Background
Judy Negrete was hired as a temporary employee of the Caddo Parish Registrar of Voters in July 2019, earning $11.50 per hour and working as needed around election times. On March 11, 2021, while filing absentee ballots from a state election in the office storage room, Ms. Negrete’s office chair rolled away as she crouched to sit down. She fell to the floor and struck her head against a metal shelving unit, sustaining injuries to her back and neck.
Ms. Negrete filed a workers’ compensation claim against the Parish in November 2021. The Parish subsequently moved to implead the State of Louisiana, asserting that the State was either the actual, joint, statutory, or borrowing employer. The parties executed a consent agreement in March 2022 establishing Ms. Negrete as a Parish employee, with the Parish reserving the right to seek contribution from the State. The case proceeded to trial in April 2024, with the central dispute being whether the State bore any liability for workers’ compensation benefits.
The Court’s Holding
The Louisiana Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s judgment and held that Ms. Negrete was exclusively a Parish employee, and the Parish bore full responsibility for all workers’ compensation benefits. The court rejected the finding that the State was a “borrowing employer.” While acknowledging that the registrar himself is a state employee under Louisiana law, the court emphasized that the statutes governing registrars explicitly distinguish between permanent employees (who are state employees) and temporary employees (whose salaries are paid exclusively by the parish).
The court found that Louisiana Revised Statutes 23:1034(D) carefully delineates between state employees—who receive benefits through the state’s office of risk management—and employees of political subdivisions, who receive benefits from their respective political subdivisions. Critically, the statute provides that the fact that the state may grant supplemental pay to a political subdivision’s employee “shall not make such employee, in whole or in part or in any way, an employee of the state.” The court applied this unambiguous statutory language to conclude that Ms. Negrete’s temporary status, combined with exclusive parish payment of her wages, designated her as a parish employee regardless of the state nature of some election duties.
The court also analyzed and rejected the “borrowed employee” theory under the nine-factor test established in Louisiana jurisprudence. Examining factors including control, agreement between employers, employee acquiescence, provision of tools and workplace, duration, discharge rights, and payment obligation, the court found that all evidence pointed to parish control and employment. There was no agreement—implicit or explicit—between the registrar and the state for Ms. Negrete’s employment, and the parish, through the registrar, retained exclusive control over her work and possessed the right to discharge and duty to pay her.
Key Takeaways
- Temporary employees of a parish registrar of voters are parish employees for workers’ compensation purposes, not state employees, even though the registrar himself is a state employee.
- Payment of an employee’s salary exclusively by a parish creates a strong inference of parish employment status that cannot be overcome merely by the state nature of election duties performed.
- The statutory language in R.S. 23:1034(D) strongly protects the distinction between state and political subdivision employees and prevents the misclassification of parish employees as state employees based on supplemental state involvement.
- The “borrowed employee” doctrine requires an explicit or implicit agreement between employers for the employee’s use; the absence of such agreement, combined with exclusive parish control and payment, defeats any claim of borrowed employment status.
Why It Matters
This decision provides important clarification on the employment classification of temporary workers in parish registrar offices, which perform critical state election functions while operating under parish authority and budget. The ruling affirms that formal employment relationships and statutory designations control over functional analysis of duties performed. Parishes cannot be forced to share or shift workers’ compensation costs to the state merely because their employees perform election-related work or because the registrar position itself is considered a state office.
The opinion is significant for public employers across Louisiana: it reinforces that workers’ compensation liability follows statutory employment classifications and wage-payment arrangements rather than the nature or beneficiary of work performed. The decision also rejects the aggressive application of the “borrowed employee” doctrine in the public sector, requiring clear evidence of an agreement for employee borrowing, not merely incidental state involvement in day-to-day operations or objectives.