## Facts

- Kenneth Enslow was a 20-year-old firefighter employed by the California Department of Forestry (CDF).
- Enslow was killed while assisting the United States Forest Service (USFS) in suppressing a wildland timber fire in the Mendocino National Forest.
- CDF and USFS operated under a mutual-aid agreement under which each agency could request assistance from the other when needed.
- The mutual-aid agreement stated that the requesting agency would retain responsibility for overall firefighting operations during the incident.
- Enslow had never before fought a wildland fire or any fire on USFS’s behalf.
- On the day of the fire, Enslow provided assistance for less than one day.
- At the fire scene, CDF supervisors were present and supervised Enslow’s work.
- USFS personnel provided incident-related information, including a safety warning.
- Enslow’s son, Aaron Enslow (through guardians), sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), seeking damages arising from his father’s death.
- The United States moved for summary judgment, arguing that it should be treated as Enslow’s employer (a special or statutory employer under California workers’ compensation law) and therefore that workers’ compensation provided the exclusive remedy.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the United States, and Aaron Enslow appealed.

## Issues

1. Under California workers’ compensation law (applied through the FTCA), did the United States become Kenneth Enslow’s special or statutory employer during the mutual-aid wildfire response?
2. If the United States was Enslow’s employer for workers’ compensation purposes, did workers’ compensation exclusivity bar the FTCA wrongful-death claim as a matter of law on summary judgment?

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment and remanded.
- Applying California substantive law under the FTCA, the court concluded the United States was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law on its workers’ compensation exclusivity defense.
- The summary-judgment record did not conclusively establish that the United States/USFS had the level of control and other indicia required to treat it as Enslow’s special or statutory employer under California law.
- Because material factual questions remained about the employment relationship during the incident, the FTCA claim could not be barred at the summary-judgment stage.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FTCA, courts apply the substantive tort law of the state where the act or omission occurred; here, California law governed the workers’ compensation exclusivity defense.
- California’s special-employer (borrowed servant) analysis focuses primarily on whether the alleged special employer had the right to control the manner and means of the worker’s performance, along with related factors such as:
  - whether the worker consented (expressly or impliedly) to work for the alleged special employer,
  - who supplied immediate supervision,
  - who had the power to terminate the work relationship,
  - who paid wages and provided benefits, and
  - the duration and nature of the assignment.
- A mutual-aid agreement providing that the requesting agency retains overall operational responsibility does not, by itself, resolve whether the requesting agency became an assisting worker’s special or statutory employer for workers’ compensation purposes.
- Workers’ compensation exclusivity cannot bar an FTCA claim on summary judgment when the record leaves genuine disputes about whether the United States actually stood in an employer relationship to the decedent under state law.

## Conclusion

Enslow v. United States, No. 93-55164 (1994) held that, applying California law through the FTCA, the United States was not entitled to summary judgment on the theory that a mutual-aid wildfire response made a CDF firefighter its special or statutory employee, because the record did not establish the necessary employment relationship as a matter of law; the Ninth Circuit therefore reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
