Opinion ID: 1709176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: case gloss

Text: To us, as to this Court in Burt, [t]he language of the statute    is    very plain that the statutory employer provision requires (1) an injury in the execution under the contractor of any work, and (2) the work to be undertaken by the principal. But the cases which have considered this section of the WDCA, including Burt itself, have added reasoning peculiar to the cases considered and not directly relevant to the simple reading of this statutory provision. In Burt, supra, 222 Mich 704, for example, after concluding that the language of the statute is very plain, this Court observed: The Munising Woodenware Company could not successfully make woodenware with defective boilers. It was just as much a part of its business to keep its boilers in repair as it was to make woodenware. The language of the statute is broad enough to make it liable. Unless Burt was setting up a rule to exclude ultra vires acts, it is difficult to conclude that the comment that it was necessary to keep its boilers in repair to manufacture its product had anything to do with whether or not the plaintiff was injured in the execution    under the contractor    of any work undertaken by the principal. The principal either undertook the work or it did not. Cf. Elliott v Smith, 47 Mich App 236, 242; 209 NW2d 425 (1973), lv den 390 Mich 767 (1973). The fact that the work undertaken, the repair of a boiler, was necessary to keep the manufacturing business going is only incidental. Suppose the principal had not undertaken with the company who made the repairs to do the job  that the company by mistake or otherwise just acted without any undertaking. Would the Munising Woodenware Company be liable for workers' compensation benefits for an injured employee of a company which made the repairs without any undertaking? To ask the question is to answer it. The critical requirement is that there be an undertaking. The next question is, if there must be an undertaking, must the undertaking also be a part of the principal's business? There certainly is not a single word in the statutory provision that requires such a conclusion. That is not to say that such a conclusion is not a logical limitation, but it is not one specified in the statute. However, if instead of the contractor repairing a company boiler, it repaired, at the company president's request, the boiler in the house of a friend of the president, there might be some reasonable argument that the work was not undertaken by the principal, i.e., the company. Of course, the Burt opinion reveals why this Court indulged in the part of its business test. This Court used it to quash an argument by counsel for the insurer that: `Unless the contractor in question has taken over some job which has been undertaken by the principal, or which normally or naturally would have been done by the principal himself, unless it thus assumes a part of the very business of the principal, the statute is not to apply.' (Emphasis added.) 222 Mich 703-704. Note that counsel for the insurer in the instant case, as in Burt, relies on the words and phrases emphasized which are found nowhere in the statute, but which were introduced into consideration exclusively by the ingenuity of counsel. The long and short of it is that this Court in Burt was able to put this exotic and extremely limiting argument by counsel for the insurer to rest with a practical, common sense argument outside the statute that did no violence to that case. Unfortunately this argument later provided to be the germ for less felicitous analysis. A number of cases decided subsequent to Burt specifically employed the part of the work analysis. Rinebold v Bray, 248 Mich 321, 326; 227 NW 712 (1929), held that the trucking of pipe by a contractor was part of the work undertaken by the principal oil driller. However, compensation was denied because at the time of injury the employee was deviating from the work undertaken. DeWitt v Grand Rapids Fuel Co, 346 Mich 209, 216; 77 NW2d 759 (1956), not only employed the Burt part of the work rule but interpolated the facts of its case into the Burt part of the work sentences. In DeWitt, the contractor repaired a conveyor used in the principal's coal retailing business. Compensation was granted. In Karvonen v Stankovich, 357 Mich 96; 97 NW2d 715 (1959), a paper manufacturer principal engaged a contractor to deliver pulpwood. The plaintiff employee of the contractor fell off a load of wood and was injured. The Stankovich Court specifically referred to Burt and the part of the business test: [8] That the conduct of the defendant's business involved the procuring of pulpwood suitable for the manufacture of paper is obvious. The question at issue is whether in connection with its operations it engaged [undertook] Stankovich [the contractor] to perform a function constituting a part thereof. 357 Mich 100. This Court concluded that the paper company, through an involved, three-party contract, had undertaken to have Stankovich perform work, comparing the case of Heyman v Volkman, 326 Mich 179; 40 NW2d 110 (1949), see infra. In four other cases, the plaintiffs recovered benefits, and there was no discussion of the part of the work rule at all. In Nowacki v Escanaba Mfg Co, 229 Mich 675; 203 NW 64 (1925), the contractor worked in the woods, and the principal manufactured wood products. In Aukstales v Klotz, 280 Mich 355; 273 NW 597 (1937), the contractor snowplowed a logging road; the nature of the principal's business was unclear. In Harris v Fry & Kain, 306 Mich 1; 9 NW2d 902 (1943), the contractor was a construction contractor, and the principal was a bank which had undertaken the laying of a drain across some of its property. In Heyman v Volkman, supra, the contractor was cutting timber and delivering it to the principal sawmill operator. The conclusion to be drawn from all these cases is that even if there is to be an ancillary part of the work test in addition to whether the work was undertaken, the rule does not loom significant in all cases, and when it is used, it is construed broadly to cover almost anything but an ultra vires act. In reaching this conclusion, it must be noted that there is one aberrant case, Roman v Delta Broadcasting Co, 334 Mich 669; 55 NW2d 147 (1952). The first thing to note about Roman is that there was no admission or showing in the record, that [the contractor] was, at the time in question, not subject to the workmen's compensation act. This is a prerequisite. In other words, strictly speaking the case is dictum as far as setting up a test for statutory employers is concerned. However, since defendant and the WCAB relied heavily on the purported test in Roman, we consider it. The pertinent facts in Roman were that the defendant principal broadcasting company contracted with an uninsured independent contractor for whom the injured employee worked to take down its radio tower. The Roman Court denied the plaintiff recovery when the plaintiff's decedent was killed in executing the work. The Roman Court reasoned: [D]efendant's liability as principal under the mentioned act would depend on its having contracted with John, the contractor, `for the execution by or under the contractor of the whole or any part of any work undertaken by the principal.' Defendant was engaged in the broadcasting business. It was not in the business of and did not undertake the work of razing a radio tower. 334 Mich 671. Roman was wrongly decided for two reasons. First, there is no question but that the work was undertaken by the principal: [T]he commission made a finding of fact, supported by some competent evidence, that John [the contractor] entered into a contract with defendant to take down its radio tower. Id., 670. Second, even under the part of its business test, it is specious reasoning to conclude that a broadcasting company's razing of its tower is not part of its business where unquestionably the raising of its tower would be part of its business (see Burt and DeWitt), unless this Court wants to pry into the business judgment of the broadcasting company and second-guess whether it should or should not have taken down the tower or for that matter have put it up in the first place. It is inconceivable that the Legislature intended to enact a statute requiring the courts or administrative agencies to make such judgments. Woody v American Tank Co, 49 Mich App 217, 230; 211 NW2d 666 (1973), lv den 391 Mich 766 (1974), in an opinion written by former Justice O'HARA, held that where a city contracted with the American Tank Company to disassemble an old water tower prior to selling the land on which the tower stood, the plaintiff employee of American Tank Company who was injured in the execution of the work was entitled to compensation from the principal city. The opinion recognized the part of its business test and the authority of Burt as contrasted with Roman. [9] To conclude, even if we accept the case gloss of part of its work upon the statutory test of undertaken by the principal, if the principal in the instant case did indeed undertake with Lang, the contractor, to run a full service gasoline station including repair work, then the plaintiff is entitled to recover.