author: BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

text:
    LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF KENTUCKY; Libertarian National Committee, Inc.; Ken Moellman, Jr.; Constitution Party of Kentucky, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Alison Lundergan GRIMES, Secretary of State of the Commonwealth of Kentucky; Joshua G. Branscum, John Hampton, Stephen Huffman, Donald Blevins, Jr., Albert B. Chandler, III, and George Russell, Members of the State Board of Elections; Maryellen B. Allen, Executive Director, Kentucky State Board of Elections; Andrew G. Beshear, Attorney General, all in their official capacities, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 16-6107
    United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
    Decided and Filed: August 26, 2016
    Rehearing En Banc Denied Sept. 27, 2016.

      ON BRIEF: Christopher Wiest, Robert A. Winter, Jr., CHRIS WIEST, AAL, PLLC, Crestview Hills, Kentucky, for Appellants. Jonathan T. Salomon, Katherine Lacy Crosby, TACHAU MEEK PLC, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee Grimes and Board of Elections Appellees. S. Travis Mayo, Matt James, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellee Besh-ear.
    Before: MERRITT, BOGGS, and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.
   OPINION

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

Appellants are the Libertarian Party of Kentucky, the Libertarian National Committee, the Constitution Party of Kentucky, and Ken Moellman, Jr., an individual voter and former Libertarian Party candidate for Kentucky state office. The gravamen of appellants’ complaint is that Kentucky law unconstitutionally burdens appellants’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to freedom of political association and equal protection by categorizing the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party as “political groups,” which must petition to list their candidates for state and local office on election ballots, rather than as “political parties” or “political organizations,” which enjoy “blanket” ballot access for all the candidates they nominate. The district court concluded that the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s three-tiered ballot-access scheme was a constitutional means of exercising the Commonwealth’s power to regulate elections. We affirm.'

I

The Commonwealth of Kentucky classifies a political association as (1) a “political party” if it received at least twenty percent of the total vote cast in the last presidential election, (2) a “political organization” if it received at least two percent of the vote of the’state in the last presidential election, or (3) a “political group” if it fails to, qualify as a “political party” or a “political organization.” Ky. Rev. Stat. § 118.015. Political candidates who are members of a political party or political organization may gain ballot access by winning their party’s nomination at a convention or in a primary election. Id. §§ 118.305, .325, .105. Members of a political group, on the other hand, must obtain voters’ signatures on a qualifying petition in order to gain ballot access. Id. § 118.305(l)(d). The signature requirement is 5,000 for a statewide office; 400 for the United States House of Representatives; 100 for a county officer, member of the Kentucky General Assembly, or Commonwealth’s Attorney; and twenty-five or fewer for various other local offices. Id. § 118.315(2). Individuals may sign more than one petition for the same office only if each petition nominates a soil and ■water conservation district supervisor (of which seven are elected to staggered terms for each of Kentucky’s 120 counties); in all other eases, if an individual signs multiple petitions for the same office, only the signature on the first petition to be filed is counted. Ibid. Petitioning may begin approximately one year preceding the election for which a candidate seeks ballot access, and petitions must be filed with the Secretary of State or county clerk by the second Tuesday in August preceding the election, allowing approximately nine months for candidates to gather signatures. Id. § 118.365(5).

Appellants’ argument is essentially this: the two-percent requirement for blanket party access to the general-election ballot is “impossible, or virtually impossible” to satisfy, and the alternative means of fielding candidates by petition is unconstitutionally burdensome — not as applied to any individual candidate for a specific office, but rather as applied to the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party as political associations, because these associations must incur high costs of gathering and filing petitions in order to field a slate of candidates for state and local office. Appellants’ Br. 11. Appellants argue that by allowing political parties and organizations blanket ballot access without the need for petitioning, and by requiring groups like the Libertarian Party and Constitution Party to incur heavy burdens by filing petitions, the Commonwealth’s ballot-access laws deny appellants equal protection and “appear designed” to “keep candidates other than the Democrat and Republican •candidates off the ballot.” Id. at 23. Appellants challenge the Commonwealth’s laws “both facially and as applied,” id. at 29, and appellants’ arguments “have characteristics of as-applied and facial challenges.” Green Party of Tenn. v. Hargett, 791 F.3d 684, 692 (6th Cir. 2015) (citing John Doe No. 1 v. Reed, 561 U.S. 186, 194, 130 S.Ct. 2811, 177 L.Ed.2d 493 (2010)).

We have previously held that the 5,000-signature requirement to petition for statewide-office ballot access is consistent with the Equal Protection Clause. Anderson v. Mills, 664 F.2d 600, 606-07 (6th Cir. 1981). The Eastern District of Kentucky has also upheld the 5,000-signature requirement in a challenge under the First and Fourteenth Amendments involving appellant Libertarian Party of Kentucky. Libertarian Party v. Davis, 601 F.Supp. 522, 523-25 (E.D. Ky. 1985). Both cases involved challenges arising from the denial of ballot access to specific candidates. We have not yet, however, evaluated the constitutionality of the two-percent requirement for blanket party access to the general-election ballot under either the First Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment, nor have we evaluated the constitutionality of the petitioning requirements as applied to a political association as a whole. We do so today, following the well-established Anderson-Burdick framework, which “serves as ‘a single standard for evaluating challenges to voting restrictions.’ ” Green Party of Tenn. v. Hargett, 791 F.3d at 692 (quoting Obama for Am. v. Husted, 697 F.3d 423, 430 (6th Cir. 2012)).

II

The United States Supreme Court, in Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 788-89, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983), and Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992), established a three-step framework for evaluating state restrictions on ballot access. The first step of Anderson-Bur-dick is to consider the “character and magnitude” of the restriction: “severe” restrictions are subject'to heightened scrutiny, “minimally burdensome” restrictions are subject to rational-basis review, and regulations falling in the middle warrant a “flexible analysis” that weighs the state’s interests and chosen means of pursuing them against the burden of the restriction. Green Party of Tenn. v. Hargett, 767 F.3d 533, 544 (6th Cir. 2014) (citing Anderson and Burdick). The second step is to “identify and evaluate” the state’s interests and justifications for its restrictions. Id. at 546. The third step is to assess the “legitimacy and strength” of those interests to determine whether the restrictions are constitutional burdens on ballot access. Ibid.

A

At the first step, we hold that the burden of the Commonwealth’s ballot-access restrictions on appellants is not “severe.” The hallmark of a severe burden is exclusion or virtual exclusion from the ballot. Compare Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 719, 94 S.Ct. 1315, 39 L.Ed.2d 702 (1974) (striking $701.60 filing fee for ballot-access petition because it excluded indigent candidates from running for office with no reasonable alternative means of access), and Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 24, 35, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968) (striking “series of election laws,” including requirement that minor political parties file a petition signed by the number of voters equal to fifteen percent of the votes cast in the preceding gubernatorial election, because it “made it virtually impossible” for any party other than the Republican Party and Democratic Party to gain ballot access), with Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 438, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1970) (upholding a requirement that five percent of all registered Georgia voters sign candidate’s petition for ballot access and noting that even serious restrictions on third parties’ ballot access are generally upheld unless they truly operate to “freeze the political status quo”).

