The boss said he never hired the worker. His own OSHA filings said otherwise
A construction boss denied ever hiring the worker who died on site - but his own OSHA filings said otherwise.
The Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, affirmed on September 30, 2026, that the deceased carpenter was an employee - a finding that let the employer's insurer off the hook for a $2.65 million wrongful death judgment.
The case, Mt. Hawley Insurance Company v. Stone Development Group, turned on an employee exclusion in a commercial general liability (CGL) policy - a clause carving out injuries meant to be covered by workers' compensation.
Stone Development Group (SDG) was a carpentry subcontractor on a hotel build in Waukegan, Illinois. Its vice president needed extra carpenters and texted a worker he knew, offering $32.50 an hour. He asked if the worker knew "any other rough framing guys looking for work." The worker said he would bring a fellow carpenter to the site.
The vice president planned to interview the new carpenter that morning. Running late on September 19, 2017, he texted the co-worker to start without him - but gave no safety instructions and did not tell the foreman to hold anyone back.
The two carpenters arrived at 7:00 a.m. The foreman directed them to the third floor. To get tools up, they used a forklift with a plywood box. The new carpenter climbed onto the box from a third-floor window. It tipped. He fell more than 20 feet. He died six days later.
Then came the paper trail. The vice president had the co-worker complete an SDG accident report listing the deceased as the "employee injured," plus a W-4 and workers' comp forms. He sent OSHA a list of site employees that included the deceased, telling the investigator the worker was "hired by [him] to perform work at the site."
His story changed after the insurer denied coverage. At trial, he denied hiring the carpenter, calling him "a prospective employee."
The trial court sided with the insurer. The appellate court affirmed, holding the ordinary meaning of "employee" applied. The evidence - the arranged arrival, the foreman's direction, the vice president's own OSHA statements - supported the finding.
SDG had no workers' compensation insurance when the accident happened. That gap turned a workplace death into an uninsured $2.65 million liability.
For HR teams, the takeaway is concrete: employment status is built by conduct - arranged access, designated supervision, direction to begin work - not by whether anyone signed a form.
