Lawyers Weekly Asks Wayne Peereboom What Comes Next After Skyway Roofing

In short

The highest court in Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court, issued an important new decision that could affect the rights of construction workers injured on the job: Suquilanda v. Skyway Roofing, Inc., 498 Mass. 164 (2026). Seeking comment from an attorney experienced in representing catastrophically injured workers, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly approached Dunn & Phillips, P.C. attorney Wayne Peereboom, who works out of our Westfield office. Over the years, the publication has periodically sought comment from Attorney Peereboom on court decisions affecting the rights of victims injured due to the unnecessary negligence of others. Wayne's comments appear in the August 27, 2026, edition. Directed toward lawyers and other legal professionals, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports and analyzes legal rulings throughout the Commonwealth as well as other developments in the profession.

Attorney Peereboom appreciates that "construction workers are often placed in dangerous settings. While preoccupied with the task at hand, momentary inadvertence by a construction worker can result in a catastrophic injury. The critical importance of construction worker safety is evident through detailed local, state and federal regulations as well as industry practices."

Representing injured construction workers requires time-intensive and fact-specific litigation, with a myriad of regulations and contractual relationships that need to be deciphered. While multiple avenues of recovery remain available to injured construction workers, Wayne explains, this new decision illustrates potential issues that must be considered in seeking compensation for these injuries. Accordingly, it is critical to seek experienced legal representation as soon as possible.

What happened on the roof

In September 2021, Skyway Roofing, Inc., a New York roofing company, signed a contract with Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort to strip and replace the shingles on one of the resort's buildings. Skyway pulled the building permit from the Town of Hancock. On the permit application, Skyway listed itself as general contractor and named one of its own employees as "Person Responsible for Construction" and "project manager."

Skyway then subcontracted the entire job to MBT Construction Corp. The subcontract said MBT would work under Skyway's "general direction" but left the means and methods to MBT. It said nothing about safety: no clause on who supplied fall protection, who supervised its use, or who trained the crew.

This was not a one-off. Since 2020, Skyway had subcontracted seventy-two roofing jobs to MBT. On every one, MBT brought its own fall protection gear. Neither company trained MBT's workers in fall protection. And on other jobs for other companies, OSHA had cited MBT for fall protection violations.

MBT's crew started at Jiminy Peak in October 2021. They installed anchors and fifty-foot safety lines. MBT's owner told the crew to stay clipped in at all times. Skyway's involvement consisted of dropping off shingles, a boom lift, and a dumpster, and two brief site visits to point out which roof to replace, check on materials, and make sure the crew was not damaging the property.

On the day of the accident, Luis Contento Suquilanda was moving a stack of shingles across the roof when his safety line ran out before he reached his destination. He unclipped, meaning to attach to a second line. Before he could, he slipped and fell. First responders airlifted him to a New York hospital with catastrophic injuries. He filed a workers' compensation claim through MBT's insurer, administered by the New York State Workers' Compensation Board.

The lawsuit

Mr. Suquilanda sued Skyway in Berkshire Superior Court in February 2023. He brought two claims that matter here:

• Negligence. Skyway, as general contractor, failed to plan, supervise, and enforce safety procedures at the site.
• Negligent hiring. Skyway chose MBT knowing, or having reason to know, that MBT had a record of unsafe worksites and inadequate fall protection.

Skyway moved for summary judgment. It argued it never retained enough control over MBT's work to owe Mr. Suquilanda a duty, and that Massachusetts does not recognize a negligent hiring claim by a subcontractor's own employee against the general contractor. Superior Court Judge Maureen B. Hogan agreed on both counts in February 2025. Mr. Suquilanda appealed, and the SJC took the case on its own motion, bypassing the Appeals Court.

The Court heard argument April 8, 2026, and decided the case August 17, 2026. Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote the opinion. The Court affirmed.

Holding: how a court decides a matter of law, a ruling on a crucial issue that decides the outcome of the entire case.

Holding one: general responsibility is not retained control

For forty years, the governing rule has come from Corsetti v. Stone Co., 396 Mass. 1 (1985). A general contractor that "retains the right to control the work in any of its aspects, including the right to initiate and maintain safety measures and programs" can be liable for injuries caused by its failure to exercise that control with reasonable care. Whether control was retained is ordinarily a jury question. But when the record cannot support a finding of retained control, the judge decides it as a matter of law. Here, the Court concluded the record did not contain enough to create a question of fact. Going forward, attorneys representing injured workers will have to build, through evidence, a question of fact as to whether the general contractor maintained sufficient control over the worksite to satisfy Corsetti.

