Court Opinion

ID: 9585456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:00:45.517796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:47:12.407063
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice EXUM
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. My review of the evidence, when viewed in light of the controlling authorities, leads me to conclude *388that plaintiff was an independent contractor at the time of the injury.
The evidence as recited by the majority is, for the most part, fair and complete. I would emphasize the following facts. (1) In the plaintiffs capacity as a seller of Kansas Jack equipment he trained the buyers’ employees in the equipment’s use. He had done this on at least ten occasions before being injured at North State Ford. (2) Because of his expertise with the equipment he gained a reputation as one of only three or four individuals in the southeast competent to instruct buyers of Kansas Jack truck frame straightening equipment. (3) Plaintiff specified the amount he wanted to be paid per day, and defendant, although believing the figure high, agreed to his terms. (4) Plaintiff specified the time usually necessary to complete the training course and then confined defendant to selecting a period suitable for plaintiffs schedule.
I disagree with the majority’s discussion of the evidence with regard to two issues. (1) The majority states that plaintiff retained “the right to discharge [defendant] at any time.” I find the evidence unclear on this issue because the record is entirely silent with regard to the right to fire. Thus, the majority simply assumes that this right was retained, while I find such an assumption does not necessarily follow. (2) The majority indicates that plaintiff lacked the freedom to employ assistants he thought necessary to conduct the training course. Once again, the evidence is silent regarding whether plaintiff had such freedom. The evidence merely indicates that whatever materials plaintiff deemed necessary defendant would provide. Defendant thus gave plaintiff wide latitude to steer whatever course necessary to accomplish the ultimate objective of instructing North State employees regarding the proper method of using Kansas Jack equipment.
The majority correctly notes that the test for distinguishing an independent contractor from an employee centers on whether the party for whom the work is being done retains the right to control and direct the manner in which the details of the work are to be executed. When this right is retained the relationship of employer and employee is created. When it is not, the party performing the task is characterized as an independent contractor. Certain factors are normally assessed to facilitate the application *389of this test. We enumerated these factors in Hayes v. Elon College, 224 N.C. 11, 29 S.E. 2d 137 (1944). According to Hayes, a person is an independent contractor when:
The person employed (a) is engaged in an independent business, calling, or occupation; (b) is to have the independent use of his special skill, knowledge, or training in the execution of the work; (c) is doing a specified piece of work at a fixed price or for a lump sum or upon a quantitative basis; (d) is not subject to discharge because he adopts one method of doing the work rather than another; (e) is not in the regular employ of the other contracting party; (f) is free to use such assistants as he may think proper; (g) has full control over such assistants; and (h) selects his own time.
Hayes, 224 N.C. at 16, 29 S.E. 2d at 140. As the majority acknowledges, no factor is determinative in itself; rather they cumulatively shed light on the court’s ultimate task of determining the extent to which the party for whom the work was performed retained the right to control the details by which it was done.
My review of the factors enumerated in Hayes leads me to conclude that plaintiff was an independent contractor.
Concerning the first Hayes factor, it seems clear that plaintiff was engaged in an independent business. Although characterized as a “salesman,” the evidence shows that his job description included training those who purchased equipment. It was plainly because of his reputation as a training specialist that North State contacted him in the first place. Thus, notwithstanding his official designation as a salesman, plaintiff had an independent calling which included instructing others in the use of Kansas Jack equipment.
Regarding whether plaintiff had the independent use of his special skill in conducting the training course, the evidence is somewhat conflicting. The more credible evidence, I believe, is the testimony of Mr. Chapman who stated that because of his lack of familiarity with the Kansas Jack equipment he left the methods of instruction entirely to plaintiffs discretion. This testimony is corroborated by the fact that Mr. Chapman turned over his men to plaintiff for the training course. Although Mr. Chapman instructed plaintiff to conduct “hands-on” training, this does not *390amount to “control” by defendant, for such an instruction had no bearing on how plaintiff conducted the course in detail. As Professor Larson notes:
An owner who wants to get the work done without becoming an employer is entitled to as much control of the details of the work as is necessary to ensure that he gets the end result from the contractor that he bargained for. In other words, there may be a control of the quality or description of the work itself, as distinguished from control of the person doing it, without going beyond the independent contractor relation.
1C Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 44.20.
The third Hayes factor has two components: a specified piece of work, and the method of compensation. North State engaged plaintiff to perform a specific task; viz., to instruct North State Ford employees how to use Kansas Jack equipment. Plaintiff himself established the method and amount of compensation, $250.00 a day, perhaps because he was unsure whether the course would last four or five days. While, as the majority points out, Professor Larson indicates in his treatise that payment by a unit of time, such as a day, may be indicative of an employment relationship, common experience reveals this is not always the case. Expert witnesses and consultants to businesses, for instance, are normally paid on a daily basis, yet no one, for this reason alone, would characterize them as the employees of the organization paying their daily fee. I believe, in the context of the instant case, plaintiffs decision to demand a specified fee per day evinces the kind of independence normally associated with independent contractors.
Regarding the conditions under which the plaintiff could have been discharged, I have already noted my disagreement with the majority. The record is simply silent on this point. I think that the manner in which plaintiff conducted the course before the accident indicates he would not have been subject to discharge had he selected a different method for conducting the training session. Indeed, the evidence indicates that Mr. Chapman turned the entire training course over to plaintiff, thus giving him complete rein to instruct the North State employees however he saw fit.
*391The final Hayes factors also tend to suggest that plaintiff was an independent contractor. North State did not employ him regularly. He was entirely free to utilize the resources available at North State. The fact that North State made such resources available, rather than requiring plaintiff to acquire his own, should not be understood as the kind of limitation on his freedom which might otherwise be indicative of an employment relationship.
Finally, plaintiffs duty to conduct the training course during the hours when the North State employees were at work is not, in the context of the task he contracted to perform, sufficient control by North State to justify the conclusion that he was an employee. North State, legitimately, did not want to pay its employees overtime to learn how to use Kansas Jack equipment. Its reasonable request that plaintiff train its employees during regular working hours should not be construed to alter his independent contractor status.
The decision upon which the majority relies most heavily, Pearson v. Peerless Flooring Co., 247 N.C. 434, 101 S.E. 2d 301 (1957), differs from the instant case in several important respects. In Pearson the Court relied heavily on the fact that the defendant agreed in a contract with the manufacturer that the person installing the equipment would be defendant’s employee. While the Court did not consider this contract dispositive of the issue, it constituted strong evidence that the defendant itself considered plaintiff as its employee. Another way in which Pearson differs from the present case is that the task involved required significantly less skill, and therefore permitted significantly more control, than the task in the instant case. In Pearson the defendant’s control over the details of the dry kiln’s installation is reflected in the constant supervision defendant exercised, as well as the occasion when the defendant made the plaintiff change the location of a pipeline in the kilns from the location which was called for in the plans and specifications. Finally, the method of payment in Pearson was an hourly wage rather than a per diem compensation. I consider this last difference meaningful because an hourly wage is the kind of compensation most frequently associated with an employment relationship. Payment by the day is not. Because of this, and the other differences noted, I do not believe Pearson controls this case.
*392It should be acknowledged that distinguishing between an independent contractor and an employee in a given case often gives rise to disagreements between reasonable minds. The opposing opinions at every appeal in the present case illustrate this. My judgment is that the deputy commissioner correctly concluded that plaintiff was an independent contractor, and that the Industrial Commission therefore lacked jurisdiction over his claim. The Court of Appeals should be reversed and the case remanded with instructions that the plaintiffs claim be dismissed.
Justices MEYER and Whichard join in this dissenting opinion.