In some circumstances, the “combined effect” of ballot-access restrictions can pose a severe burden. Citizens to Establish a Reform Party v. Priest, 970 F.Supp. 690, 699 (E.D. Ark. 1996) (citing Republican Party of Ark. v. Faulkner, 49 F.3d 1289 (8th Cir. 1995)); see Libertarian Party of Ohio v. Blackwell, 462 F.3d 579, 582-83 (6th Cir. 2006) (striking down Ohio regulatory scheme where minor political parties could gain general-election ballot access only if they both participated in the March primary and — 120 days prior to the March primary — filed a petition with signatures equal to one percent of the votes cast in the previous statewide election); see also Jenness, 403 U.S. at 442, 91 S.Ct. 1970 (noting that Georgia’s higher-than-most five-percent signature requirement was “balanced by the fact that Georgia has imposed no arbitrary restrictions whatever” on voters who want to sign multiple petitions). A very early filing deadline, for example, combined with an otherwise reasonable petitioning requirement, can impose a severe burden, especially on independent candidates or minority parties that must gather signatures well before the dominant political parties have declared their nominees. See, e.g., Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 739-40, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974) (remanding for further factual development where a California requirement that a party obtain approximately 325,000 signatures on a petition within a twenty-four-day period may have posed a severe burden); Council of Alternative Political Parties v. Hooks, 121 F.3d 876, 880 (3d Cir. 1997) (holding that a filing deadline fifty-four days before the primary election was an unconstitutional burden); McLain v. Meier, 637 F.2d 1159, 1163-64 (8th Cir. 1980) (finding “particularly troublesome” a filing deadline ninety days before the primary election); Priest, 970 F.Supp. at 697-98 (concluding that a filing deadline in January, more than four months before the primary election, was an “unreasonable burden”).

The burden of the Commonwealth’s ballot-access scheme on appellants thus falls well short of “severe”: while the blanket-access requirement of gaining two percent of the votes in a presidential election may impose some financial costs on the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party to the extent that meeting the threshold may require greater campaign efforts, those costs certainly do not constitute exclusion or virtual exclusion from the ballot. After all, the requirement that a minor party secure two percent of the actual votes cast in a presidential election is not substantially different from a requirement that a party secure signatures of two percent of the registered voters in a jurisdiction: indeed, the absolute number of votes required (35,944 out of 1,797,212 cast in the 2012 election, for example) is significantly lower than the number of signatures that would be required under a regulation that required the signatures of two percent of registered voters (65,224 out of 3,261,-183) — and even such a burden would fall well below the five-percent requirement that the Supreme Court upheld in Jenness, 403 U.S. at 442, 91 S.Ct. 1970. See State Bd. of Elections, Commonwealth of Ky., Official 2012 General Election Results (2012), http://ele‘ct.ky.gov/SiteCollection Documents/Eleetion% 20Results/2010-2019/2012/2012genresults.pdf; State Bd. of Elections, Commonwealth of Ky., Voter Registration Statistics Report (2016) (August report by district), http://elect.ky.gov/ statistics/Documents/voterstatsdistrict-20160811-031801.pdf.

Further, the two-percent requirement for blanket ballot access cannot constitute exclusion or virtual exclusion because blanket access is only one of two ballot-access mechanisms. The alternative option of filing petitions for each candidate’s candidacy remains, as we have held before, see Anderson v. Mills, 664 F.2d at 606-07, a reasonable means of ballot access.

Although appellants argue that meeting the two-percent requirement “is impossible, or virtually impossible,” Appellants’ Br. 11, third parties in Kentucky have done exactly that several times in recent election cycles: the American Party in 1968, the Anderson Coalition in 1980, and the Reform Party in 1996. Appellants contend that “if [a] party is only interested in state politics,” it is “impossible” for such a party to gain blanket ballot access. Appellants’ Br. 12 (citing the Progressive Party of Vermont, which has eight state legislators but does not field any presidential candidates, as an example of the sort of political group that would find it very difficult to gain blanket ballot access under a statute like Kentucky’s). But while that argument may have some force, since a party that failed ever to field a presidential candidate would be unable to gain two percent of the votes in a presidential election, the hypothetical-burden of Kentucky’s regulation on a hypothetical party has no bearing on appellants, and we do not decide how severe, if at all, such a burden would be.

Moreover, appellants have not demonstrated that the “combined effect,” Priest, 970 F.Supp. at 699, of the Kentucky regulation is to impose a severe burden on their access to the ballot. Indeed, the Libertarian Party has satisfied the petitioning requirement and fielded a candidate for President of the United States in every presidential election since 1988. Even the Constitution Party — which boasts fewer than 400 registered voters in Kentucky— has placed a presidential candidate on the ballot in 2000, 2004, and 2008. See State Bd. of Elections, Commonwealth of Ky., Voter Registration Statistics Report (2016) (August report by district), http://elect.ky. gov/statisties/Documents/voterstatsdistrict-20160811-031801.pdf. Unlike the pre-pri-mary filing deadlines in Hooks, 121 F.3d at 880, McLain, 637 F.2d at 1163-64, and Priest, 970 F.Supp. at 698, Kentucky allows political groups to file petitions for candidacy three months before the general election, and provides such groups approximately nine months to gather a quantity of signatures that amounts in almost all cases to less than 0.3% of the number of registered voters in the political unit that corresponds to each office. Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 118.365(5), .315(2).

Appellants further argue that the burden of the regulation is severe because of the cost on the party of filing separate petitions for each office for which the party wishes to field a candidate. Appellants argue that if they wished to field a candidate for every state and county office over a four-year term, the cost of petitioning would be as much as $734,328: $2 per signature for the 367,164 unique signatures that appellants claim would be required to satisfy the petitioning requirements for every office while maintaining a “safety factor” of 1.75. Appellants compare this to the filing fee that the Supreme Court struck down in Lubin, 415 U.S. at 719, 94 S.Ct. 1315. Appellants’ Br. 31-32. But appellants cite figures based on the market rate charged by “professional petitioners” to gather signatures, even though nothing in the Kentucky regulation requires the use of such professionals. Id. at 16. And again, appellants present the hypothetical maximum cost of petitioning without demonstrating any likelihood that appellants would actually field a full slate of candidates for every state and county office during an actual four-year term. Thus, unlike the mandatory filing fee in Lubin, the incidental costs of gathering signatures on petitions do not come close to exclusion from the ballot, and thus do not impose a severe burden on ballot access.

Having concluded that the burden on appellants is not so “severe” as to warrant strict scrutiny, we also conclude that the burden is not so “minimal” as to warrant rational basis review. Green Party of Tenn. v. Hargett, 767 F.3d at 546 (citing Burdick, 504 U.S. 428, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245). A burden is minimal when it “in no way limit[s] a political party’s access to the ballot.” Libertarian Party of Ohio v. Blackwell, 462 F.3d at 587 (citing Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351, 354, 117 S.Ct. 1364, 137 L.Ed.2d 589 (1997) (holding “minimal” any burden imposed by a regulation that prohibited an individual from appearing on the ballot as the candidate for more than one party), and Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581, 593, 125 S.Ct. 2029, 161 L.Ed.2d 920 (2005) (upholding statute allowing only registered members of a party and registered independents to vote in a primary election)). Here, the burden of the Kentucky regulation on appellants is at least somewhat greater than minimal because appellants must either earn sufficient votes in a presidential election to gain political-organization status, presumably at more-than-minimal cost in terms of time, effort, and money, or engage in petitioning that is not required of major political parties, with the result that minor parties will necessarily spend time, effort, and money gathering signatures that they could otherwise spend campaigning for candidates. To the extent that a minor party therefore fields fewer candidates or earns fewer votes than it would if it enjoyed blanket ballot access without having to earn it, the Kentucky regulation imposes a more-than-minimal burden. Since the Kentucky regulation thus falls somewhere “in between” minimal and severe, Green Party of Tenn. v. Hargett, 767 F.3d at 546, we will next engage in the “flexible analysis,” Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. at 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564, that the district court rightly employed.