Mr. Suquilanda pointed to three aspects.

A. The Jiminy Peak contract. It required Skyway to "[m]aintain the premises in a safe, orderly and workmanlike manner." The Court held that to be, at most, a general duty to provide a reasonably safe worksite. It did not show that MBT lacked the freedom to work in its own way on the specific things that caused the fall: where the safety lines went, how long they were, whether harnesses were used, whether anyone trained the crew. On those points, the Court found nothing in the record a jury could use.

B. The subcontract's "general direction" clause. The Court held that a general contractual right to direct the work does not by itself satisfy Corsetti. Citing Lyon v. Morphew, 424 Mass. 828 (1997), the Court repeated that a general right to direct and stop work, or to order correction of safety violations, is not enough. The standard requires retained control over safety practices on site.

C. The building permit and the State Building Code. Mr. Suquilanda argued that by naming itself general contractor on the permit, Skyway took on the code's requirement that a general contractor execute and control all means and methods of construction in a safe manner (780 Code Mass. Regs. § 107.6.3.1). The Court rejected this at the premise. Under Juliano v. Simpson, 461 Mass. 527 (2012), a duty of care must already exist before a statutory violation can support tort liability. A code provision can bear on breach where a common-law duty exists, but it cannot create one. Signing a permit application as general contractor, the Court said, does not by itself show operational control over how a subcontractor installed anchors, placed lines, or moved materials.

The Court contrasted the cases where retained control was found. In Corsetti, the general contract required the general contractor to "initiate, maintain, and supervise all safety precautions and programs," a site supervisor had authority to order subcontractors to fix violations and stop work, he actually checked the scaffolding, and he knew the crew was not wearing safety belts. In Dilaveris v. W.T. Rich Co., 424 Mass. 9 (1996), the general contractor was "solely responsible" for means and methods and for taking "all proper precautions to protect persons from injury." Those cases pair express safety language with concrete safety actions. Skyway had neither.

Holding two: no negligent hiring claim for the subcontractor's own employee

This is the part of the opinion that narrowly changes the landscape.

The record contained evidence that Skyway knew about MBT's prior OSHA fall protection citations. The Court accepted that for purposes of the motion. The Court nonetheless held that Skyway owed Mr. Suquilanda no negligent hiring duty. The rule, as the Court stated it: where the plaintiff is the subcontractor's own employee, the general contractor neither retained nor exercised control over the injury-producing condition, and the injury arises from the subcontractor's performance of its own work, Massachusetts law does not recognize an independent negligent hiring claim against the general contractor.

The Court gave three reasons.

I. Who the duty protects. Negligent hiring cases in Massachusetts have involved members of the public, patients, and customers, people who ended up exposed to a dangerous person because of the defendant's decision to hire him. The Court explained that this case is different, holding that Mr. Suquilanda's exposure to MBT did not flow from Skyway's hiring decision. MBT hired him, directed his work, supplied the fall protection, and controlled how it was used. Treating Skyway's selection of MBT as the source of a duty to MBT's own employees would, in the Court's words, collapse the line between protecting third parties from a contractor's negligence and protecting the contractor's own employees from risks inherent in the work.

II. Workers' compensation exclusivity. Mr. Suquilanda has a remedy: workers' compensation through MBT's insurer. Under G.L. c. 152, § 24 and its New York counterpart, employees receive no-fault benefits and in exchange give up common-law claims against their employer. Recognizing a duty here, the Court held, would put the common law in tension with that bargain.

III. The indemnification loop. The subcontract required MBT to indemnify Skyway for losses arising from MBT's work. Any recovery against Skyway for negligent hiring would therefore run straight back to MBT, exposing MBT to liability to its own employee twice and circumventing the compensation scheme. The Court leaned on Vertentes v. Barletta Co., 392 Mass. 165 (1984), which refused vicarious liability in the inherently-dangerous-work context for the same reason.

The Court closed by saying that reworking the allocation of responsibility among general contractors, subcontractors, workers, compensation insurers, and liability insurers is a broad policy question the Legislature is better equipped to resolve.

