Case Title: Nelson v. Eidal Trailer Co.

Citation: 270 P.2d 720, 58 N.M. 314

Docket Number: 

State: new-mexico

Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Date: 1954-05-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
270 P.2d 720 (1954) 58 N.M. 314 NELSON et al. v. EIDAL TRAILER CO. et al. No. 5618. Supreme Court of New Mexico. May 18, 1954. *721 Hannett & Hannett, W.S. Lindamood, Albuquerque, for appellants. Simms, Modrall, Seymour, Simms & Sperling, George T. Harris, Jr., Albuquerque, for appellees. SADLER, Justice. The plaintiffs, James H. Nelson and Emma Nelson, who are appellants in this Court, seek the review of a judgment of the district court of Bernalillo County denying them workmen's compensation for the death of their son, Tommy Nelson, said to have resulted from injuries suffered by him while in the employ of the defendant, Eidal Trailer Company, hereinafter referred to as the Trailer Company. Its insurer, Mountain States Mutual Casualty Company, is joined as a defendant. They claim exemption from liability, contending that decedent, at the time of his death, was in the employ of Albert H. Kaiser, an independent contractor, thus denying compensation for his death as an employee of the defendant. Having found the facts favorably to the claim of defendants, the trial court rendered judgment against plaintiffs and dismissed their complaint. The present appeal is prosecuted from that judgment. At the time of decedent's death the defendant, the Trailer Company, a New Mexico corporation, having its principal place of business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was engaged in the manufacture of trailers of a type which permitted their loading on a large semi-trailer to be delivered to the ultimate consumer by means of the semi-trailer and a tractor truck. A contract existed between the Trailer Company and Albert H. Kaiser under which the latter was to receive a flat fee for the loading of small pole trailers upon a large flat bed trailer, on which the small trailers were to be transported and delivered by the Trailer Company to their destination. In the performance of his contract Kaiser hired and himself paid such men as he considered necessary for performance of the work of loading the trailers. Neither the Trailer Company, nor its agents or employees, directed or were authorized to direct the method of loading the trailers. On June 29, 1951, at or near the Trailer Company's place of business in Albuquerque, Tommy Nelson, son of the plaintiffs, sustained personal injuries which resulted in his death on July 9, 1951. In the course of Kaiser's performance of his contract with the Trailer Company, he engaged the services of a helper by employing one Clarence Moore. Shortly prior to June 29, 1951, Kaiser requested Moore to load such trailers as it might become necessary to load during a period of time he planned to be absent from Albuquerque. Pursuant to this request on Moore so made by Kaiser, the former on June 29, 1951, undertook to load some trailers. Still moving in compliance with the request made upon him by Kaiser, which also embraced instructions to assemble and direct a crew of from two to three men in loading the trailers, Moore requested Tommy Nelson to assist when necessary in the loading of the trailers. It was pursuant to this request on Moore by Kaiser that Tommy Nelson accompanied Moore to the premises of the Trailer Company on June 29, 1951. In doing the work he did, Moore was an employee of Albert Kaiser. Tommy Nelson, if he was ever employed by anyone, was likewise an employee of Kaiser, but neither Moore nor Kaiser, or Nelson were employees of Eidal Trailer Company or Eidal Manufacturing Company. Furthermore, the said Albert Kaiser not only was not an employee of Eidal Trailer Company, but rather was an independent contractor engaged in the performance of an independent contract under his agreement with Eidal Trailer Company. And by the same token none of Kaiser's employees, including Tommy Nelson, son of the plaintiffs, on account of whose death this claim for compensation is prosecuted, were employees of Eidal Trailer Company. The court, having found the foregoing facts, concluded as a matter of law that *722 the agreement under which Kaiser loaded trailers manufactured by Eidal Trailer Company was not a contract of employment between the two; that rather it gave Kaiser the status of an independent contractor in his relationship to Eidal Trailer Company, thus denying him character as an agent, servant, or employee of the Trailer Company. The court further concluded that by the same token and for the same reason, Tommy Nelson was not an employee of Eidal Trailer Company within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act of the State of New Mexico. 1941 Comp. § 57-901 et seq. Hence, as the court went on to conclude, at the time of his injuries, neither he while living nor his survivors were entitled to any benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Act of the State of New Mexico. The findings and conclusions left the court but one alternative which was to dismiss the complaint seeking compensation. It is from that order that this appeal is prosecuted. It is apparent from the findings made that the proper conclusions of law were deduced, putting us right back to a determination of sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings. Counsel for the plaintiffs present a vigorous challenge on this very point, strongly urging that we should hold as a matter of law on the evidence adduced that Kaiser was an employee and, for the same reason, that the decedent was an employee. Much of the evidence is set out in the plaintiff's brief and if it could be accepted at its face value there would be no question of our right and duty to pronounce the contract under which Kaiser operated one of employment. There is not