Court Opinion

ID: 9862973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:38:46.441228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:45:35.645715
License: Public Domain

FRASER, Justice.
I concur in the disposition of this case because it seems clear that Mr. Sims was an employee of Pelphrey at the time of his death. It is of course difficult in a death case for those representing the estate of the dead man to prove the nature'of the relationship in the absence of'availablé witnesses, and of course' to recover compensation,employment must be proven.
Based on the matter of,control it is evi- - dent that Pelphrey exercised the control over Sims normally, present in employer-employee relationships." He was hired to. - haul gravel at so much.per quarter mile, and it is clear that he did not contract to. do a set piece of work. To hold, otherwise would. - be to say.-in effect >that-every ..time Sims 'backed-his truck, up-to the loading bin he - would be contracting with Pelphrey through the medium of any employee .or- common, laborer who upoñ seeing the truck, so.placed pulled a lever releasing gravel into the truck. . Certainly Pelphrey-could have stopped Sims . en -route and .'directed him. to a-different destination .or to pickup a different-kind-of. load next time — Sims would still have been paid-by-the load per quarter mile. Otherwise Sims could have refused and sued on his contract. ■ Would anyone here-maintain that Sims could have insisted on .delivering : the gravel to the original destination .and. "have.sued Pelphrey if not permitted to do - - ’so?. If Sims was an independent dontractor it seems to-this'writer that in the absence of-proof that he was to’ work so many days' or .-.haul so many -loads to a certain fixed ■destination at an agreed price, then the only '• 'contractual picture -would be that of successive contracts created each time that Sims '' backed his truck up to the loading bin, for ■'by-'that1 time he would-'have completed his ■ prior -delivery-of gravel. It has been argued 'that because Sims had controlled- his. own ■ truck and had to make his own repairs and buy -his own gas and oil, that -he was probably an independent contractor,1 ‘ -but the - - violinist in an orchestra supplies his • own ■ violin, provides its care and of course buys his own resin for the bow, as well as strings for the instrument. The same is true of the-barber and his clippers; as well as the time-honored precedent of the cowboy who furnishes his own saddle. I therefore concur 'in holding that an objective and cumulative analysis of all the evidence indicates that the relationship, informal though it was, between Sims and Pelphrey was that of em*590ployer and employee because of the control exercised by Pelphrey over Sims, and because it is obvious that Sims .was not hired to do a complete and set piece of work.