Court Opinion

ID: 9564787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:07:08.863113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:40.180117
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
The sole question here is whether, as a matter of law, we can determine that the defendant Morris was an independent contractor in relationship to the defendant Brunswick. The construction of the contract here involved is for the court, not the jury.
Whether the relationship of the parties is that of employer and servant or that of employer and independent contractor lies in whether the contract gives or the employer assumes the right to control the time, manner, and method of executing the work *886as distinguished from the right merely to require certain results in conformity with the contract. Yearwood v. Peabody, 45 Ga. App. 451 (2) (164 SE 901); Harvey v. C. W. Matthews Contr. Co., 114 Ga. App. 866 (3) (152 SE2d 809); Fidelity & Cas. Co., v. Windham, 209 Ga. 592, 593 (74 SE2d 835).
Here, if there is no genuine issue of fact whereby a jury could determine the existence of an employer-employee relationship between the defendant paper company and the defendant Morris for application of the doctrine of respondeat superior, the defendant paper company is entitled to summary judgment. The evidence discloses that Morris conducted his business with the paper company under a master contract providing, among other things, for payment of a specified amount for each ton of pulpwood cut and delivered from lands on which the paper company had cutting rights, plus a specified amount of mileage per ton for truck travel between the point of loading and the point of delivery. The contract further provides that the paper company shall designate in writing the quantities desired, the point of delivery, a time schedule for delivery, and the areas from which trees are to be cut, and that Morris is responsible for employing and paying all persons used by him in performing under the contract, and for furnishing all materials and equipment. In this contract the paper company expressly disavowed any right of control, supervision, or oversight over Morris or his servants, agents, or employees, or the manner, method, or means by which Morris conducted his operations. In actual practice it appears that the company, through a contract administrator, often informed Morris orally of its requirements, and later confirmed or ratified these acts, and no writing specifically covering the operation here in question was produced. In actual practice it also appears that Morris did pay his employees, on a piece-rate basis, but that the company withheld from its payment to Morris premiums to cover some form of life insurance on persons employed by Morris, and some amount to cover payment for equipment furnished to Morris, which was not used in the operation here involved.
To overcome the express provisions of this contract the plaintiff relies on an affidavit of one of the employees of Morris at *887the time to the effect that he considered himself to be cutting “for Brunswick Pulp and Paper Company,” that Hudspeth, the contract administrator, came to the woods on the day of the fire, would talk with Mr. Morris, inspect the work and supervise operations generally, and that “Mr. Hudspeth was the boss man.”
Inasmuch as it is clear that this affiant was in fact hired and paid for his work by Morris, and that he received his instructions from Morris, we do not regard his conclusions that he was working for the paper company, and that the paper company’s contract administrator was the “boss man,” as of any probative value to create a genuine issue of material fact from which a jury could determine a master-servant relationship between the paper company and Morris, and thus override the clear intent of the contract between the paper company and Morris, as substantially followed in actual practice, under which Morris worked as an independent contractor to produce certain desired results, and for which he was paid, without any direction or control over the means used to accomplish these results, including persons employed or equipment used.
Under the majority opinion as written, this court could never construe a contract on summary judgment as creating the relationship of independent contractor, thus abandoning to the jury a long intrenched prerogative of the courts.
The judgment of the trial court should be affirmed. I am authorized to state that Judges Eberhardt and Quillian concur in this dissent. Judge Whitman concurs specially in this dissent.