Alfredo Martinez v. Rliable Poultry, LLC

── Alfredo Martinez v. Rliable Poultry, LLC ── Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas Date: May 20, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 313 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION IV No. CV-24-29 ALFREDO MARTINEZ Opinion Delivered: May 20, 2026 APPELLANT/CROSS-APPELLEE APPEAL FROM THE WASHINGTON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT V. [NO. 72CV-22-1272] RELIABLE POULTRY, LLC, AND HONORABLE DOUG MARTIN, RELIABLE POULTRY SUPPLY, INC. JUDGE APPELLEES/CROSS-APPELLANTS AFFIRMED ON DIRECT APPEAL; DISMISSED AS MOOT ON CROSS- APPEAL RAYMOND R. ABRAMSON, Judge This case is about the duty owed by a general contractor to the employees of a subcontractor. The circuit court found that no duty of care was owed by a general contractor to the subcontractor’s employees and therefore granted summary judgment in favor of the general contractor. We affirm. I. Background Reliable Poultry, LLC (“Reliable”), was hired by Jenny Nguyen as a general contractor to build poultry houses on a farm in Beech Bluff, Tennessee. Reliable subcontracted with A&L Hernandez Construction LLC (“A&L Hernandez”) to frame the houses. Alfredo Martinez (“Martinez”) was an employee of A&L Hernandez and a resident of Tennessee at the time relevant to this appeal.  On October 27, 2021, while he was working on the roof, Martinez fell when a piece of lumber he was standing on broke. He was not using any fall protection or safety harness and was paralyzed by the fall. Martinez applied for and received workers’-compensation benefits under Tennessee law and, pursuant to Tennessee law, received a workers’- compensation settlement of over $1 million. On June 3, 2022, Martinez filed a lawsuit against Reliable Poultry Supply, Inc. (“RPSI”), in the Washington County Circuit Court. RPSI filed an answer stating that the entity “no longer operates any business, employs any employees, or construct[s] poultry houses.”1 Martinez soon added Reliable as a defendant. Reliable first moved for summary judgment on April 18, 2023, arguing that Tennessee law applied to the dispute and that Martinez was barred from suing Reliable as the general contractor under the Tennessee workers’-compensation laws. The circuit court denied that motion for summary judgment with a blanket order on August 3. Reliable moved for summary judgment again on August 18, 2023, arguing that it did not owe Martinez a duty of care. After a hearing, the circuit court granted the motion for summary judgment on October 24, holding that Reliable, as the general contractor, did not have a duty of care to Martinez, who was an employee of a subcontractor. 1 RPSI was granted summary judgment because it presented facts that it had not been involved with Reliable’s operation and because it had no involvement with the project involved in this lawsuit. Martinez made no showing at the summary-judgment stage that RPSI was a proper defendant, and he does not make any arguments on appeal that RPSI was improperly granted summary judgment. Therefore, the analysis in this opinion relates solely to Reliable. 2  Martinez filed a timely notice of appeal to challenge the October 24 order granting summary judgment. Reliable filed a timely notice of cross-appeal to challenge the August 3 order denying its first motion for summary judgment, though in the briefing and at oral argument, Reliable clearly stated that the cross-appeal was only to preserve an alternative ground for affirming the circuit court’s summary-judgment order. II. A