Court Opinion

ID: 9660706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:18:50.109795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:21.495946
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
concurring.
So far as I can determine from the record, a member of the Fort Calhoun Volunteer Fire Department need not die in the course of performing firefighting duties in order for the beneficiary to become entitled to the proceeds of the term life *537insurance policy with which the member is provided. I thus disagree with the majority’s conclusion that providing members such insurance coverage does not constitute compensation for services rendered. See E.E.O.C. v. Pettegrove Truck Service, Inc., 716 F. Supp. 1430 (S.D. Fla. 1989) (on motion for summary judgment, members of family business not receiving salary but assumed to receive other unspecified forms of support from operation of business determined to be employees).
However, because the City of Fort Calhoun, the entity which pays that compensation, has no right to control the activities of those members, I agree with the majority’s determination that the city is not the members’ employer. See Erspamer Advertising Co. v. Dept. of Labor, 214 Neb. 68, 333 N.W.2d 646 (1983) (generally, control or right of control chief criterion in determining whether one is an employee).
Moreover, at least so far as the record is concerned, the Fort Calhoun Rural Fire Protection District, the entity which along with the city levies the taxes which fund the volunteer department, see Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 35-106 and 35-502 (Reissue 1988), does not have the right to control the members’ activities. Thus, neither is the protection district the members’ employer.
The remaining party, the Fort Calhoun Fire and Rescue Department, appears from the record to be nothing more than a name applied to a group of members who function as providers of emergency firefighting and medical services.
Thus, the members have no employer, and, accordingly, they cannot be employees. It may seem anomalous indeed that our statutes permit a group whose activities are funded with public monies to be responsible to no one but itself, but such is the situation. For that reason, I agree with the majority’s judgment.
White, J., joins in this concurrence.