Opinion ID: 1544149
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Coal Hustlers

Text: A coal `hustler' is understood to be a person employed to carry coal, unloaded by the coal dealer, to the consumer's coal bin. The source of his engagement and payment of compensation usually will determine his status as an employee. If employed and paid by the consumer (although the latter may ask the coal dealer to select and send the man) he is engaged in employment that is casual as to the consumer and not in the usual course of business of the latter, and is not an employee under the District of Columbia Workmen's Compensation Act. If employed and paid by the coal dealer by whom he is engaged he is covered by the Act as an `employee' although the dealer may charge the cost to the consumer. Coal hustlers are not employed by appellants but by appellants' customers, and in the dealings between the hustlers and the appellants, the latter act only as the agents of the customers. The opinion of the appellee, so far as it states that If employed and paid by the coal dealer by whom he [a coal hustler] is engaged he is covered by the Act as an `employee' although the dealer may charge the cost to the consumer, is erroneous and is causing great pecuniary loss to the appellants since they are required to carry compensation insurance upon said hustlers. Upon these allegations the bill prays for a declaratory judgment that a coal hustler, being a person employed to carry coal, unloaded by the coal dealer, to the consumer's bin, is not such an employee of said coal dealer as is required to be covered and protected by the insurance necessary to be carried by employers under the provisions of the District of Columbia Workmen's Compensation Act, [D.C.Code (1929) tit. 19, §§ 11, 12, 33 U.S.C.A. § 901, note; 33 U.S.C.A. § 901 et seq.,] although the dealer, at the request of his customer, obtains for such customer the services of a coal hustler, and, at the request of such customer, advances for such customer, and charges to his account, the sum earned by the coal hustler in carrying coal, delivered by the dealer, to the bin of the customer. The motion to dismiss, summarized, embodied two grounds: (1) that the bill reveals no actual controversy between the parties as required by the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act; (2) that the only jurisdiction that the trial court has in compensation matters is over compensation orders where the deputy commissioner either grants or denies compensation in a particular case to an allegedly injured employee, and the instant case does not involve such an order. In sustaining the motion to dismiss the trial court ruled in favor of the appellee on both of these grounds. It will be necessary, however, to discuss only the first in this opinion, and we make no ruling upon the second. We think the trial court correctly granted the motion to dismiss. The Declaratory Judgment Act, 48 Stat. 955, as amended, 49 Stat. 1027, 28 U.S.C. § 400  (1934), 28 U.S.C.A. § 400, provides, so far as here material: In cases of actual controversy . . . the courts of the United States shall have power upon petition, declaration, complaint, or other appropriate pleadings to declare rights and other legal relations of any interested party petitioning for such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be prayed, and such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and be reviewable as such. The Act does not attempt to change the essential requisites for the exercise of judicial power. By its terms, it applies to `cases of actual controversy,' a phrase which must be taken to connote a controversy of a justiciable nature, thus excluding an advisory decree upon a hypothetical state of facts. Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 325, 56 S.Ct. 466, 473, 80 L.Ed. 688, 1936. The bill of complaint in the instant case sets forth no actual controversy within the meaning of the Federal decisions defining that phrase. It sets forth at best a difference of opinion between the appellants and the appellee. It is not alleged that the appellee has taken, or that he intends to take, action harmful to the appellants. While it is alleged generally that the appellants are by reason of the opinion required to carry compensation insurance, it is not asserted that the appellee is imposing or threatening to impose this requirement, nor is it made to appear that under the Employees' Compensation Act he has authority so to do. There is furthermore no allegation that the appellee has made any claim that his opinion is being disregarded by any of the appellants or that the appellants have ever been in violation of the law as set forth in the opinion  even before its issuance. In United States v. West Virginia, 295 U.S. 463, 55 S.Ct. 789, 79 L.Ed. 1546, 1935, the United States, in its bill of complaint, alleged that the New and Kanawha rivers running through West Virginia were one continuous interstate stream constituting navigable waters of the United States, that the United States had built dams on the Kanawha River for the purpose of improving navigation and was engaged in construction work on additional dams thereon and had in contemplation construction of a reservoir on the New River for the purpose of flood control, production of power, and in aid of navigation; that the corporate defendants, to wit, certain power companies, with the permission of the State of West Virginia, were building a dam upon the New and Kanawha rivers at Hawks Nest which would obstruct navigation and that they were doing so without the consent of the appropriate Federal authorities; that the State of West Virginia challenged the claim of the United States that the rivers were navigable and asserted that it had a right superior to that of the United States to license the use of the rivers for the production and sale of hydro-electric power and denied the right of the United States to require a license for the construction and operation of the power company dam. Sustaining motions to dismiss the bill, the Supreme Court said: But the bill alleges no act or threat of interference by the State with the navigable capacity of the rivers, or with the exercise of the authority claimed by the United States. . . . It alleges only that the State has assented to the construction of the dam by its formal permit, under which the corporate defendants are acting. There is no allegation that the State is participating or aiding in any way in the construction of the dam or in any interference with navigation . . .; or, indeed, that the State proposes to grant other licenses, or to take any other action in the future.