Court Opinion

ID: 9550686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:40:20.596241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:09.834246
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice
(concurring).
I concur.
*418Even if the Willmark Service System were an independent contractor and therefore in a different relationship than that of employee of the defendant or an agent of sorts, which is the relationship usually implied from the use of the term “hired,” the defendant would not be absolved from liability for slander committed by the independent contractor in the pursuance of the work it was entrusted to do for the defendant. If the type of work which the independent contractor was required to do necessitated the making of inquiries which would imply slander, the employer is not exonerated.
In my dissenting opinion in the case of Stover Bedding Co. v. Industrial Comm., 99 Utah 423, 107 P. 2d 1027, 134 A. L. R. 1006, I attempted to explain at length, if not with clarity, that historically the concept of independent con-, tractor was intruded into the law to assuage the harshness of the doctrine of “let the principal respond”; that the law came to see that it was not fair to charge the employer with the delicts of the contractor in those cases where the contractor was employed to build some article such as a boat or a structure or to do a repair job for another and who was responsible to said employer only for the furnished object or structure or repair job in its finished condition — that is an end result — without direction or supervision by such employer as to means and methods and whose trade was to build and who was therefore more like a merchant selling the object or the structure or finished job than a servant; that the law gave to such relationship the name of independent contractor and refused to apply the doctrine of re-spondeat superior to such relationship.
Certain it is that the matter of discovering dishonesty among one’s employees or servants is peculiarly the business of the master or employer; hence, however independent the agent who takes a contract to perform that function for the employer may be in the means and method of ferreting out dishonest conduct among the employer’s em*419ployees, there is no reason for assuaging the harshness of the doctrine of respondeat superior in such case for it is the type of function which is peculiarly the employer’s and any delict occurring in the course of performing it cannot be delegated to another.
It was, as said in the main opinion, conduct necessary to further the work for which he was employed and the company was responsible for his actions in that respect. I add this observation because the term “hired” is a connotation usually used in connection with the establishment of a master and servant relationship. I want to point out that even though the work is performed by an independent contractor the responsibility remains with the employer of the independent contractor.