Accident occurred outside of the state of Florida and the question in this case is whether Florida law applies since the contract of employment was made in Florida and thus Florida law applied. See Section 440.09(1)(d), Florida Statutes (2007). Court determined that contract of employment was made in Florida. Under the terms of the employment agreement, the claimant was to travel to Utah to pick up employer's truck and operate it throughout the United States. The travel to Utah was undertaken in performance of the contract of employment not for the purpose of forming the contract. This case was to be distinguished from the opinion in Ray-Hoff, Inc. v. Petersen, 123 So. 2d 251 (Fla. 1960) which involved an employee who had to travel out of state to the employer's place of business in order to form the contract of employment. The last act necessary in the Petersen case to form the contract was for the claimant to actually appear at an out of state location. In this case, the actual performance of the contract required the claimant's out of state presence but the contract itself was formed in Florida.
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In an employee leasing arrangement, and in determining where the contract of employment was made and with which employer (i.e., the employee leasing company or the client company), the relevant inquiry is where the contract of employment was made with the leasing company. The client company is a special or borrowed employer but the leased employee is the employee of the employee leasing company. The only exception to this is where the employee leasing company fails to provide workers’ compensation coverage. In that instance, workers’ compensation liability attaches to the special employer or the client company. See Section 440.11(2), Florida Statutes.
In determining where an employment contract was made for purposes of determining jurisdiction for the payment of workers’ compensation benefits, consideration is given to: 1) the hiring authority of the person involved in employment negotiations with the claimant, and 2) the place of employment of the conditions of the proposed employment. The relevant employment agreement in this instance is the contract between the claimant and the leasing company, not the contract between the employee leasing company and the client company. The contract between the client company and the leasing company is not an employment agreement but an agreement by which the claimant/employee could enter into his employment agreement with the leasing company. Court determined in this case that contract of employment was made in the state of Alabama and since the accident happened in Alabama, jurisdiction for deciding what benefits were payable to the injured claimant rested with the state of Alabama.
Court also determined that the claimant’s employment was not principally localized in the state of Florida. The principal location of the claimant’s employment, not of the employer’s business, is the relevant consideration in determining where the principal place of the claimant’s employment was located. The overall temporal distribution of an employee’s employment engagement is a relevant inquiry in determining the principal location of employment. Such temporal distribution of employment, however, is not in and of itself dispositive of this issue. The claimant in this case worked exclusively in the state of Alabama and although prior to the Alabama job, he worked on several other projects in several states including Florida, there was no evidence in the record showing the claimant’s employment through the leasing company on these other projects. The claimant was not engaged in employment on any project other than the Alabama job where the accident occurred in this instance while he was employed by the employee leasing company.
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