Operatively, the Court was careful about scope. In a footnote, it declined to decide whether to adopt Restatement (Second) of Torts § 411, or whether that section's reference to "third persons" categorically excludes a contractor's employees.

The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 411, which is not binding law, states: "An employer is subject to liability for physical harm to third persons caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care to employ a competent and careful contractor (a) to do work which will involve a risk of physical harm unless it is skillfully and carefully done, or (b) to perform any duty which the employer owes to third persons."

— Restat 2d of Torts, § 411

The Court resolved only the narrower question on these facts, where the general contractor did not retain or exercise control over the injury-producing condition.

Who weighed in

The case drew amicus briefs, legal documents submitted to a court by nonparties to a suit in support of a position or party, on both sides.

Supporting the injured worker: the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, the Massachusetts Worker Centers, and the Suffolk University Law School Supreme Court Clinic.

Supporting Skyway: the Pioneer New England Legal Foundation, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Insurance Federation, and the American Tort Reform Association. The lineup tells you what was at stake: the insurance industry treated this as a case about closing a door, and the trial bar treated it as a case about keeping one open.

Wayne's read

Lawyers Weekly quoted Wayne on where the decision goes from here. He called the ruling fact specific and said he anticipates additional dispositive motions from defense counsel as they test the parameters of the decision.

"Although the Court's decision does appear to be fact specific, I would anticipate additional dispositive motions by defense counsel as they test the parameters of this ruling."

— Wayne Peereboom, Attorney at Dunn & Phillips, P.C.

That prediction follows directly from the opinion's structure. The Court did not close the Corsetti door. It said Skyway's record was empty on safety control. Every construction-injury case will now be litigated on whether the general contractor's contract, permit, safety plan, site logs, and supervisor conduct add up to the express language plus concrete action the Court found in Corsetti and Dilaveris. Defense firms will file summary judgment motions arguing the record looks like Skyway. Plaintiffs' lawyers will build records that look like Corsetti.

In a conversation for this article, Wayne put the human cost plainly: "Construction workers suffer catastrophic injuries, but this case makes it hard for compensation."

Workers' compensation pays medical bills and a fraction of lost wages. It does not pay for pain, for a lost career, or for the difference between a life before a fall and a life after one. For a roofer who can no longer work, the tort claim against a party other than his employer was often the only path to full compensation. Skyway narrows that path when the general contractor kept its hands off the site.

What this means if you or a family member is hurt on a job in Western Massachusetts

Nothing in Skyway touches your workers' compensation claim. File it. We are here to advocate for you.

For a third-party claim, the questions have sharpened:

• What did the general contractor's contracts say about safety? Look at the prime contract and the subcontract. Language assigning the general contractor responsibility to initiate, maintain, or supervise safety programs is the kind of provision the SJC credited in Corsetti.
• Who was on site, and what did they do? A general contractor's supervisor who inspected fall protection, directed crews on safety, or had authority to stop unsafe work is the difference between Corsetti and Skyway.
• Who else is in the picture? Skyway is about the general contractor. Property owners who dictate safety protocols (the SJC pointed to Kelly v. Foxboro Realty Assocs., 454 Mass. 306 (2009), where the owner set the procedure), equipment manufacturers, and other trades on site each stand on their own footing.
• Move fast. Contracts, permit files, daily logs, safety meeting sign-ins, and photographs are what the retained-control analysis runs on, and they disappear.

Wayne handles these cases from our Westfield office. He has represented workers hurt on job sites across Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties, and he reads decisions like this one for a living.

About Wayne H. Peereboom

Wayne focuses on serious personal injury, wrongful death, general litigation, and trial practice. He has mediated and settled cases in the million-dollar-plus range and has obtained significant results for clients with catastrophic injuries and for families who lost a loved one to someone else's negligence. Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly has recognized decisions and settlements he has obtained.

He earned his J.D. in 1994 from Western New England College School of Law, where he competed on the Association of Trial Lawyers of America trial competition team and won the AmJur Award in Conflict of Laws. He holds a B.A., cum laude, from the State University of New York at Albany. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1994 and to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1995. He is a member of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys.

Wayne practices from Dunn & Phillips' Westfield office at 56 Washington Street. Reach him at (413) 562-8300 or through the firm's contact page.

Sources: Suquilanda v. Skyway Roofing, Inc., 498 Mass. 164 (2026) (SJC-13878, decided Aug. 17, 2026); Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly coverage published Aug. 27, 2026.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.