Opinion ID: 1201862
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: contract for hire

Text: Maguire Tank is not entitled to judgment as a matter of law that Lundstrom made an implied contract for hire with Maguire Tank. A contract for hire is made only if the employee consents to the alleged special employment relationship. Newland, 295 N.W.2d at 618. The burden of proving such consent is on the party invoking the doctrine. Id. For the purpose of this appeal, there is no express contract between Lundstrom and Maguire Tank. The basis for implying consent is the employee's unequivocal acceptance of the detailed control of his work by the special employer, which has been held to exist as a matter of law in only two or three situations in Minnesota. See id. at 635 n. 1; Danek v. Meldrum Mfg. and Eng'g Co., Inc., 312 Minn. 404, 252 N.W.2d 255, 259-60 (1977). The first is when a labor broker is the general employer, e.g., Danek, 252 N.W.2d at 259-60, but Maguire Tank concedes that Truck Crane is not a labor broker. The second is when the general employer effectively functioned as a labor broker, e.g., Miller v. Federated Mut. Ins. Co., 264 N.W.2d 631, 634 (Minn. 1978), but that is not the case here, either. As a third possible situation, Maguire Tank argues that acceptance of detailed control has been held to exist as a matter of law in cases involving the operation of cranes. The two cases Maguire Tank offers as examples are Nepstad v. Lambert, 235 Minn. 1, 50 N.W.2d 614 (1951), and Teska v. Potlatch Corp., 184 F.Supp.2d 913 (D.Minn.2002). Nepstad is not controlling because it applied Wisconsin law. See Nepstad, 50 N.W.2d at 620. Teska was a federal district court decision that relied heavily on Nepstad and that made no reference to Rademaker v. Archer Daniels Midland Co., 310 Minn. 240, 247 N.W.2d 28 (1976), which emphasized the importance of consent. See Teska, 184 F.Supp.2d at 927-929. Although Nepstad and Teska discuss, and are cited for, the second and third elements of the loaned servant doctrine, neither case discussed the consent requirement. Even if they can be read as consistent with Minnesota law by assuming that their silence regarding the element of consent indicates that they implied the employee's consent to the special employment relationship as a matter of law, these cases do not aid Maguire Tank. They are unavailing because the level of control exercised in Nepstad and Teska is substantially dissimilar to any control that may have been exercised in this case. See Nepstad, 50 N.W.2d at 622-23 (Detailed authoritative control must be distinguished from mere designation of work or suggestions made incident to encouraging cooperation. . . .); Teska, 184 F.Supp.2d at 929. In both of those cases, the crane operators were loaned servants as a matter of law while they made blind lifts, during which they moved the crane exactly and only as instructed by the special employer. See Teska, 184 F.Supp.2d at 929; see also Nepstad, 50 N.W.2d at 617. Maguire Tank has not alleged that it actually controlled or directed Lundstrom's actions as an oiler, much less that any actual control was similar enough in degree to that exercised in Nepstad and Teska to warrant applying those cases here. The importance of actual indicia of consent is shown in Rademaker, 310 Minn. 240, 247 N.W.2d 28, in which the Supreme Court of Minnesota remanded for a determination whether Rademaker's work as a steamfitter on a construction project under the exclusive control of another employer for about a year and a half demonstrated consent to a special employment relationship. Id. at 29, 32. Even on those facts, the court refused to imply consent as a matter of law because that is not warranted when the general employer, as here, is a contractor offering a service. In cases such as this one, there must be actual indicia of consent. Id. Lundstrom worked for little more than one day and, more importantly, took no instructions from any Maguire Tank employee regarding how to do his job. As noted earlier, Smith does not recall even talking to Lundstrom during the job. If Rademaker did not impliedly consent as a matter of law to a special employment relationship, neither did Lundstrom.