Opinion ID: 767339
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: District of Columbia Law

Text: 26 Under District of Columbia law, an employee is every person . . . in the service of another under any contract of hire or apprenticeship, written or implied, in the District of Columbia. D.C. Code Ann. 36-301(9)(1981). 27 Makarova satisfied this definition. She is a person, who was in the service of another, performing for the Kennedy Center in the District of Columbia. Makarova was also under a contract of hire, having agreed to play a specific role in On Your Toes for a specific amount of time. 28 The Kennedy Center also qualified as Makarova's employer under the District of Columbia Workers' Compensation Act, because it was an individual, firm, association, or corporation . . . using the service of another for pay. D.C. Code Ann. 36-301(10) (1981). The Kennedy Center was the producer of On Your Toes, and paid Makarova to perform in it. 29 We agree with the district court that Spackman v. D.C. Dep't of Employment, 590 A.2d 515 (D.C. Ct. App. 1991), is inapposite. There, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed a decision of the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services that the plaintiff, a singer in a production of a Mozart opera produced for, but not by, the Washington Opera was an independent contractor. The Washington Opera's relationship with Spackman was crucially different from that between the Kennedy Center and Makarova. Its stage manager and director, themselves independent contractors, not the Washington Opera, controlled and directed the singer's performance. Id. at 517. Spackman was therefore not in the service of the Opera. As we have noted, the Kennedy Center consistently maintained full artistic control over On Your Toes and Makarova. She was thus in the service, and therefore an employee, of the Kennedy Center.