B

At the second step of Anderson/Burdick, we hold that Kentucky has an important interest in ensuring that candidates demonstrate a “significant modicum of support,” Jenness, 403 U.S. at 442, 91 S.Ct. 1970, before gaining access to the ballot, primarily in order to avoid voter confusion, ballot overcrowding, and frivolous candidacies.

Under Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, it falls to the states to prescribe the “times, places and manner of holding Elections,” subject to some federal oversight. U.S. Const, art. I, § 4, cl. 1. The Supreme Court has held that “as a practical matter, there must be a substantial regulation of elections if they are to be fair and honest and if some order, rather than chaos, is to accompany the democratic process.” Storer, 415 U.S. at 730, 94 S.Ct. 1274 (finding a significant state interest in avoiding ballot confusion to be a valid justification for requiring independent candidates to be politically disaffiliated with other parties for one year before the primary election); see also Timmons, 520 U.S. at 364, 366, 117 S.Ct. 1364 (noting that “[s]tates certainly have an interest in protecting the integrity, fairness, and efficiency of their ballots and election processes as means for electing public officials” and that states have a “strong interest in the stability of their political systems”).

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has asserted interests, in avoiding the voter confusion, ballot overcrowding, and frivolous candidacies that would likely arise in increasing frequency as the number of parties with blanket ballot access increased. The district court rightly noted that the privilege of blanket access is significant, for any party with blanket access may field as many candidates as it nominates to every state and local election for a four-year term, adding a potentially great number of candidates to ballots statewide. The interests cited are central to the iegulation of elections: for example, much of the controversy attendant to the 2000 presidential election in Florida was occasioned by the fact that Florida permitted ten parties to be included on the presidential ballot, leading to a variety of confusing and unorthodox ballot designs that would not have been necessary with a smaller number of parties. Thus, the Commonwealth may sensibly require the kind of broad-level support that is measured by a political group’s ability to garner two percent of the vote in a presidential election.

C

Finally, at step three of Anderson/Burdick, we hold that the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s legitimate interests in regulating elections are sufficiently strong to justify its chosen means of achieving them, even if less restrictive means might be available. Appellants contend that rather than requiring political groups to obtain two percent of the votes in a presidential election in order to enjoy blanket ballot access, Kentucky should alternatively allow mid-term or gubernatorial election results to qualify a political association as a political party or organization. Appellants’ Br. 13. Our job, however, is not to second-guess the legislative decisions of the Kentucky General Assembly but only to evaluate whether those decisions pass constitutional muster, and for the reasons discussed above in Parts II-A and II-B, the strength of Kentucky’s in-' terests in avoiding voter confusion, ballot overcrowding, and frivolous candidacies outweighs the modest burden of the ballot-access regulations on appellants.

As for the petitioning requirement, appellants argue that they should be able to file a single petition rather than separate petitions for each candidate. While such a scheme would almost certainly require less time and effort of appellants if they chose to field many candidates in a given election year, it is not the system that Kentucky has chosen and that we now uphold.

Ill

We also affirm the district court’s grant of Attorney General Beshear’s motion to dismiss. The district court properly held that the Attorney General was not a proper defendant because the Attorney General’s general enforcement powers did not provide a basis on which to grant appellants relief.

Accordingly, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED.

      . Appellants challenge the effect on the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party of the various petitioning requirements (and not only the 5,000-signature requirement to petition for a nominee to statewide office), including the requirement in most cases to file a separate petition with unique signatures for each nominee rather than filing a single petition per election year. Notably, the number of signatures required for each petition is both relatively modest and roughly congruent to the number of registered voters in the political unit represented by each corresponding political office: 5,000 signatures for statewide office, for instance, represents roughly 0.15% of the 3,261,183 voters registered in Kentucky as of August 2016, State Bd. of Elections, Commonwealth of Ky., Voter Registration Statistics Report (2016) (August report by district), http://elect.ky.gov/statistics/Documents/ voterstatsdistrict-20160811 -031801 .pdf; 400 signatures for the United States House of Representatives represents just under 0.1% of the number of voters registered in each of Kentucky’s six congressional districts; and 100 signatures for the Kentucky General Assembly represents roughly 0.3% of the number of voters registered in each of Kentucky’s 100 house districts and roughly 0.1% of the number of voters registered in each of Kentucky’s thirty-eight senate districts. Ibid. While there is surely some variance in the ratio of required signatures to registered voters at the county-or-lower level (since the signature requirements are fixed, while the number of registered voters per county ranges from 1,734 in Robertson County to 573,650 in Jefferson County), there is likely also variance in the difficulty of obtaining signatures depending on factors such as whether a county is predominantly urban or rural, and in any event the requirements of 100 or fewer signatures for county- or lower-level offices do not impose a severe burden for the reasons we set forth below. State Bd. of Elections, Commonwealth of Ky., Voter Registration Statistics Report (2016) (August report by county), http:// elect.ky.gov/statistics/Documents/voterstats county-20160811 -03175 9 .pdf.

      . Notably, over the four-year term including the 2017-2020 election years, appellants would have to field candidates for a total of 2,590 offices: 2,457 offices for the 2018 election, six for the 2019 election, and 127 for the 2020 election. Nothing in the record would indicate that appellants have ever sought or now seek to nominate candidates to anywhere near that number of offices over a four-year term.

      . Safety factor refers to the ratio of actual signatures gathered to signatures required. Candidates generally gather more signatures than required to hedge against the risk of invalid or duplicate signatures. Appellants' Br. 1-2.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: SUTTON, Circuit Judge. CLAY, Circuit Judge,

license: Public Domain

text:
    Steve BLACK, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DIXIE CONSUMER PRODUCTS LLC; Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products Holdings LLC, Defendants-Appellants.
    No. 15-5889
    United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
    Argued: August 5, 2016
    Decided and Filed: August 29, 2016
    Rehearing En Banc Denied Nov. 1, 2016.

      ARGUED: Matthew P. Cook, Cole & Moore, P.S.C., Bowling Green, Kentucky, for Appellants. Mike Breen, Miké Breen Attorney at Law, P.S.C., Bowling Green, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Matthew P. Cook, John David Cole, Sr., Cole & Moore, P.S.C., Bowling Green, Kentucky, for Appellants. Mike Breen, Mike Breen Attorney at Law, P.S.C., Bowling Green, Kentucky, for Appellee.
    Before: BOGGS, CLAY, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.

       Judge Clay would grant rehearing for the reasons stated in his dissent.

   SUTTON, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which BOGGS, J., joined. CLAY, J. (pp. 586-93), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

Steve Black, a truck driver for Western Express, drove a load of raw paper materials to a factory operated by Dixie Consumer Products in Bowling Green, Kentucky. During the unloading process, a careless Dixie employee ran over Black’s foot with a forklift. Black received workers’ compensation from Western due to the injury. He then filed a tort claim against Dixie and its parent company, Georgia-Pacific. The district court denied Dixie and Georgia-Pacific’s motion for summary judgment. Because Kentucky’s workers’ compensation statutes provide an exclusive remedy for injuries of this sort, we reverse the decision of the district court.

