Court Opinion

ID: 9737142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:17:08.074335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.323441
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Justice.
I concur in this opinion insofar as it sustains judgment against Ford. I dissent from the majority’s dismissal of plaintiff’s case against the Carlem Corporation. It may have been reversible error for the trial court to assume, as it did, that Rodney was an employee of Carlem. Such error might well be grounds for resubmission of the case under proper instructions. It is not grounds for summary final dismissal. At the very least Rodney was entitled to have the jury determine his status as a fact question under proper instructions defining employee and to determine the question of liability under those instructions.
While the majority avows “We do not infer Carlem owed no duty to the boy but it was not that of an employer to an employee”, it proceeds to deny the boy a chance to prove liability under proper instructions.
As we said in Anthes v. Anthes, 255 Iowa 497, 504, 122 N.W.2d 255, “The allegations of the petition indicate that plaintiff was ' on the premises in some legal status. As an invitee, employee or even as a licensee whose presence was known to defendant the plaintiff might have been injured under conditions constituting actionable negligence. If plaintiff was rightfully on the premises he was entitled to proceed with evidence showing his status and breach of duty by defendant.” If this evidence, taken in the most favorable light available to plaintiff, failed as a matter of law to generate a jury question re the employer-employee relationship it should have been submitted on such status as could be found by the jury. But Carlem suggested no other status. It contended itself with the assertion that there was no evidence to support a finding Rodney was an employee.
For the purposes of this case the majority employs a strict definition of employee. “An employee or servant is a person bound by duty of service, subject to the master’s or employer’s command as to the manner in which the work shall be done, (citing cases)”
In Lembke v. Fritz, 223 Iowa 261, 265, 272 N.W. 300, 302, we quote this from Norton v. Day Coal Company, 192 Iowa 160, 164, 180 N.W. 905, 908. “The relationship of master and servant does not exist, unless there be the right to exercise control over methods and details, — to direct how the result is to be obtained. The power to direct must go beyond telling what is to be done, — to telling ‘how it is to be done’.”
We have not always required such strict proof of the right to direct the worker in the minutiae of his chores.
Ganzhorn v. Reep, 234 Iowa 495, 12 N. W.2d 154, involved two farmers who customarily helped each other in their farm work. No money changed hands except at silo filling time when one farmer needed enough additional help so the neighbor was paid. We held the existence or nonexistence of the master-servant relationship was for the jury, quoting from Napier v. Patterson, 198 Iowa 257, 260, 196 N.W. 73, 74: “To constitute the relation of * * * master and servant, it is not necessary that there be an express contract between them, or that the services be rendered for compensation. The relationship may be either express or implied.” We also noted Lembke v. Fritz, 223 Iowa 261, 266, 272 N.W. 300, 303: “All the cases agree that the test of the relationship of master and servant is not the actual exercise of power of control over the details and methods to be followed in *869the performance of the work, but the test is the right to exercise such control.”
Erickson v. Erickson, 250 Iowa 491, 94 N. W.2d 728 involved brothers who customarily helped each other with farm work. The case was tried without a jury. We upheld a finding of master-servant relationship. See also Aga v. Harbach, 127 Iowa 144, 102 N.W. 833; Restatement, Second, Agency, Section 5; Subagents and Subservants, Appendix, Section 5, page 36 et seq.; 68 Harvard Law Review 658, 56 C.J.S. Master and Servant, § 174, p. 860, Notes 39 & 48; 35 Am.Jur., Master and Servant, section 12 and section 156.
In Uhe v. Central States Theatre Corporation, 258 Iowa 580, 139 N.W.2d 538, we said: “This controversy centers around the employer’s responsibility for the payment of wages to the claimant, which is one of the necessary elements in an employer-employee relationship.” This statement relies on Usgaard v. Silver Crest Golf Club, 256 Iowa 453, 127 N.W.2d 636. These cases deal with our Workmen’s Compensation Law and Usgaard specifically states: “* * * ^he major elements of the employer-employee relationship for the purpose of our compensation act are: * * * (2) responsibility for the payment of wages by the employer.” (emphasis supplied)
Limited as they are to workmen’s compensation cases such holdings did not change Crum v. Walker, 241 Iowa 1173, 44 N.W.2d 701. “The payment of or right to collect wages is not essential to the existence of the relationship. It is sufficient if there be a lawful consideration for the contract of employment. 35 Am.Jur. Master and Servant, § 12; 57 C.J.S. Master and Servant § 563d, page 279 et seq.; Aga v. Harbach, 127 Iowa 144, 102 N.W. 833. Nor is an express contract of employment necessary to create the relationship. It may be implied from the general conduct of the parties in relation to the business. Aga v. Harbach, supra, 127 Iowa at pages 147, 148, 102 N.W. 833; 35 Am.Jur., Master and Servant, § 9 notes 4, 5; 57 C.J.S. Master and Servant, § 563, notes 48-51.
“It is earnestly argued that Harry was not an employee but a legally dependent person (under sections 252.1 and 252.2, I.C.A.) due to the crippled condition of his leg; that he had tried but had been unable to make a living by working for others; that he has been in the hospital; but that excepting for a few months he has lived at home all his life.” We held the question of master-servant relationship to be a fact question for jury determination. See also LaPointe v. Chevrette, 264 Mich. 482, 250 N.W. 272 where a tea company store manager hired plaintiff as a delivery boy and paid him out of the cash register in the store. The store manager testified he personally paid plaintiff and the company did not pay the boy. The store’s claim it was the policy of the company to make no deliveries (implying that it couldn’t be the boy’s employer) was not controlling in absence of information to customers and help, by advertising or otherwise, that such policy was in force. The Michigan court held existence of relationship of principal and agent was for the jury under proper instructions.
The jury could find this boy had been doing meaningful work to the corporation’s benefit for at least six months. This work was performed with defendant’s knowledge and defendant received the benefit not only of this boy’s work but that of the whole family. Compensation was supplied through payment to the father. But we sayihe boy was not an employee as a matter of law because there was no right of control. A purely gratuitous and empiric assumption. There is ample evidence Carlem had a right to control the boy’s actions and in fact did so through the father as agent.
Carlem’s general manager of the farm operation, Mr. Viet, testified Mr. Bengford, Rodney’s father, was the farm manager for the farm corporation, “Mr. Bengford was the type of worker that you didn’t have to check on every day. We told him what to do and he would see that it got done.” The father testified, “During the six or seven months between my going to work for the corporation and the day of the accident, *870Rodney and my other children helped with work on the farm. Rodney done a lot of work around there, like he would help me feed the turkeys when we had the small ones in the shed, filling the smaller feeders, and a lot of odd jobs around the farm.” Carlem chose to accept the benefit of Rodney’s labor. But we say this does not make him an employee, and, more important, the farm owner does not owe the child the same standard of care it owes the father-employee. We say this as a matter of law.
This is an important issue in this case. Where the minor child of a farm laborer actually works the farm for the owner’s benefit is he to be shunted aside as an invitee, — or a licensee, — or perhaps a trespasser? The majority would do this because there is no formal contract and we, not the jury but we, cannot see a right of control even though the evidence clearly shows it to be present.
I would reverse as to Carlem with instructions to submit the fact question of Rodney’s status to the jury under proper instructions.
RAWLINGS, J., joins in this dissent.