Opinion ID: 3008418
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: A Brief Take on the Dissent

Text: The Court briefly addresses the dissent’s arguments, but more can be said. The dissent’s chief contention is that lawmakers “expressly tethered” general contractor to other terms that are “commonly understood to mean a person who has contracted with an owner” [79] — like “‘principal contractor,’ ‘original contractor,’ and ‘prime contractor’ . . . all terms that envision a tripartite relationship” among an owner, a general contractor, and subcontractors. [80] The dissent acknowledges the listed terms “are not exhaustive” but concludes, rather conclusorily , that the notion of an owner-contractor “is simply not analogous.” [81] Like the Court, I find the dissent’s argument unpersuasive, for several reasons. First, the dissent cites the “common usage” provision of the Code Construction Act [82] in urging a “commonly understood” reading of general contractor. However, the Act’s very next provision stresses that “common usage” must yield to specific legislative definitions. [83] Thus, “ordinary meanings should be applied only to undefined terms.” [84] The Legislature enacted a specialized definition of general contractor, and in 1989 deleted not only the upstream-contract condition, but also the injunction to interpret the synonyms for general contractor “as those terms are commonly used.” [85] If a statute defines a term, “a court is bound to construe that term by its statutory definition only,” [86] deference that seems especially warranted where, as here, the statute omits an earlier directive to apply common usage. In any case, given the ordinariness of premises owners acting as their own general contractors, [87] I fail to understand the dissent’s outright rejection of “owner contractor” as dissimilar. Second, the dissent looks for support in statutory definitions of “contractor” outside the Workers’ Compensation Act that explicitly mention a third-party requirement. [88] However, none of these cited provisions define general contractor. There exists in Texas statutory law only one definition of this term, Labor Code section 406.121, the provision at issue today. The Act nowhere defines “contractor,” though “independent contractor,” the term most analogous to the non-Act “contractor” provisions cited by the dissent, is defined (immediately below the definition of “general contractor”) as someone “who contracts to perform work or provide a service for the benefit of another .” [89] The definition by its terms requires an upstream relationship, something the “general contractor” definition does not. If anything, the provisions cited by the dissent, and the “independent contractor” definition in the Act itself, only strengthen the Court’s position, showing that the Legislature is adept at including explicit third-party language when it chooses. The fact that the Legislature did not add third-party language here — even more, it subtracted such language — only fortifies the Court’s interpretation. Third, the dissent relies on two of our prior cases to assert we have “recognized for almost a century that a contractor” has a third-party requirement. [90] A careful examination of these cases, however, shows that both cases concern whether an injured worker is an employee or an independent contractor and not whether a premises owner can qualify as a general contractor. [91] Together, the two cases use the phrase “independent contractor” nineteen times and the phrase “general contractor” none at all. The cases are simply inapposite, though again, by focusing on “independent contractor,” they draw attention to the Act’s current definition of that term, one that on its face requires a third-party relationship, unlike the “general contractor” definition that immediately precedes it. Finally, the absence of “owner contractor” from a list the dissent concedes is nonexhaustive [92] (something we must construe liberally) is less notable than the absence of “premises owner” from the Act’s exclusion (something we must construe strictly). The analogous terms seem of a kind and interchangeable, which makes the motor-carriers exclusion seem markedly out of place, suggesting that the definition was otherwise broad enough to capture them. Stated differently, there seemed an awareness that entities beyond the listed terms could fall within the broad definition, but only this narrow class was carved out.