I.

Dixie makes paper cups and plates out of raw paper material. Forty-eight different truck and freight service providers carry the raw paper to the Bowling Green factory. One of them is Western, which agreed to “transport and deliver shipments of contract freight from facilities or other designated locations to the various destination points.” R. 14-2 at 2.

On the day of the accident, Black drove a Western truck, loaded with 41,214 pounds of pulpboard, to the factory. Ten-pound rubber mats separated the heavy paper rolls and secured the load on its journey to Bowling Green. After parking his truck, Black received permission from Larry Chinn, the Dixie forklift operator, to enter the loading dock through a locked cage designed to keep pedestrians off the loading dock. It was “[cjommon practice,” as Black understood, for the truck driver to unload the rubber mats' so that the Dixie forklift operator did not “have to get off each time and get” them himself. R. 84-12 at 7,12.

Chinn and Black soon got “into a rhythm” in unloading the materials. R. 84-9 at 22. Chinn would remove a layer of paper rolls with his forklift. And Black would remove the rubber mats and walk them to the trash compactor. At some unfortunate point, they fell out of rhythm, and Chinn ran over Black’s foot with the forklift, leading to a below-the-knee amputation of Black’s leg.

Black received workers’ compensation from Western due to the injury.

He then filed this tort action against Dixie and Georgia-Pacific, seeking $1,850,000 in damages.

Dixie and Georgia-Pacific answered that the exclusive nature of the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act barred Black’s claims. See Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 342.610(2), .690. “After minimal discovery,” the district court agreed. Black v. Dixie Consumer Prods. LLC, 516 Fed.Appx. 412, 413 (6th Cir. 2013). The district court rejected Black’s claim as a matter of law due to the exclusive nature of the Kentucky law, granting summary judgment to Dixie and Georgia-Pacific.

Our court reversed because the record was insufficiently developed. In particular, the evidence did not show whether “the work Black performed at the time of his injury was a regular or recurrent part of [Dixie’s] work.” Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 417. “[I]n order to find that the transportation of raw paper materials between a supplier and Dixie is a ‘part of Dixie’s work,” a precondition for contractor immunity under Kentucky law, “Dixie must demonstrate both that this type of transportation is a ‘customary, usual, or normal’ part of Dixie’s business or ‘work that [Dixie] repeats with some degree of regularity’ and that it is work that Dixie or similar businesses would normally perform or be expected to perform with employees.” Id. (quoting Gen. Elec. Co. v. Cain, 236 S.W.3d 579, 588 (Ky. 2007)).

On remand, the parties introduced additional evidence about the nature of this transport service. As the district court saw this evidence, it did not show that Dixie and Georgia-Pacific were entitled to immunity from this lawsuit and thus it denied their motion for summary judgment.

II.

Denials of summary judgment are not final orders. And we have jurisdiction only over “final decisions of the district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. But there are a few exceptions, a few times when the courts of appeals will review non-final orders on an interlocutory basis. The key exception is the collateral-order doctrine. Under it, a party may appeal a non-final order only “if it (1) conclusively determines the disputed question; (2) resolves an important issue separate from the merits of the action; and (3) is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 105, 130 S.Ct. 599, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009) (quotation omitted); see Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546-47, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949).

The Supreme Court has frequently applied the collateral-order doctrine in the context- of decisions rejecting immunity-from-suit defenses. The best known, and most frequently invoked, immunity-from-suit cases involve claims of sovereign immunity, absolute immunity, and qualified immunity raised by governmental entities and individuals. In all three settings, the losing party may appeal the rejection of an immunity defense immediately because the core point of “immunity is its possessor’s entitlement not to have to answer for his conduct in a civil damages action.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 525, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (qualified immunity); see P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 147, 113 S.Ct. 684, 121 L.Ed.2d 605 (1993) (state sovereign immunity); Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 742, 102 S.Ct. 2690, 73 L.Ed.2d 349 (1982) (absolute immunity).

Not all invocations of the word “immunity,” however, satisfy this exception. What matters is the “nature of the protection,” as opposed to “the loose ability of an attorney to use the term ‘immunity.’ ” Kelly v. Great Seneca Fin. Corp., 447 F.3d 944, 950 (6th Cir. 2006). And what counts in terms of protection is whether the relevant state or federal law “provides immunity from suit rather than immunity from liability.” Sabo v. City of Mentor, 657 F.3d 332, 336 (6th Cir. 2011); see Range v. Douglas, 763 F.3d 573, 581 (6th Cir. 2014); Chesher v. Neyer, 477 F.3d 784, 793 (6th Cir. 2007).

Under Kentucky law, a contractor has immunity from negligence actions (in return for providing backup workers’ compensation coverage) when “the worker was injured while performing work that was of a kind which is a regular or recurrent part of the work of the trade, business, occupation, or profession of the owner,” no matter whether “the immediate employer actually provided workers’ compensation coverage.” Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 585. Often called “up-the-ladder” contractor immunity, it establishes an immunity from suit, not just from liability. Black concedes as much. See Appellee’s Br. 5, 20. Dixie and Georgia-Pacific agree. See Appellant’s Br. 36, 44-45. Kentucky courts agree, too. The Supreme Court of Kentucky describes up-the-ladder immunity as “a contractor’s immunity from tort lawsuits.” Beaver v. Oakley, 279 S.W.3d 527, 528 n.1 (Ky. 2009); see Dilts v. United Grp. Servs., LLC, 500 Fed.Appx. 440, 449-50 (6th Cir. 2012) (Clay, J.) (quoting the Beaver footnote). The immunity plays a .pivotal role in maintaining the tradeoffs contained in Kentucky’s workers’ compensation scheme. See Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 587. Consistent with the reality that up-the-ladder immunity insulates contractors from lawsuits, not just liability, and consistent with the give-and-take nature of all workers’ compensation systems, Kentucky courts themselves allow immediate appeals from an interlocutory order denying a private contractor’s immunity. Ervin Cable Constr., LLC v. Lay, 461 S.W.3d 422, 423 (Ky. Ct. App. 2015).

Kentucky courts, it is true, at times refer to contractor immunity as “immunity from liability,” Beaver, 279 S.W.3d at 528, as our colleague points out in dissent. But this is unsurprising given that an immunity from suit includes an immunity from liability. What matters is that Kentucky treats the immunity as an “absolute immunity, the denial of which is subject to immediate appeal since immunity is designed to free the possessor not only from liability, but also from the costs of defending an action.” Ervin Cable Constr., 461 S.W.3d at 423. We ourselves use both “immunity from suit[ ]” and “immunity] from liability” to describe immunities of such magnitude, sometimes in back-to-back sentences. Brookings v. Clunk, 389 F.3d 614, 617 (6th Cir. 2004). That is because absolute immunity “refers to protection from suit and not simply the assessment of liability.” Bush v. Rauch, 38 F.3d 842, 849 (6th Cir. 1994). Even aside from what Kentucky calls the immunity, it treats the immunity as one from suit by permitting interlocutory appeals from the denial of contractor immunity. An employer’s immunity from suit is the flip side of the employee’s freedom— immunity if you will — from having to file a suit to obtain coverage in the first place. A major concern of workers’ compensation systems is “that benefits be paid to deserving claimants as soon as possible” and without having to file a lawsuit. Edwards v. Dir., Office of Workers’ Comp. Programs, 932 F.2d 1325, 1327-28 (9th Cir. 1991) (per curiam) (granting collateral appeal of order staying award of benefits). A workers’ compensation system works best when there is no litigation on the front end or the back end. Because the Kentucky Supreme Court aptly treats this regime as “a contractor’s immunity from tort lawsuits,” Beaver, 279 S.W.3d at 528 n.1, Dixie and Georgia-Pacific may appeal.

