Title: Nelson v. Bartley
Citation: 222 Or. 361, 352 P.2d 1083
Docket Number: N/A
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: June 8, 1960

Affirmed June 8, 1960.
Robert E. Jones, Portland, argued the cause for *362 appellants. With him on the brief were Engelgau &amp; Jones, Coos Bay.
Winfrid K. Liepe, Portland, argued the cause for the respondents. With him on the brief were Howard K. Beebe and Maguire, Shields, Morrison, Bailey &amp; Kester, Portland, and McKeown, Newhouse &amp; Johansen, Coos Bay.
Before McALLISTER, Chief Justice, and ROSSMAN, PERRY and DUNCAN, Justices.
AFFIRMED.
ROSSMAN, J.
This is an appeal by the plaintiffs who are the widow and five minor children of one Joseph J. Nelson, deceased, from a judgment of the circuit court which dismissed their complaint. The judgment was entered after trial and upon findings of fact. The five minor children appear through their guardian ad litem, the widow. The defendants, who are three in number, constitute a partnership entitled B.P. &amp; S. Logging Company.
The complaint charged the defendants with negligence and averred that the latter caused the death of the aforementioned Joseph J. Nelson. Nelson was not an employee of the partnership. He was employed by a corporation entitled Menasha Plywood Corporation which operated a log dump known as the Menasha log dump. The partnership was engaged under a contract with Menasha in producing logs from timber land owned by Menasha and in delivering the logs to the Menasha log dump. Joseph J. Nelson, as an employee of the Menasha Plywood Corporation, had charge of the log dump. May 7, 1957, one of the defendants' employees, Ernest Shanahan, drove one of *363 their log trucks loaded with logs to the log dump and, while Shanahan and Nelson were performing some work preparatory to the dumping of the logs into the water, one of the logs fell from the truck and caused Nelson's death. This action was instituted against the defendants under the Employer's Liability Act to recover damages. At the beginning of the trial plaintiffs' counsel dictated into the record a stipulation that the defendants and the Menasha Plywood Corporation were employers who were subject to and had accepted the Workmen's Compensation Law of this state.
The answer of the defendants averred that at the time of the fatal injuries the defendants were on premises over which they and the deceased's employer (Menasha Plywood Corporation) had joint supervision and control. It also averred that at that time the defendants and Nelson's employer were engaged upon those premises in the furtherance of a common enterprise and the accomplishment of the same or related purposes. In the stipulation which plaintiffs' counsel dictated into the record at the beginning of the trial it was agreed that:
After the plaintiffs and the defendants had presented all of their evidence the judgment challenged by this appeal was entered.
*364 ORS 656.152 provides:
ORS 656.154 is the section of our laws which governs the issues submitted by this case. At the times material to this case it read:
One of the findings states:
The plaintiffs-appellants submit two assignments of error:
A witness for the defendants, Clifton N. Parrish, who had driven log trucks for many years and who was familiar with the method employed at the Menasha log dump in the unloading of log trucks, gave a detailed description of the method. He also described the manner in which the unloaded log truck was prepared for the return trip to the woods. Parrish's description of those methods is not criticized by the plaintiffs. We will shortly quote it but before doing so we take note of the fact that one of the plaintiffs' witnesses, Arthur Ellsworth Jones, in response to a question propounded to him by plaintiffs' counsel, *366 stated that the description of the manner in which the Menasha log dump was operated, as given by the defendants' witnesses, including Parrish, was correct. We take the following from Jones' testimony:
The evidence indicates without contradiction or challenge that the Menasha log dump was operated in the same manner as all others. Due to Jones' testimony and the fact that the plaintiffs' witnesses did not take to task any part of the testimony of Parrish and of the other witnesses who gave similar testimony we believe that we can depend upon Parrish's description of the manner in which the Menasha log dump was operated as accurate. The following is Parrish's description:
Parrish also testified that at times when he brought a load of logs to the dump Nelson was not present and that thereupon he dumped the logs himself. Other drivers gave similar testimony. We take the following from Parrish's testimony:
The foregoing will suffice as a delineation of the facts.
Cases similar to this one have been before this court upon several occasions in the past. Each has presented as its principal issue: Did the two employers exercise joint supervision and control over the fateful premises and were they engaged there in the furtherance of a common enterprise or related purposes. No two of the cases have been exactly alike, and in the process of reaching decisions this court resorted in part to a comparison of the facts of the case awaiting decision with those of its precedents. In instances in which the defendant is seemingly financially responsible and evidence of his negligence appears to be available it may be tempting to permit the workman to maintain the action, but the section of our laws which we have quoted declares "no action shall be brought" *372 if the defendant and the workman's employer exercised joint supervision and control over the premises or were engaged there in the furtherance of a common enterprise or related purposes.
At the close of the evidence in the case at bar the able circuit court judge, Honorable Dal M. King, rendered his decision orally. The facts were then fresh in his mind. Judge King has served as a pro tempore justice of this court. We believe that his decision constitutes a good analysis of the evidence and constitutes a correct application of ORS 656.154 to the facts. The following is Judge King's decision (we have added citations to the reports):
Since Judge King expressed himself as above this court rendered two more decisions upon the subject matter of ORS 656.154: McGuire v. Brown, 217 Or 300, 342 P2d 774, and Claussen v. Ireland, 216 Or 289, 338 P2d 676. Judge King's decision is in accord with both of those cases.
We believe that the Finding of Fact quoted in a preceding paragraph is well justified by the evidence. It leaves no room for any conclusion except one in accord with that challenged by the appeal.
In our belief Judge King's decision correctly determined the facts and faithfully applied to them the demands of ORS 656.154. We adopt his decision as our own.
The above being our conclusion, it follows that the two assignments of error are dismissed and that the challenged judgment is affirmed.