§ 28-29-6.1 - Secondary provision of workers' compensation insurance.
SECTION 28-29-6.1
§ 28-29-6.1 Secondary provision ofworkers' compensation insurance. – (a) Whenever a general contractor or a construction manager enters into acontract with a subcontractor for work to be performed in Rhode Island, thegeneral contractor or construction manager shall at all times require writtendocumentation evidencing that the subcontractor carries workers' compensationinsurance with no indebtedness for its employees for the term of the contractor is an independent contractor pursuant to the provisions of §28-29-17.1. In the event that the general contractor or construction managerfails to obtain the written documentation from the subcontractor, the generalcontractor or construction manager shall be deemed to be the employer pursuantto provisions of § 28-29-2.
(b) For the purposes of this section, "construction manager"means an individual corporation, partnership, or joint venture or other legalentity responsible for supervising and controlling all aspects of constructionwork to be performed on the construction project, as designated in the projectdocuments, in addition to the possibility of performing some of theconstruction services itself. For the purposes of this section, theconstruction manager need have no contractual involvement with any of theparties to the construction project other than the owner, or may contractdirectly with the trade contractors pursuant to its agreement with the owner.
(c) This section only applies to a general contractor,subcontractor, or construction manager deemed an employer subject to theprovisions of Chapters 29 – 38 of this title, as provided in §28-29-6.
(d) Whenever the workers' compensation insurance carrier isobligated to pay workers' compensation benefits to the employee of an uninsuredsubcontractor, the workers' compensation insurance carrier shall have acomplete right of indemnification to the extent benefits are paid againsteither the uninsured subcontractor, uninsured general contractor or uninsuredconstruction manager.