True, Dixie and Georgia-Pacific are private companies. True also, the collateral-order exception “typically involves claims of immunity from suit by government officials,” as Black points out. Appellee’s Br. 3. But that does not make public-official claims of immunity the only ones available under the exception. We have frequently-allowed such appeals by private parties for the same reason we permit interlocutory appeals by governmental actors: They are entitled to immunity from suit, whether under state or federal law. See, e.g., United Pet Supply, Inc. v. City of Chattanooga, 768 F.3d 464, 472 (6th Cir. 2014) (denial of qualified immunity for “private non-profit corporation”); Brotherton v. Cleveland, 173 F.3d 552, 559-60 (6th Cir. 1999) (same). In point of fact, the decision that gave birth to the collateral-order exception arose from a private corporation’s interlocutory appeal. Cohen, 337 U.S. at 546-47, 69 S.Ct. 1221 (permitting an appeal from an order denying a motion for security). The shortage of cases allowing interlocutory appeals from denials of contractor immunity stems not from the inapplicability of the collateral-order doctrine, but from the fact that the Kentucky workers’ compensation system is the exclusive remedy for workplace injuries when the worker, as here with Black, receives compensation. See Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.690.

Other courts of appeals have applied the exception to private defendants as well. The Ninth Circuit, for example, exercised jurisdiction over an appeal by companies and individuals claiming intellectual property rights to Superman when the district court denied “a motion to strike pursuant to California’s anti-SLAPP statute” — a law that “stop[s] [ ] lawsuits early in the litigation process” when they are “brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances.” DC Comics v. Pac. Pictures Corp., 706 F.3d 1009, 1013, 1015 (9th Cir. 2013) (quotation omitted). “California’s anti-SLAPP statute,” the court reasoned, “functions as an immunity from suit, and not merely as a defense against liability.” Id. Because “an immunity from suit is ‘imbued with a significant public interest’ that is not always present with regard to a defense against liability,” the Ninth Circuit ruled that “the denial of an immunity from suit — whether created by state or federal law — is an immediately appealable collateral order.” Id. (quotation omitted). Other courts of appeals have followed a similar path. See, e.g., Godin v. Schencks, 629 F.3d 79, 84-85 (1st Cir. 2010) (allowing interlocutory appeal for denial of anti-SLAPP motion under Maine law); Liberty Synergistics Inc. v. Microflo Ltd., 718 F.3d 138, 143 (2d Cir. 2013) (same under California’s anti-SLAPP statute); NCDR, L.L.C. v. Mause & Bagby, P.L.L.C., 745 F.3d 742, 752 (5th Cir. 2014) (same for Texas’s anti-SLAPP statute); see also McMahon v. Presidential Airways, Inc., 502 F.3d 1331, 1339-40 (11th Cir. 2007) (permitting appeal by military contractor due to “substantial claim to a true immunity from suit”).

We have jurisdiction to review this interlocutory order.

III.

The parties share common ground about most of the legal parameters concerning this appeal. They agree we give fresh review of the district court’s order denying statutory immunity, as with its order denying summary judgment. Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 589. They agree that, if Dixie is immune from suit, so is Dixie’s owner, Georgia-Pacific. And they do not challenge the basic contours of contractor immunity under Kentucky law.

“If Georgia-Pacific and Dixie are ‘contractors’ under § 342.610(2),” as wé previously explained, “they are immune from tort liability because Black was able to secure workers’ compensation benefits from Western.” Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 414. “The purpose of KRS 342.610(2)(b),” the Supreme Court of Kentucky has added, “is not to shield owners or contractors from potential tort liability but to assure that contractors and subcontractors provide workers’ compensation coverage.” Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 587. An injured employee’s “immediate employer! ]” ordinarily provides workers’ compensation benefits in exchange for which it gets immunity from tort lawsuits. Id. at 585. When the immediate employer fails to provide workers’ compensation, the contractor, “like any other employer! ],” is on the hook for workers’ compensation but gains statutory immunity if “the worker was injured while performing work that was ‘of a kind which is a regular or recurrent part of the work of the trade, business, occupation, or profession.’ ” Id. (quotation omitted).

All of this leaves us with a three-part inquiry to determine immunity from suit under the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act. First, was Western “hired to perform” this work for Dixie? Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 588. Second, was Black’s work for Dixie “a ‘customary, usual, or normal’ part of Dixie’s business or ‘work that [Dixie] repeats with some degree of regularity’ ”? Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 417 (quotation omitted). Third, was the work by Black “work that Dixie or similar businesses would normally perform or be expected to perform with employees”? Id.

Dixie meets each requirement. First, Dixie and Georgia-Pacific hired Western to transport and deliver paper rolls to Dixie’s Bowling Green factory. The carriage agreement required Western to “transport and deliver shipments of contract freight from facilities or other designated locations to the various destination points.” R. 14-2 at 2. And it specified that Western had a duty “to provide transportation services” to “GP and any GP subsidiary,” such as Dixie. Id.

It matters not that the carriage agreement does not spell out every step of the “transport and deliver[y]” process. Id. What matters is what Black acknowledges: He was “[w]orking and helping in the transportation of freight” while unloading the rubber mats. R. 84-9 at 21. Western was hired “to transport safely and deliver undamaged all freight.” R. 14-2 at 3. The rubber mats “insur[ed] that each load [was] properly loaded and secured,” a requirement of the carriage agreement. Id. If Black had not assisted in the unloading process by removing the rubber mats, Chinn would have had to do it himself. Even if “unloading the materials off the trucks was not one of [Black’s] job duties,” Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 413, Black did not complete his run the instant the truck reached the loading dock. As the Supreme Court of Kentucky explained in a similar setting, a tractor-trailer driver is “a participant in the unloading process” when he releases and rolls straps. Interlock Indus., Inc. v. Rawlings, 358 S.W.3d 925, 928 (Ky. 2011). Black’s unloading of the rubber mats was part of the transportation and delivery for Dixie, “the task” Western was “hired to perform.” Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 588.

Second, unloading materials at the Bowling Green factory “is a ‘customary, usual, or normal’ part of Dixie’s business or ‘work that [Dixie] repeats with some degree of regularity.’ ” Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 417 (quotation omitted). The relevant work is the “work being performed at the time of the injury.” Estate of Dohoney ex rel. Dohoney v. Int’l Paper Co., 560 Fed.Appx. 564, 569 (6th Cir. 2014). The question is whether “deliveries of raw paper materials to Dixie occurred on a regular or recurrent basis.” Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 415. The answer is straightforward, as Dixie “received as many as fifty truck shipments of rolled paper raw materials during a typical week.” Id. Unless Dixie entered the business of producing raw paper in Bowling Green, it necessarily needed to receive and unload regular deliveries of raw paper.

