Court Opinion

ID: 9850134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:52:31.444371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:32.221852
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring and dissenting:
While I concur in Parts II and III of the majority opinion, I dissent from Part I which holds that the employer’s business in this case is not an agricultural pursuit. The activity pursued by the employer falls precisely within the legislative definition of “agricultural pursuit,” and that legislative determination should be followed.
I.C. § 72-212(8) exempts agricultural pursuits from coverage under the worker’s compensation statutes, and specifically defines “agricultural pursuits” as the “raising or harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodity including the raising, pelting, shearing, feeding, caring for, training and management of livestock ----” (Emphasis supplied.) Appellant is involved in the “raising, ... feeding, caring for, training and management of” horses, which our prior cases have held to be within the definition of livestock, as the majority recognizes. The claimant’s activity at the time of the accident was the “training” of a horse [livestock], which the legislature has expressly declared to be exempt. The commission’s decision, even though it relied upon one of our prior decisions, and the decision of the majority are directly contrary to the statutory language, and thus the majority errs in its failure to reverse this decision.
In arriving at its decision, the commission specifically relied on our prior decision in Manning v. Win Her Stables, Inc., 91 Idaho 549, 428 P.2d 55 (1967), as indeed it should have. In that case, this Court was called upon to determine whether a claimant hired to train and exercise racehorses at a race track owned by the employer was engaged in an agricultural pursuit. The factual circumstances in Manning are somewhat distinguishable from the factual circumstances in this case. In Manning, the employer, Win Her Stables, Inc., was a corporation which owned and operated a race track and stables. The track was used exclusively for training racehorses. The employer boarded and trained horses on consignment from other owners, although the corporation did keep some of its own horses at the track. In Manning the employer also leased out a portion of its premises to other owners and trainers.
In the present case the employer was an individual involved in raising and training his own horses on his own farm and he did not perform those services for others. That the employer is performing services on his own crops or livestock, rather than that of others, has been a factor considered by this Court in other cases. Goodson v. L. W. Hult Produce Co., 97 Idaho 264, 543 P.2d 167 (1975) (potato grading activity conducted by a potato seed grower); Backsen v. Blauser, 95 Idaho 811, 520 P.2d 858 (1974) (contract hay hauler). See also Lesperance v. Cooper, 104 Idaho 792, 663 P.2d 1094 (1983).
The initial comment made by the Court in Manning v. Win Her Stables, Inc., supra, was in response to the employer’s argument that his activities fell directly within the statutory definition of an agricultural pursuit, and thus were exempt. The Court responded, stating:
“Appellant contends that respondent was engaged in the ‘caring for, training, and management of livestock’ and therefore not covered by workmen’s compensation provisions. Such reasoning is clearly erroneous since the employment of respondent must have been an included ‘agricul*734tural pursuit’ within the definition of I.C. § 72-105A(l), which we conclude it was not.” Id. at 552, 428 P.2d at 58.
In making this statement the Manning Court obviously overlooked the statute because the “definition” of “agricultural pursuit” as included in then I.C. § 72-105A was “caring for, training, and management of livestock,” the very activities which the employee was engaged in. The employment in that case fell expressly within that statutory definition.
The Manning Court did not directly address the statutory definition of “agricultural pursuit,” but created its own definition of agricultural pursuit, which it described as “work ... ordinarily done by farmers.” The Court in Manning then held that the training of horses was “special work”, “commercial [in] character,” and was “entirely separate and apart from” “work ... ordinarily done by farmers,” and therefore was not an agricultural pursuit. That definition ignores the statute. The majority continues that error today by relying on that part of the Manning definition.
The majority cites our recent decision in Lesperance v. Cooper, 104 Idaho 792, 663 P.2d 1094 (1983), in support of its argument that the employer here was not engaged in an agricultural pursuit. It is difficult to understand the majority’s reliance upon that case in view of the fact that the Court in Lesperance concluded that the activity there, the spraying of ditches to reduce weeds, was exempt because it fell “directly within the language of the exemption itself” which “plainly exempts agricultural pursuits which includes ‘the raising, pelting, shearing, feeding, caring for, training and management of livestock’.” The claimant in that case had argued that:
“[R]espondent offers a limited and specialized service. He argues that excessive specialization or commercialization by a farmer should cause that farmer to lose the advantage of the agricultural exemption. He argues that the fact that respondent charges third parties on a per head, per day basis militates in favor of denying the agricultural exemption because the purpose of the exemption is to allow protection to farmers who cannot recover all their costs. He argues that since respondent does not own all of the cattle he feeds, he cannot take advantage of the exemption. He also argues that he was ‘special’ to the operation of the business, and thus he himself should not be thought of as being engaged in an agricultural pursuit.” 104 Idaho at 795, 663 P.2d at 1097.
In response to that argument, the Court discussed several principles which had developed from earlier cases where the activity was arguably exempt, but not specifically within the wording of the statute. Nevertheless the linchpin of the decision in Lesperance was that “[application of the general principles noted in previous Idaho cases, and the statutory exemption itself, to the facts of the present case leads us to the conclusion that the commission did not err in finding respondent’s business to be an agricultural pursuit.” 104 Idaho at 795, 663 P.2d at 1097. In Lesperance the particular activity involved there, spraying of ditches, was not specifically set out as exempt in the statute, but was only exempt to the extent that it related either to “the raising or harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodity” or “the raising, pelting, shearing, feeding, caring for, training and management of livestock.” However, the activity in this case, the training of a horse, is specifically and precisely defined as an exempt activity under the statute. Accordingly, the opinion in Lesperance, which held the activities there to be exempt, is authority for the proposition that the activity here, which is precisely within the definition of agricultural pursuit as defined in the statute, is also exempt.
The legislature is the policymaking body that determines which employment shall be covered by worker’s compensation and which shall not. There will always be certain agricultural activities which are questionable as to whether they fall within the statutory definition of agricultural pursuit, such as the line dividing the exempt activities of raising or harvesting of any agricul*735tural or horticultural commodity, from nonexempt agricultural marketing or manufacturing. However, when an activity such as that engaged in by appellant here, the raising and training of horses, falls precisely within the statutory definition of “agricultural pursuit” all of the rules of statutory construction, and the nuances which have developed around the distinction between the raising of crops and the manufacturing or marketing of those crops, should not cloud that portion of the statutory definition of agricultural pursuit which clearly covers the raising and training of livestock. Accordingly, on the undisputed facts of this case respondent’s employment with appellant, the training of respondent’s horses by galloping them, was in an “agricultural pursuit” as defined by the legislature, i.e., the raising and training of livestock, and therefore should be exempt from the workmen’s compensation laws.
That is not to say that the claimant has no remedy for her injuries. Being exempt from the workmen’s compensation laws would mean that the claimant would have the full range of remedies provided for in the tort law of this state. See Summers v. Western Idaho Potato Processing Co., 94 Idaho 1, 2, n. 1, 479 P.2d 292 (1970); Gifford v. Nottingham, 68 Idaho 330,193 P.2d 831 (1948). However, the conduct involved here falls specifically within the definition of an “agricultural pursuit,” and thus is exempt from the workmen’s compensation laws.
SHEPARD, J., concurs.