## Facts

- Margaret Swiezynski worked as a grocery-store clerk at the Garden Street Superette.
- The store was operated as a partnership by Rocco V. Civiello and William B. Crawford.
- The building housing the store was owned by Civiello and Crawford individually as tenants in common, not in the partnership’s name.
- Swiezynski slipped and fell at work on March 16, 1981, and sustained injuries.
- She received workers’ compensation benefits for the injury.
- Swiezynski later sued Civiello and Crawford in negligence in their individual capacities as landowners, alleging a breach of premises-duty caused her injuries.
- She argued the exclusivity bar should not apply because the defendants, as individual landowners, were not her “employers.”

## Issues

1. Whether individual partners who own the workplace premises as tenants in common are “employers” under New Hampshire workers’ compensation law, barring an employee’s negligence action against them as landowners.
2. Whether employer status and resulting immunity for partners turns on whether the partners retained management and control rights under the partnership agreement.

## Decision

- The New Hampshire Supreme Court vacated the dismissal and remanded for further findings.
- The court held that partners are treated as employers for workers’ compensation purposes when they retain rights of management and control over the partnership business.
- Because the trial court did not examine the partnership agreement, the record was insufficient to determine whether the defendants retained management rights and therefore were entitled to immunity.

## Legal Principles

- Workers’ compensation exclusivity bars tort suits only against those who qualify as “employers” under the statute.
- In New Hampshire, a general partnership is not a separate legal entity distinct from its partners for purposes relevant to employer status; partners ordinarily share management rights and bear obligations tied to the business.
- Partner immunity depends on functional employer attributes—especially management and control and the statutory responsibility associated with securing coverage—not merely the capacity in which the partner is sued or the form of title to property.
- A partnership agreement may alter default management rights; if an agreement divests a partner of management/control, that change may affect whether the partner is an “employer” entitled to exclusivity protection.
- The immunity conferred by workers’ compensation is linked to the statutory tradeoff: guaranteed, no-fault compensation for employees in exchange for limiting employers’ tort exposure.

## Conclusion

The court required factual findings on the partnership agreement and the partners’ retained management/control before deciding whether workers’ compensation exclusivity barred an employee’s negligence suit against the partners as individual landowners, and it therefore vacated the dismissal and remanded.


Swiezynski v. Civiello, 489 A.2d 634 (N.H. 1985)