Court Opinion

ID: 9849617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:43:18.429626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:20.085574
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Justice
(dissenting).
The dominant purpose of Alaska’s contractor-under statute is the protection of employees of irresponsible subcontractors. Protection is achieved by the imposition of ultimate responsibility upon the presumably responsible principal contractor, who because of his business experience and economic power, is capable of policing and obtaining compliance with Alaska’s Workmen’s Compensation Act.
1 1 >heory of contractor-under statutes suC. \S 23.30.045(a) is that those who are : - early engaged in the business of taking on jobs for others and farming out portions of their work to third parties have the knowledge and power necessary to require these third parties to obtain workmen’s compensation coverage for their employees. Given this priority and purpose, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that a contractual obligation, in the common law sense, is the fulcrum upon which the definition of the term “contractor” should turn. I am of the view that “contractor,” as used in AS 23.30.045 (a), should be defined in terms of fitness to perform the function envisaged by the legislature, not in terms of the common law meaning of the semantic root of the word “contractor.” If emphasis is accorded to functional criteria, then “contractor” should be construed to mean one whose regular occupation is to undertake for others to do jobs by contracting with third be a contractor in the circumstances of this *391persons for all or part of the performance.1 A “contractor” in this sense is likely both to have sufficient experience to understand his subcontractors’ duties under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and the economic power easily to police their compliance by requiring them to show that they have procured coverage for their employees.
Under the foregoing definition, the Department of Administration was a contractor, for it undertook to provide flying services for the Department of Fish and Game, as well as other state agencies, by parcel-ling out the jobs to third parties such as Harvey’s Flying Service. The Department of Administration’s experience and economic power in this type of activity make it well qualified to perform the policing functions required of a “contractor” under our contractor-under statute.
I do not think that the majority’s characterization of the State of Alaska as a single entity is the best technique for determining whether the Department of Administration acted as a “contractor.” While this characterization might be persuasive as a philosophical matter in some contexts, the concepts of separateness and unity evoked by it seem unrelated to the purposes meant to be served by the statute we must construe.2
Since this case is one of first impression and no precedent decided under the federal Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act is dispositive of the question raised in the case at bar, I think it unfortunate that “contractor” was not defined functionally. Such an approach would have comported with the overall remedial purposes of Alaska’s Workmen’s Compensation Act, as well as the more particularized objectives of the contractor-under provisions of AS 23.30.045(a).
In accordance with the foregoing, I would hold the Department of Administration responsible for the payment of death benefits to the estate of Stanley Thorsheim.

. Compare Evans v. Tabor City Lumber Co., 232 N.C. 111, 59 S.E.2d 612, 616 (1950).

. It could be argued that our statutory scheme of state government adopts a theory of the separateness rather than the unity of state departments. AS 37.05.220 describes the Department of Administration as a purchasing “agent” of the state, suggesting that the Department has some separate principal.