Third, the answer to the key-question, the one that needed more evidence on remand, turns on whether the transportation and delivery of raw paper materials amount to “work that Dixie or similar businesses would normally perform or be expected to perform with employees.” Black, 516 Fed.Appx. at 417. The evidence on remand shows this as well. Jeff Gottke, in charge of the Bowling Green facility, testified that Dixie is “responsible for unloading the product out of the truck.” R. 84-5 at 22. Charles W. Clowdis, Jr., an expert witness and logistics specialist, testified that “the work at issue here — the transport of raw paper materials from a supplier to a Dixie Consumer Products plant — is work that a company similar to Dixie might very well handle or be expected to handle with its own private fleet.” R. 84-20 at 15-16. And he based this opinion on the knowledge that at least one hundred companies, including paper companies such as Union Camp Fine Papers, have utilized private fleets of trucks for their transportation needs. Id. at 15.

“Even though” Dixie “may never perform that particular job with [its] own employees, [it] is still a contractor if the job is one that is usually a regular or recurrent part of [its] trade or occupation.” Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co. v. Sherman & Fletcher, 705 S.W.2d 459, 462 (Ky. 1986). As Black knows all too painfully, Dixie has equipment (forklifts and compactors) and employees for unloading trucks and receiving deliveries. Kentucky courts have granted statutory immunity to contractors when truck drivers, operating under “a motor-carrier agreement,” are injured loading their trucks at a contractor’s facility. Thornton v. Carmeuse Lime Sales Corp., 346 S.W.3d 297, 297-98 (Ky. Ct. App. 2010). And we see no reason to treat unloading differently. Dixie is entitled to statutory immunity from suit and, accordingly, so is Georgia-Pacific.

While this application of Kentucky law helps Dixie and Georgia-Pacific in the near term, it should help other workers in the long term. The premise of our decision is that someone injured in this setting will receive workers’ compensation no matter what — no matter whether the contractor (here the trucking company) contributes to the system or not. Because we treat the kind of work Black was doing as part and parcel of what Dixie does, that means a worker injured in this setting will receive compensation regardless of fault by a company in Dixie’s shoes or one in Western’s shoes. And that means Black (or someone like him) will always receive workers’ compensation. All of this also means that the immunity from a further lawsuit applies as well. This burden and this benefit lie at the heart of the trade-off built into any workers’ compensation system, as Black’s counsel acknowledged at oral argument. For one cannot “assure that contractors and subcontractors provide workers’ compensation coverage” for all workers without also assuring that they receive immunity from suit in return. Cain, 236 S.W.3d at 587.

For these reasons, we reverse.

DISSENT

CLAY, Circuit Judge,

dissenting.

The majority would bestow upon this Circuit the dubious distinction of becoming the first circuit -in the nation to hold that a denial of an affirmative defense of state workers’ compensation immunity is immediately appealable. In its apparent eagerness to reach the merits, the majority ignores the plain language of the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act, overlooks a substantial body of case law construing the statute, and fails to heed the stern and frequent cautions of the United States Supreme Court that the “narrow” rule allowing appeals from a small class of non-final orders “should stay that way and never be allowed to swallow the general rule that a party is entitled to a single appeal, to be deferred until final judgment has been entered.” Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U.S. 863, 868, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994) (citation omitted). Because Kentucky law does not establish that denials of workers’ compensation immunity belong in that limited class, I would dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

The circumstances giving rise to this appeal from a denial of immunity at the summary judgment stage are somewhat atypical: Defendants Dixie and Georgia-Pacific are private parties in a diversity action asserting immunity only under state law. Specifically, Dixie and Georgia-Pacific seek a finding that they are entitled to so-called “exclusive remedy immunity” and “up-the-ladder immunity” under provisions of a Kentucky statute requiring a covered employer to pay workers’ compensation benefits to its own employees or the employees of subcontractors for on-the-job injuries without regard to fault; “[i]f an employer secures payment of compensation as required by this chapter, the liability of such employer under this chapter shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability.” Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.690(1). The district court ruled that Dixie and Georgia-Pacific had not made out their affirmative defense of immunity under the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act (the “Act”), and denied summary judgment. Dixie and Georgia-Pacific took an immediate appeal seeking reversal of that finding.

Before we address whether Dixie and Georgia-Pacific are entitled to up-the-ladder immunity, we must first address our jurisdiction. Federal law, including decisions of the Supreme Court regarding appeals from non-final orders, governs our jurisdiction to hear this appeal in a federal forum, and state law supplies the substance of the immunity we are called upon to analyze. Range v. Douglas, 763 F.3d 573, 581 (6th Cir. 2014) (citing Chesher v. Neyer, 477 F.3d 784, 793 (6th Cir. 2007)). As the Second Circuit put it, “[sjtate substantive law governs the scope of immunity for state law claims, and federal law determines the appealability of the district court’s order.” In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 521 F.3d 169, 181 (2d Cir. 2008) (quotations and citations omitted). Accord Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196, 198-99, 108 S.Ct. 1717, 100 L.Ed.2d 178 (1988). This Circuit distinguishes between state statutes conferring immunity from liability and those conferring immunity from suit; “[a]n order denying statutory immunity is immediately appealable only if the state law provides immunity from suit, as opposed to immunity simply from liability.” Chesher, 477 F.3d at 793 (emphasis added); see also Range, 763 F.3d at 581; Tenon of Smyrna, Tenn. v. Mun. Gas Auth. of Georgia, 723 F.3d 640, 645 (6th Cir. 2013).

Determining whether a state statute provides immunity from liability or immunity from suit for purposes of interlocutory appellate jurisdiction naturally entails a review of the relevant statutory provisions and case law. Where we are “required to determine issues that rest upon Kentucky law, we must apply Kentucky law in accordance with the controlling decisions of the Kentucky Supreme Court.” Snow Pallet, Inc. v. Clinton Cty. Indus. Dev. Auth., 46 Fed.Appx. 787, 789 (6th Cir. 2002). Unlike the majority, I do not believe the Act or the cases construing it establish that exclusive remedy and up-the-ladder immunity constitute immunity from suit, rather than mere immunity from liability, under Kentucky law.

Insofar as neither party seems to fully grasp the analysis by which we assess interlocutory appellate jurisdiction in the federal courts, some initial review may be in order. “By statute, Courts of Appeals ‘have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States ... except where a direct review may be had in the Supreme Court.’ ” Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 106, 130 S.Ct. 599, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1291). Ordinarily, a denial of summary judgment is not final for purposes of appellate jurisdiction. McDonald v. Flake, 814 F.3d 804, 815 (6th Cir. 2016).

The.collateral order doctrine is a limited practical application of this rule allowing appeals from non-final orders that “finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.” Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 310, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995) (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949)). This statement has been distilled into three requirements: an immediately appealable, order must “(1) ‘conclusively determine [a] disputed question,’ (2) ‘resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action,’ and (3) ‘be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.’ ” Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 315, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996) (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978)) (alteration original). Denials of absolute immunity, qualified immunity, and Eleventh Amendment immunity, as well as rulings adverse to a criminal defendant on a double jeopardy defense, among a very few others, belong in this select class. Will v. Hallock, 546 U.S. 345, 350, 126 S.Ct. 952, 163 L.Ed.2d 836 (2006).

Recently, the Supreme Court described the conditions for a collateral appeal as follows:

The justification for immediate appeal must therefore be sufficiently strong to overcome the usual benefits of deferring appeal until litigation concludes.... That a ruling may burden litigants in ways that are only imperfectly reparable by appellate reversal of a final district court judgment ... has never sufficed. Instead, the decisive consideration is whether delaying review until the entry of final judgment would imperil a substantial public interest or some particular value of a high order.