room to doubt, had the court accepted it as a basis for findings to that effect, it would have afforded ample support for them. The trouble with declaring such a result here, however, is that there is other evidence by defendants which directly conflicts with that relied upon by plaintiffs and it is this testimony which the trial court saw fit to accept on the factual issue presented. Having so ruled, there is only one inquiry to which we need seek an answer, namely, whether the evidence presented by defendants supports the findings made. There can be but a single answer to that inquiry and it is that it does. Indeed, the evidence as a whole presents the situation often confronting us, viz., where the evidence is such that it would have supported findings either way on the decisive factual issue. In the main the conflicting testimony, on the resolving of which in favor of defendants, the trial court based its findings, came from Albert H. Kaiser, with whom defendants contracted for the loading of the trailers on semi-trailers, witness for the plaintiffs, and one Clyde Mineau, former manager for the Trailer Company, testifying in its behalf. A fair sample of Kaiser's testimony on the subject follows: Continuing on cross-examination, Kaiser testified: And as a fair sample of Mineau's testimony, we quote the following, to-wit: Continuing on cross-examination, Mineau testified: On redirect examination the witness Mineau testified: On recross-examination the witness Mineau testified as follows: It was on the conflict reflected by the portions of the testimony quoted from the two witnesses mentioned that the trial court based its findings. One cannot doubt the sufficiency of the evidence to support the decisive finding made that the witness, Kaiser, was an independent contractor, rather than an employee of the Trailer Company. It follows as the night the day that, as the trial court stated in its findings, if Tommy Nelson was an employee of anyone, he was an employee of Kaiser whose employee, Moore, engaged his services, and was responsible for his pay. We can arrive at no other conclusion under the evidence. Applying the controlling law, then, to the findings made, we must still determine whether the terms of the arrangement between the Trailer Company and Kaiser make him an employee, or an independent contractor instead, as the trial court ruled in the conclusions of law announced. A leading case on the subject in our past decisions is that of Burruss v. B.M.C. Logging Co., 38 N.M. 254, 31 P.2d 263, upon which counsel for the plaintiffs place chief reliance. This is explainable, no doubt, for the reason that the workman, who was accidentally killed, was held to be an "employee" within the protection of the Workmen's Compensation Act, rather than an "independent contractor," and a judgment in favor of his widow was affirmed. A contrary result in Bland v. Greenfield Gin Co., 48 N.M. 166, 146 P.2d 878, may likewise explain the effort of plaintiff's counsel to distinguish that case after citing it. A reading and study of the two cases satisfies us that the facts of the present case conform more nearly to those dealt with in the Bland case than they do with those made decisive in the Burruss case. In the latter case, to point out some of the factual differences between that case and this one, the workman was under the direction of a boss or superintendent, the defendant retained the superintendency of the operations and the logs were loaded onto the truck of the deceased by the servants and employees of the defendant. We called attention in that opinion to the fact that there is no single or sure criterion affording a test of when the relationship is that of employee and when that of an independent contractor. "A fact found controlling in one combination may have a minor importance in another", states Mr. Justice Watson writing for the court. [38 N.M. 254, 31 P.2d 264.] We went on to say: We think the case of Bland v. Greenfield Gin Co., supra, discloses facts more nearly parallel to those here involved than does the Burruss case. We there overturned as not supported by substantial evidence, the basic finding that under the agreement between the deceased and defendant the latter retained full control of his performance under the contract. We held the relationship shown was that of an independent contractor and reversed and remanded a judgment in claimant's favor and directed a dismissal of the complaint. The gist of our holding is summarized in paragraph three of the syllabus, where it is said: Our opinion in the Bland case quotes approvingly from the Illinois case of Ferguson & Lange Foundry Co. v. Industrial Commission, 346 Ill. 632, 179 N.E. 86, 87, where the facts conform themselves strongly to those here present. The Illinois Supreme Court in that case said: We can almost paraphrase the facts of the case at bar for those recited in the opinion just quoted from, as so aptly summarized by counsel for defendants in their answer brief, to-wit: See, also, De Palma v. Weinman, 15 N.M. 68, 103 P. 782, 24 L.R.A.,N.S., 423; Sucetti v. Jones' Estate, 38 N.M. 327, 32 P.2d 815; Massey v. Poteau Trucking Co., 221 Ark. 589, 254 S.W.2d 959; Annotation in 75 A.L.R. 725, under subject "Tests in determining whether one is an independent contractor"; Annotation in 120 A.L.R. 1031 under subject, "Teamsters or truckman as independent contractor or employee under workmen's compensation acts." The trial court did not err in holding that Kaiser was an independent contractor thus making of the decedent an employee of his and not of Eidal Trailer Company. The findings on which such conclusion was reached are based on substantial evidence and they in turn support the judgment rendered. It follows that it should be affirmed and It is so ordered. >McGHEE, C.J., and COMPTON and LUJAN, JJ., concur. SEYMOUR, J., not participating.