Felmlee

A worker is injured while repairing a cable television line. He sues the general contractor who hired his employer, an independent contractor, for breach of a nondelegable duty. He asserts that the doctrine of “nondelegable duties” survives Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 [ 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 72 , 854 P.2d 721 ]. It does. The worker, however, may not state a cause of action unless he can allege the breach of a specific nondelegable duty.

Plaintiff, Robert Felmlee, appeals from the judgment after the special jury verdict in favor of the general contractor, defendant Falcon Cable TV. We conclude that the trial court properly refused to instruct on the doctrine of nondelegable duties and properly instructed the jury that Falcon had no duty to warn him of obvious dangers. Falcon cross-appeals, asserting that the trial court should have granted its motion for nonsuit at the end of Felmlee’s case-in-chief. We affirm the judgment.

Facts

Falcon owns cable television lines and retained Clark Communications to perform maintenance and repairs on its lines. Clark employed Felmlee to repair and install Falcon’s lines.

Clark sent Felmlee out in the field to repair a…