Mohawk Industries, 558 U.S. at 106, 130 S.Ct. 599 (quotations and citations omitted). As a court of appeals, we have been admonished to be wary of the arguments in favor of an immediate appeal: “§ 1291 requires courts of appeals to view claims of a ‘right not to be tried’ with skepticism, if not a jaundiced eye.” Digital Equip., 511 U.S. at 873, 114 S.Ct. 1992.

In order to determine whether this this type of immunity constitutes an immunity from liability or an immunity from suit altogether, federal courts must look to the language of the state statute and the cases construing it. World Trade Ctr., 521 F.3d at 182. Dixie and Georgia-Pacific seek to avoid an adverse judgment in Black’s negligence action by invoking the exclusive remedy provision of the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act, which states that “[i]f an employer secures payment of compensation as required by this chapter, the liability of such employer under this chapter shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability of such employer to the employee.” Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.690(1). That same statutory provision extends the definition of an employer to a “contractor,” which is defined as follows in a separate section of the Act:

(2) A contractor who subcontracts all or any part of a contract ... shall be . liable for the payment of compensation to the employees of the subcontractor unless the subcontractor primarily liable for the payment of such compensation has secured the payment of compensation ... Any contractor ... who shall become liable for such compensation may recover the amount of such compensation, paid and necessary expenses from the subcontractor primarily hable therefor. A person who contracts with another:
(b) To have work performed of a kind which is a regular or recurrent part of the work of the trade, business, occupation, or profession of such person shall for the purposes of this section be deemed a contractor, and such other person a subcontractor.

Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.610.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has described the Act as “a product of compromises by workers and employers” whereby “[w]orkers agree to forego common law remedies in exchange for statutory benefits awarded without regard to fault” and “[e]mployers agree to pay such benefits and to forego common law defenses in exchange for immunity from tort liability.” Labor Ready, Inc. v. Johnston, 289 S.W.3d 200, 204 (Ky. 2009). Likewise, the purpose of so-called “up-the-ladder-immunity” for subcontractors is to

discourage a contractor from subcontracting work that is a regular or recurrent part of its business to an irresponsible subcontractor in an attempt to avoid the expense of workers’ compensation benefits. KRS 342.610(2)(b) accomplishes its purpose by viewing an up-the-ladder contractor as being the employer of an uninsured subcontractor’s employees ... KRS 342.690(1) provides both direct and statutory employers with immunity from tort liability for work-related injuries.

Doctors’ Associates, Inc. v. Uninsured Employers’ Fund, 364 S.W.3d 88, 91 (Ky. 2011) (footnote omitted). In another case, the Kentucky Supreme Court equated “exclusive remedy immunity” with “immunity] from tort liability” in stating the substantive test for up-the-ladder immunity:

[Wjhether an owner is entitled to “exclusive remedy” immunity depends upon whether the worker was injured while performing work that was “of a kind which is a regular or recurrent part of the work of the trade, business, occupation, or profession” of the owner. If so, the owner is immune; if not, the owner is subject to tort liability.

Gen. Elec. Co. v. Cain, 236 S.W.3d 579, 585 (Ky. 2007) (quoting Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.610(2)(b)).

Notably, the relevant statutory provisions speak exclusively in terms of the “liability of [an] employer” as being “exclusive” under the Act, or, alternately, in terms of whether the employer is “liable for the payment of compensation.” In various semantic formulations, the cases cited above echo the statutory language by referring to this type of state law immunity as being immunity from liability. The most recent case to have considered Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.690 — which postdates the Ervin Cable case discussed below- — • termed “one of the purposes of the Act” as “extending] benefits to employees without the need to prove fault, while protecting employers from tort liability.”' Falk v. All. Coal, LLC, 461 S.W.3d 760, 765 (Ky. 2015). Indeed, describing exclusive remedy immunity and up-the-ladder-immunity as immunity from liability appears to be the dominant trend in Kentucky case law. See, e.g., State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Slusher, 325 S.W.3d 318, 322 (Ky. 2010); Davis v. Hensley, 256 S.W.3d 16, 17 (Ky. 2008); Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co. v. Sherman & Fletcher, 705 S.W.2d 459, 464 (Ky. 1986) (describing Ky. Rev. Stat. § 342.690(1) as providing an “exemption from liability”). By contrast, when Kentucky courts speak of the immunity enjoyed by government entities, they uniformly describe that immunity as “immunity from suit.” See, e.g., Comair, Inc. v. Lexington-Fayette Urban Cty. Airport Corp., 295 S.W.3d 91, 94 (Ky. 2009); Caneyville Volunteer Fire Dep’t v. Green’s Motorcycle Salvage, Inc., 286 S.W.3d 790, 805 (Ky. 2009).

Ignoring these precedents, the majority nonetheless selectively characterizes exclusive remedy immunity and up-the-ladder-immunity under Kentucky workers’ compensation law as providing immunity from suit, as opposed to immunity from liability. The majority rests its finding of jurisdiction on the “reality that up-the-ladder immunity insulates contractors from lawsuits, not just liability” — a skewed contention it constructs on the basis of a footnote to a single decision ,of the Kentucky Supreme Court and a decision of the Kentucky Court of Appeals granting an interlocutory appeal from a denial of up-the-ladder immunity. See Beaver v. Oakley, 279 S.W.3d 527, 528 n.1 (Ky. 2009); Ervin Cable Constr., LLC v. Lay, 461 S.W.3d 422, 424 (Ky. Ct. App. 2015). It purports to find further support for its holding in a policy argument about the efficiency of foregoing litigation altogether in exchange for workers’ compensation benefits, which appears rooted more in its own ideas about how a ■workers’ compensation program should work than in the language of the Kentucky statute or what Kentucky cases actually say the legislation is designed to achieve.

Although the classification of up-the-ladder immunity as “immunity from suit” seems mostly not to have taken hold, the majority is thus quick to seize on a few instances in which Kentucky courts have referred to exclusive remedy liability as “immunity from suit” — a term that occasionally appears to have been used interchangeably with “immunity from liability” — and cites a single mention of “absolute immunity” in a lone case of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, Ervin Cable. Beaver, for instance, discussed whether a construction manager could be “considered a contractor and qualify for up-the-ladder immunity from tort liability,” and added an explanatory footnote stating that “[i]n Kentucky, ‘up-the-ladder immunity’ refers to a contractor’s immunity from tort lawsuits where the plaintiff was injured at work and workers’ compensation benefits are the plaintiffs exclusive remedy under Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 342.690.” Beaver, 279 S.W.3d at 528, 528 n.1 (emphasis added).

