Benefit Lawsuits Temps vs Employer

[Guest buster]

Being an Temporary employee of a large US firm for 17 years, never being offerred direct employment with Customer. Person

dies unexpectedly in auto accident, (fell asleep)on there way home from working a

19 hour workday. Can this persons spouse and

children sue the Firm at which the person

worked at for seventeen years for full

benefits? Actual Situation, state Florida

[Alonzo]

It's possible, if two things are true:

1. The employee is a "common-law" employee of the real employer.

2. The employer's benefit plan documents indicated that "all employees" were eligible to participate in the plan, and did not specifically exclude individuals who received paychecks from the leasing outfit that nominally employed the employee.

This is a hot area of benefits law right now, with employers like Microsoft losing lawsuits, and employers like Time-Warner being sued by the government over the issue. Find a good ERISA plaintiffs attorney, if you decide to sue however. A general-purpose attorney might not understand all the issues.