Court Opinion

ID: 9616013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:42:37.385977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:30.367227
License: Public Domain

SLOAN, J.,
dissenting.
The variance between this case and the ultimate facts and reasons stated for decision in Wallowa Valley Stages v. Oregonian, 1963, 235 Or 594, 386 P2d 430, are so slight that one could merely change the names and some minor differences in the facts related in the Wallowa opinion, and that opinion would decide this ease. A different result is reached in this case *388by shifting the emphasis, not because of material difference in the evidence.
Quotation of two of the crucial, decisional paragraphs of the Wallowa, Valley Stages opinion will serve as an example. The bracketed statements refer to the evidence in this case:
“The jury was not bound to take the wholesale-retail [company-broker] language of the written contract at face value.① It was entitled to look beyond the written instrument and draw from the evidence its own inferences concerning the behavior of the parties. The jury was likewise entitled to draw upon common knowledge and experience in evaluating the testimony. It could, for example, take into consideration the publisher’s interest in cultivating the circulation of its newspaper as a valuable asset to sell to advertisers. [It could, for example, take into consideration the company’s interest in expanding sales as a means of increasing profits]. Thus the jury could infer that the reason Badgett [Conner] was frequently visited by circulation representatives was because the newspaper management was exercising some degree of control over the distribution of the papers to the subscribers. [The reasons that Conner was required to make daily visits to the sales manager was to receive instruction and to enable defendant to exercise some degree of control over his activities.] We do not hold that the amount of supervision exercised in the ease at bar was sufficient to constitute Badgett [Conner] an employee as a matter of law. Neither can we hold that Badgett [Conner] was an independent contractor as a matter of law. We hold that there was evidence from which the jury could draw its own inferences on the matter.
“The law generally contains no policy against *389the subcontracting of all or part of the operations of an industry to independent parties. Whether such contractors are financially able to protect the public from losses caused by their negligence is, theoretically at least, a matter of indifference, if they are truly independent. Where, however, an enterprise in an integral part of its operation makes regular use of the services of individuals over whom it reserves absolute economic control, i.e., the right to hire and fire virtually at will, [Conner could be fired at defendant’s will] a jury can find that such service personnel are subordinates. See Fleming v. Ambulance Co., 155 Or at 360, and authorities cited. This is so even though between the parties performing the services are characterized as contractors.” 235 Or at 602, 603.
The same interpolation could be done with all of the factual statements in the Wallowa Valley Stages opinion.
The last quoted paragraph is particularly appropriate to the evidence in this ease and should be applied. The directed verdict should not have been granted.

 In the instant case the contract, in addition to the typical blackface language excluding any employer-employee relationship contains “small print” whose purpose was to control the salesman. The sales manager so testified.