The majority treats the case of Ervin Cable as dispositive authority for the fact that Kentucky “treats” the liability in question as immunity from suit, thus trumping the statute and all other cases discussing up-the-ladder immunity. In Ervin Cable, the only Kentucky case to have described this type of immunity as “absolute immunity,” the Kentucky Court of Appeals found a denial of up-the-ladder immunity subject to direct appeal in the state courts. See 461 S.W.3d at 423. That decision cited the footnote in Beaver referring to “immunity from tort lawsuits”— although it later described Beaver as concerning immunity from liability — to support a description of exclusive remedy liability as “absolute immunity” entitling the defendant corporation to an interlocutory appeal from a denial of summary judgment. Ervin Cable, 461 S.W.3d at 424. Its discussion of appellate jurisdiction was extremely brief, and did not cite any Kentucky case law on workers’ compensation immunity, instead relying exclusively on a case involving a defendant performing governmental functions:

Ordinarily, a trial court’s order denying summary judgment is not immediately reviewable on appeal since such an order is considered interlocutory. However, in this case Ervin Cable moved for summary judgment on grounds of absolute immunity, the denial of which is subject to immediate appeal since immunity is designed to free the possessor not only from liability, but also from the costs of defending an action. Breathitt County Bd. of Educ. v. Prater, 292 S.W.3d 883 (Ky. 2009). In other words, the denial of a substantial claim of immunity is an exception to the finality rule that interlocutory orders are not immediately ap-pealable. Id. As a result, this court has jurisdiction to address Ervin Cable’s claim that the trial court improperly denied its motion for summary judgment.

Id. at 423.

Ervin Cable was decided six years after Beaver, and the Kentucky Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on whether Kentucky courts allow interlocutory appeals of denial of up-the-ladder immunity. A sole decision from a state intermediate appellate court allowing an interlocutory appeal under state procedures should not obviate the necessary analysis of the statutory language and case law, which should guide this Court’s inquiry. See World Trade Ctr., 521 F.3d at 182 (“[w]e therefore caution against placing too much emphasis on state appellate procedures ... we need only consider the statutory language, if any, of each defense, and the cases construing the defense”). Because even a cursory review of Kentucky law fails to establish that Kentucky confers upon statutory employers immunity from suit, as opposed to merely immunity from liability, up-the-ladder immunity does not satisfy the requirement of effective unreviewability that is a precondition to our hearing any interlocutory appeal. See Estate of Owensby v. City of Cincinnati, 414 F.3d 596, 605 (6th Cir. 2005) (“[wjhere statutory immunity protects defendants from liability, as opposed to suit, denial of such immunity is not ‘effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment’ ”).

Relying heavily on Ervin Cable, Dixie and Georgia-Pacific argue that “[bjecause this is a diversity jurisdiction lawsuit, the law of the forum state, Kentucky, controls. Significantly, Kentucky law recognizes and permits an immediate appeal of a denial of the same immunities raised by Dixie in this case — an appeal prior to the entry of final judgment.” (Defs.’ Br. at 46.) This argument obscures the fact that our analysis of our own jurisdiction is concerned solely with principles of federal law — an issue on which a sole decision of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, assessing its jurisdiction under state law, is anything but dispositive. See Budinich, 486 U.S. at 198-99, 108 S.Ct. 1717.

The majority attempts to bolster its jurisdictional finding by citing a number of cases in which various courts of appeals granted interlocutory appeals to private defendants. However, all such cases entailed much stronger claims to genuine immunity from suit, and much more persuasive justifications for relieving an appellant from the burdens of litigation. Several other circuits have found denials of motions brought pursuant to state anti-SLAPP statutes to be immediately appeal-able. See, e.g., DC Comics v. Pac. Pictures Corp., 706 F.3d 1009 (9th Cir. 2013). “SLAPP” stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation” or “strategic litigation against public participation”; state anti-SLAPP statutes provide defendants named “as a result of the exercise of their constitutional rights to petition the government” with “procedural and substantive defenses meant to prevent merit-less suits from imposing significant litigation costs and chilling protected speech.” Godin v. Schencks, 629 F.3d 79, 81 (1st Cir. 2010). The essential purpose of these statutes is, as the California Supreme Court put it, to vindicate the “right not to be dragged through the courts because you exercised your constitutional rights.” Liberty Synergistics Inc. v. Microflo Ltd., 718 F.3d 138, 147 (2d Cir. 2013) (quoting Varian Med. Sys., Inc. v. Delfino, 35 Cal.4th 180, 193, 25 Cal.Rptr.3d 298, 106 P.3d 958 (2005)). Because stopping retaliatory or chilling litigation in its tracks is clearly both the purpose of and the remedy provided by these statutes, it is only natural that they be regarded as conferring immunity from suit — and accordingly subject to collateral appeal.

McMahon v. Presidential Airways, Inc., 502 F.3d 1331 (11th Cir. 2007), also relied upon by the majority, is of no greater help. McMahon granted an interlocutory appeal to a defendant private military contractor; extending the reasoning of cases establishing governmental immunity from tort suits by soldiers for service related-injuries, the court held that the contractor had “stated a substantial claim to a true immunity from suit” because “the litigation process itself’ — including depositions and trial testimony — “could conceivably cause intolerable interference with ... sensitive military judgments.” Id. at 1340. This is nothing new, and no more than the precedents of this Court and the Supreme Court require; in an unpublished opinion, we summarized the collateral order doctrine as “permit[ting] interlocutory appeals from denials of substantial claim[s] of absolute immunity in circumstances where the party claiming immunity seeks avoidance of a trial that would imperil a substantial public interest.” Delawder v. Platinum Fin. Servs. Corp., 189 Fed.Appx. 369, 370 (6th Cir. 2006) (quotations and citations omitted).

No such strong claim to immunity from suit, nor so compelling a justification from relieving the defendants from the burdens of litigation' — in which they have participated for the past eight years — exists in this case. Citing only highly inapposite Supreme Court cases and no Kentucky cases whatsoever, Dixie and Georgia-Pacific assert in their reply brief that “the immunity legal ruling would be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment ... and the public interest affected is the defendants’ right to be free from trial in exchange for the exclusive remedy of workers’ compensation' — a government-controlled insurance system to protect injured workers.” (Def.’s Reply Br. at 7.) This is just the sort of avoidance-of-trial argument of which we are supposed to be wary, and which has so often been rebuffed over the years. Will instructs that “[tjhose seeking immediate appeal ... naturally argue that any order denying a claim of right to prevail without trial” is effectively unreviewable if not immediately appealed, which is a “generalization ... too easy to be sound and, if accepted, would leave the final order requirement of § 1291 in tatters.” 546 U.S. at 351, 126 S.Ct. 952.

The extreme wariness with which we are to “apply[] ‘the blunt, categorical instrument of [a] § 1291 collateral order appeal’ ” likewise counsels against expanding the class of collaterally appealable orders to include denials of up-the-ladder immunity under Kentucky law. Mohawk Indus., 558 U.S. at 112, 130 S.Ct. 599 (quoting Digital Equip., 511 U.S. at 883, 114 S.Ct. 1992). Thus, the majority opinion suffers as much from errors of methodology as of legal analysis. In rendering an entirely new category of state court orders subject to interlocutory appeal, the. majority fails to be governed by the restraint that our jurisprudence requires. The Supreme Court said it best in Will: “we have meant what we have said; although the Court has been asked many times to expand the ‘small class’ of collaterally appealable orders, we have instead kept it narrow and selective in its membership.” 546 U.S. at 350, 126 S.Ct. 952. I would take the Supreme Court at its word.

      . Black appears to believe, incorrectly, that only governmental defendants are entitled to collateral appeals. Cohen, which concerned the district court's refusal to post security as required for a shareholder derivative action under New. Jersey law, involved private parties. See 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221.

      . Footnote 1 of Beaver was cited by this Court in Dilts v. United Grp. Servs., LLC, 500 Fed.Appx. 440, 449-50 (6th Cir. 2012) and by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in Ervin Cable, 461 S.W.3d at 424.