such claims are recognized, they should be subject to heavy judicial gatekeeping.

“There’s no duty to make an elaborate investigation as to the competence of the farm truck driver. There’s no duty to make any great pains as to whether the [contractor’s] reputation was good or not good,” he said. “What better reputation do you need than one-on-one working with someone?”

"If this is going to be a new tort, it's going to be a booming business for people like me," he added. "There is virtually no limit to this."

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