Court Opinion

ID: 9669349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:53:22.506838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:55.815083
License: Public Domain

Stephan, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that under Nebraska law, it is the nature of the employer’s business, and not the work performed by the employee, that determines whether the employer is exempt from the workers’ compensation laws. See Leppert v. Parker, 218 Neb. 63, 352 N.W.2d 180 (1984). However, I cannot accept the majority’s premise that D B Feedyards was engaged in two separate and distinct enterprises, one agricultural and one commercial, differentiated solely by the ownership of the cattle on feed. Nor can I accept the majority’s decision to determine the applicability of the farm or ranch laborer exemption based upon the narrow and irrelevant question of whose steer was being roped at the time of the injury. In my view, all of the employer’s operations fell within the farm or ranch laborer exemption codified at Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-106(2) (Reissue 1998).
The facts in this case bear no semblance to those in prior cases in which we have recognized that an employer may be engaged in two separate enterprises, one agricultural and one commercial. For example, in Bartunek v. Becker, 222 Neb. 126, 129, 382 N.W.2d 300, 301 (1986), cited by the majority, we held that an employer who operated an automobile body shop on a farm which he and his father owned was engaged in “two businesses, one a farming operation which is exempt under [§ 48-106(2)] and the other an auto body shop which is not exempt.” See, also, Brown v. Leavitt Lane Farm, 215 Neb. 522, 340 N.W.2d 4 (1983) (holding employer’s general farming activities on his own land separate *492and distinct business from his unrelated sale of nutrition products); Campos v. Tomoi, 175 Neb. 555, 122 N.W.2d 473 (1963) (indicating employers’ general farming activities on own land separate and distinct business from employers’ custom hay grinding services provided offsite). In all of our prior cases involving the operation of two businesses, there was a discernible separation of the two enterprises. Conversely, however, the record in this case demonstrates that D B Feedyards conducts a single, integrated operation in which its land is cultivated for the production of agricultural crops which are then used on D B Feedyards’ premises to feed animals for livestock production, including animals owned by D B Feedyards and animals owned by others. Under these facts, it is impossible to draw a meaningful distinction between operations performed by D B Feedyards that are related exclusively to its own farming activities, and thus within the exemption, and those operations performed primarily for the benefit of a third-party consumer. To conclude that D B Feedyards is engaged in two separate businesses on these facts, one subject to the exemption and one not, “would tax our powers of distinction to the point of confusion.” Keefover v. Vasey, 112 Neb. 424, 432, 199 N.W. 799, 802 (1924) (concluding question of whether grain thresher was farm laborer could not rest solely upon factual determination of whose grain was being threshed at time of injury). As briefed and argued by the parties, the precise issue presented is whether D B Feedyards was engaged in one business of farming or ranching, or in one commercial enterprise distinct from farming and ranching.
Addressing the issue as presented in this manner, I would conclude that D B Feedyards was engaged in one business of farming and ranching. This is not a case where intensive specialization has transformed an agricultural endeavor into a commercial venture. Our prior case law on this subject is factually distinguishable. In Hawthorne v. Hawthorne, 184 Neb. 372, 167 N.W.2d 564 (1969), we held that an employer engaged solely in custom combining for the public as a regular commercial business was not an employer of farm or ranch laborers within the meaning of § 48-106(2). Similarly, in Campos v. Tomoi, supra, we held that farmers who formed a partnership to perform custom hay grinding for cattle feeders did not fall within the statutory exemption when the *493grinding services were unrelated to the farmers’ day-to-day farming activities and were performed offsite. In both Campos and Hawthorne, the custom services were conducted away from the employers’ premises and involved a single and independent aspect of crop and livestock production, i.e., harvesting grain in Hawthorne and grinding cattle feed in Campos. As noted, in the present case the record discloses a single integrated operation in which land was cultivated for the production of agricultural crops which were then used on D B Feedyards’ premises to feed animals for livestock production, including animals owned by D B Feedyards and animals owned by others which D B Feedyards kept fed on its land. The same land, equipment, and labor are used regardless of who owns the cattle, and D B Feedyards’ activities are not limited solely to the specialized feeding of animals owned by third parties. The essential nature and character of the enterprise operated by D B Feedyards is the same regardless of whether revenue is generated by the sale of its own fattened cattle or from the fees it receives for feeding cattle owned by others. Thus, D B Feedyards’ entire operation constituted farming and ranching, albeit on a scale which was probably not envisioned by the Legislature when it enacted the farm laborer exemption in 1913 and added the ranch laborer exemption in 1945.
Based on the above, I would conclude that D B Feedyards was engaged in the business of farming and ranching and that it hired Larsen to perform tasks generally associated with that enterprise. Accordingly, it was an employer of farm or ranch laborers within the meaning of § 48-106(2) and not subject to the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act.
Moreover, in my opinion, the fact-intensive nature of the present inquiry into the applicability of the farm or ranch laborer exemption benefits neither employers nor employees, and our prior case law on the subject has done little to clarify the parameters of the exemption. Although none of our prior case law has recognized it, since Initiative Measure No. 300 was adopted by the people of Nebraska in 1982, the Nebraska Constitution has defined “farming or ranching” in the context of what constitutes a family farm to mean “(i) the cultivation of land for the production of agricultural crops, fruit, or other horticultural products, or *494(ii) the ownership, keeping or feeding of animals for the production of livestock or livestock products.” Neb. Const, art. XII, § 8. This constitutional definition provides a plain and workable test to apply to the language of the exemption in § 48-106(2). Based upon such test, I would hold as a matter of law that D B Feedyards’ entire operation constituted farming or ranching and that it was therefore an exempt employer of farm or ranch laborers within the meaning of § 48-106(2).
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Gerrard, J., joins in this dissent.