Opinion ID: 1058040
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was the plaintiff an employee?

Text: Tennessee's Workers' Compensation Law defines an employee as every person, including a minor, ... in the service of an employer, ... under any contract of hire or apprenticeship, written or implied. Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-102(10)(A) (2005). We have previously held that [i]n order for one to be an employee of another for purposes of our Worker's Compensation Law, it is ... required that there be an express or implied agreement for the alleged employer to remunerate the alleged employee for his services in behalf of the former. Black v. Dance, 643 S.W.2d 654, 657 (Tenn.1982); see also Garner v. Reed, 856 S.W.2d 698, 701 (Tenn.1993) (the word `hire' denotes payment of some kind). The defendant argues that the plaintiff was not an employee at the time of the accident because there was no contract of hire in place. According to the defendant, there was no contemplated mutual assent and meeting of the minds required to form an enforceable contract in Tennessee. See Davidson v. Holtzman, 47 S.W.3d 445, 453 (Tenn.Ct.App.2000) (an oral agreement is enforceable if there is a mutual assent to the contract's terms and... the terms are sufficiently definite to be enforceable.). The defendant emphasizes the fact that both Jerry Park and Betty Caton testified that a person applying for the hostess position was not allowed to work at the nursing home until that person successfully completed a three-day orientation and therefore could not be an employee until he or she actually came to work at the nursing home. The defendant relies upon Beach v. Schwan's Sales Enter., Inc., No. M1999-00416-WC-R3-CV, 2000 WL 758341 (Tenn.Workers Comp.Panel, June 13, 2000), to support its contention that the plaintiff was not an employee of the defendants at the time of the accident. In Beach, the plaintiff interviewed with the employer, at the end of which the plaintiff was told that the position would be offered to him if he successfully completed `ride day,' the next step in the application process. Id. at . During ride day, the plaintiff accompanied another salesperson on that salesperson's route to observe the interaction between the salesperson and his customers. The plaintiff slipped while stepping out of the truck and was seriously injured. The Workers' Compensation Panel noted that to come under the definition of employee, the plaintiff must prove that, at the time of the injury, there was an expressed or implied agreement that the worker was to be compensated for his services by the alleged employer. Id. (citing Black v. Dance, 643 S.W.2d 654 (Tenn.1982)). The Panel found that [a]lthough it appears from the record that the salesperson whom the claimant was accompanying paid for his lunch on the date of the injury, we find in the record no evidence that he was or expected to be compensated by the employer. Id. As a result, the Panel affirmed the lower court's denial of workers' compensation benefits. The facts of Beach are readily distinguishable from the facts in the case before us. Unlike the plaintiff in Beach, the plaintiff in this case was being paid for her time at orientation. While there is a factual dispute as to whether the plaintiff and Ms. Sheffield were to be paid hour for hour, as the representatives of the defendant testified, or to be paid for half the time spent in training, as the plaintiff and Ms. Sheffield understood, there is no dispute that they were to receive some level of compensation. There was also no dispute that as soon as the orientation was over, the plaintiff was to report to the nursing home to begin her work as a hostess at that facility. The facts of this case are more akin to those in Williams v. Walden Sec., No. M2000-01273-WC-R3-CV, 2001 WL 363070 (Tenn.Workers Comp.Panel, April 12, 2001), in which the Workers' Compensation Panel found that the plaintiff was indeed an employee while undergoing a brief orientation. In Williams, the plaintiff applied for a security position at Nashville Electric Service. He was told that he needed the approval of the representative of N.E.S. prior to commencing work. He received this approval and was instructed to meet with the guard whom he would be replacing to receive training. This orientation process required approximately two hours to complete, for which the plaintiff was not to be paid. During this training, the plaintiff was taken on a walking tour of the facility, at which time he fell, suffering severe injury to his eye. In response to the defendant's argument that the plaintiff was not an employee at the time of the accident, the Panel held that [w]e find in the record nothing which would exclude the claimant and it is clear from the record that the claimant was under a contract of hire at the time of his injury, whether he was paid for his time or not. Id. at . The evidence in the present case makes it clear that the plaintiff was offered a job at the nursing home and that she accepted that job. While she was required to attend three days of orientation before starting in her position as hostess, she was to be paid for this orientation. The orientation was not part of the application process in the way that a test or physical would be part of the application process. See, e.g., Blankenship v. Am. Ordnance Sys., LLS, 164 S.W.3d 350 (Tenn.2005) (back injury suffered while performing a stress test in course of application process was not compensable because plaintiff was not an employee). We hold that the evidence does not preponderate against the trial court's finding that the plaintiff was an employee of the defendant nursing home at the time of the accident.