OSHA enforcement structure, how much weight an OSHA violation carries in a negligence case, and whether an injured worker's own employer can be pulled back in.
OSHA plan
Federal OSHA (no state plan)
Montana has no OSHA-approved state plan; both public and private employers fall under federal OSHA jurisdiction.
Citation: 29 U.S.C. § 667 (State Plan roster)
Source: https://www.osha.gov/stateplans
Weight of an OSHA violation in a negligence case
Confirmed as one of the states leaning toward pure negligence per se: a direct Montana Supreme Court holding
The Montana Supreme Court held that, although the OSH Act does not create a private right of action, OSHA violations can serve as the basis for a negligence per se claim; placing Montana among a minority of states willing to treat an OSHA violation as establishing breach of duty as a matter of law, rather than merely as evidence for the jury to weigh.
Citation: Trankel v. Department of Military Affairs, 938 P.2d 614, 625 (Mont. 1997)
Source: https://storage.googleapis.com/jnl-bcls-j-bclr-files/journals/1/articles/232/63a30c0a100a2.pdf
Independently confirmed via the BC Law Review national survey as one of roughly nine states whose high court has endorsed pure negligence per se for OSHA violations.
Third-party contribution against the employer
Statutory-employer and co-employee issues are live in Montana, but the source doesn't detail the test.
Third-party claims otherwise turn on premises control, retained control, negligent undertaking, and product liability.
Citation: Mont. Code §§39-71-101 et seq.; Limberhand v. Big Ditch Co., 218 Mont. 132, 706 P.2d 491 (1985).
Source: https://www.leagle.com/decision/19851197706p2d49111189
Source: attorney research manual (Construction Injury Law national volumes), self-marked "Draft; verify current law and citator status." Case citations are representative authorities from that manual, not independently re-verified against a citator by ClaimDuke. Citation corrected (218 Mont. 132, not 107). Confirmed real -- this is Montana's foundational premises-liability case (a drowning, not construction), which abolished the invitee/licensee/trespasser distinctions and established that a landowner's duty of care is based on ordinary care in the circumstances, not the visitor's status. Genuinely the controlling general duty framework, still cited across all Montana premises cases including construction-site ones, similar to how Fazzolari functions in Oregon -- but the underlying facts are not construction-specific.
Injury-severity gate on contribution claims
Narrow specific-intent-to-injure exception; Montana has repeatedly declined to adopt the more lenient 'substantial certainty' doctrine used in many other states.
Great Western Sugar Co. v. District Court held that the exclusive remedy rule is not avoided unless the person injuring the employee specifically intended to do so -- allegations of negligence, however wanton, are not enough. The Montana Supreme Court reaffirmed this in a later case (Noonan), acknowledging a hazardous workplace but still declining to adopt the substantial-certainty doctrine used elsewhere.
Citation: Mont. Code Section39-71-101 et seq.; Great Western Sugar Co. v. District Court, 188 Mont. 1, 610 P.2d 717 (1980).
Source: https://archive.legmt.gov/content/publications/research/past_interim/wc-ex.pdf
RESEARCHED: the prior entry honestly flagged the exception mechanism as unknown, and its citation ('252 Mont. 23') was actually Francetich, a subrogation case unrelated to this exception. Replaced with Great Western Sugar Co., Montana's real controlling case on this doctrine.
Distinctive state doctrine
A GC that pays workers' comp for an uninsured sub's injured employee does NOT get statutory-employer immunity in exchange, a harsher combination than most states. The intentional-harm exception has a real, confirmed loosening-then-reversion history: Millers Mutual (1983) briefly loosened it, Noonan (1985) reverted to the strict rule, and it has been reaffirmed twice since.
Montana requires an employer who contracts with an independent contractor for work that is a regular or recurrent part of the employer's own business to pay workers' comp to the subcontractor's employees if the subcontractor lacked its own coverage, but that paying employer/GC is not thereby entitled to exclusive-remedy immunity; only the actual immediate employer who provided coverage gets that protection. On the intentional-harm exception: Great Western Sugar Co. v. District Court, 188 Mont. 1, 610 P.2d 717 (1980), held that allegations of negligence, no matter how wanton, are insufficient to avoid exclusivity, requiring harm 'maliciously and specifically directed at an employee.' Three years later, Millers Mutual Ins. Co. v. Strainer, 204 Mont. 162, 663 P.2d 338 (1983), held the intentional-injury statute (Mont. Code Ann. section 39-71-413) 'refers to an intentional act without regard to intending the results of the act,' a real loosening of the standard. In 1985, Noonan v. Spring Creek Forest Products, Inc., 216 Mont. 221, 700 P.2d 623 (1985), 'ignored its holding in Millers Mutual and returned to its holding in Great Western Sugar,' declining to adopt the minority 'substantial certainty' doctrine even on facts the Court itself found troubling (a hazardous workplace with an unusual number of injuries). Sitzman v. Schumaker, 221 Mont. 304, 718 P.2d 657 (1986), then applied the strict rule successfully on true assault-and-battery facts. Blythe v. Radiometer America, Inc., 262 Mont. 464, 866 P.2d 218 (1993), reaffirmed the same Great Western Sugar/Noonan line (not a departure from it), while a dissent argued Millers Mutual had been the better-reasoned decision. Schmidt v. State, 286 Mont. 98, 951 P.2d 23 (1997), reaffirmed the strict rule once more, holding that a supervisor ordering an employee to use an unsafe tractor, even in violation of the Montana Safety Act, was negligence, not the specific intent required to pierce exclusivity.
Citation: Great Western Sugar Co. v. District Court, 188 Mont. 1, 610 P.2d 717 (1980); Millers Mutual Ins. Co. v. Strainer, 204 Mont. 162, 663 P.2d 338 (1983); Noonan v. Spring Creek Forest Products, Inc., 216 Mont. 221, 700 P.2d 623 (1985); Sitzman v. Schumaker, 221 Mont. 304, 718 P.2d 657 (1986); Blythe v. Radiometer America, Inc., 262 Mont. 464, 866 P.2d 218 (1993); Schmidt v. State, 286 Mont. 98, 951 P.2d 23 (1997); Mont. Code Ann. section 39-71-413.
Source: https://archive.legmt.gov/content/publications/research/past_interim/wc-ex.pdf
CORRECTION TO THE PRIOR PASS'S CORRECTION: two rounds ago, this entry was flagged because a fragmented search-result snippet of this same Montana Legislature memo appeared not to corroborate the Millers Mutual/Noonan sequence. Fetching and reading the complete memo (not just a search snippet) confirms the original loosening-then-reversion narrative was correct all along, now with exact reporter citations for every case in the sequence pulled directly from the memo's own endnotes. The separate PEO/statutory-employer-payment-without-immunity finding (Mont. Code Ann. section 39-8-207(8)(b)(i)) is a different topic this memo doesn't address and still was not independently re-verified this pass; treat that specific point as unconfirmed.