Court Opinion

ID: 9860337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:18:16.813915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:21:09.631715
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
The standards to be employed in determining whether one is an employee or an independent contractor were detailed in Guhlke v. Roberts Truck Lines, 268 Minn. 141, 143, 128 N.W.2d 324, 326 (1964), where the court said:
“ * * * [T]he factors applied in testing the relationship are: (1) The right to control the means and manner of performance; (2) the mode of payment; (3) the furnishing of material or tools; (4) *817the control of the premises where the work is done; and (5) the right of the employer to discharge. In determining whether the status is one of employee or independent contractor, the most important factor considered in light of the nature of the work involved is the right of the employer to control the means and manner of performance.” 1
Most of the decisions on this question by this court have found an employee-employer relationship to exist.2 In Christopherson v. Security State Bank of Oklee, 256 Minn. *818191, 194, 97 N.W.2d 649, 651 (1959), the court expressed its approach to this question as follows:
“ * * * No test or group of tests can be all-inclusive. After all, tests which determine the legal relationship of the parties must be used as guide posts and not as hitching posts. In line with the liberal construction accorded workmen’s compensation acts, we should not hold that a relationship exists that will defeat payment of compensation if the evidence will reasonably sustain a determination that a relationship exists which will permit recovery.”
The compensation court placed considerable weight on the role of Rogstad in the relationship between the city and respondent. In a memorandum accompanying the decision, one commissioner stated that the board believed that Rogstad could have told respondent what to do and could have discharged him at any time.
Rogstad’s presence was of course necessary in the repairs process. Someone from the city had to communicate to Vitse and respondent the location and nature of any problem and to some extent coordinate their activities. While the city council certainly could have discharged respondent, this alone is not determinant of the question of control. Geerdes v. J. R. Watkins, Co., 258 Minn. 254, 103 N.W.2d 641 (1960).
Respondent was independently involved in a plumbing and heating business. This court has held that “[w]here the work performed by the actor coincides in character with that of his independent calling or separate business, there is a basis for inference that the right of control as to the manner and means of performing the work was not retained by the employer.” Fahey v. Terp, 235 Minn. 432, 434, 51 N.W.2d 273, 274 (1952). However, in Christopherson v. Security State Bank of Oklee, 256 Minn. 191, 194, 97 N.W.2d 649, 651 (1959), the court stated that “the mere fact that a workman skilled in a certain type of work knows more about the work than the one who employs him does not determine which relationship exists.”
In Bolin v. Scheurer, 210 Minn. 15, 297 N.W. 106 (1941), the court reversed the determination of the compensation commission that Bolin, the injured employee of Scheurer, an excavation contractor, was an independent contractor vis-a-vis the city of Mankato. Scheurer had solicited excavation work as a part of a city project to reduce street levels and install curbs and gutters. As he was indebted to the city, it was agreed that he would be given enough work to pay his debt. The court cited several factors in determining that Scheurer and his employee Bolin were employees rather than independent contractors. First, there was no definite agreement as to the extent or duration of the work. Second, the city had full authority to have the excavation work done by others. Third, absent from their overall relationship was an obligation upon Scheurer to bring about some end result or objective. Finally, the city had an unfettered right of discharge or termination.
While the facts of Bolin v. Scheurer, supra, are somewhat similar to the case before the court, there was greater control of the means and manner of performance. This is reflected in the following excerpt of the court's opinion:
“ * * * Nevertheless, to an important degree, the city, through its street foreman, did supervise the course of performance by indication of the depth of excavation desired and the place of deposit wanted. * * * Moreover, had any issue arisen between Mankato and Scheurer as to method, manner, or details of performance, the city, through its reservation of power to control and supervise the progress and direction of the work, could have dictated the decision.” (210 Minn. 18, 297 N.W. 107).
Where the injured party is a skilled artisan doing work on a job-by-job basis, evidence of any real right of control is generally absent. However, in instances where the injured party’s services are a recurring and integral part of the serviced party’s business, liability for compensation benefits should be found despite the absence of con*819trol. See, 1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 45.31.
The work performed herein was a recurring facet of the city’s responsibility to maintain its sewer and water facilities. While the work generated was not substantial enough to require the services of permanent employees, it was frequent enough for the city to engage a plumber on an unofficial retainer. Indeed, Gordon Rog-stad was only a part-time employee himself, but it was his responsibility to watch and monitor the city’s water system and to notify the council of any possible breaks. His employment was very little different from that of the respondent in that respect. Yet, no serious argument would be made that Rogstad was not, in fact, an employee. Therefore, although the facts are close, since this is a review of a factual question, the board’s decision should be affirmed.

. Although the issue was not presented in this case, I would urge that the “right-of-control” test (Restatement, Agency 2d § 220) presently used to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor in workers’ compensation cases be replaced with a “relative nature of the work” test.
The concept of “employee” is not a static one, remaining resolute in dimension from social context to social context. The meaning it is given must be measured by the purpose it is meant to serve. Continued reliance on the common-law interpretation of employee vis-a-vis independent contractor is unfortunate. “Employee” in common-law tort situations and “employee” in worker’s compensation situations serve different social ends. The main function of the “employee” concept at common law was to serve as a means of delimiting the scope of vicarious liability of an employer to a third party. In such a situation the right-of-control test adequately serves the societal goals of vicarious liability. Different considerations, however, apply to worker’s compensation as explained by Professor Arthur Larson in his treatise on worker’s compensation: “ * * * [A master’s vicarious tort] liability arose out of detailed activities carried on by the servant, resulting in some kind of harm to a third person. The extent to which the employer had a right to control these detailed activities was thus highly relevant to the question whether the employer ought to be legally liable for them. * * *
“By contrast, compensation law is concerned not with injuries by the employee in his detailed activities, but with injuries to him as a result not only of his own activities (controlled by the employer as to details) but of those of co-employees, independent contractors and other third persons (some controlled by the employer, and others not). To this issue, the right of control of details of his work has no such direct relation as it has to the issue of vicarious tort liability.” (1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 43.42.)
Independent contractors are theoretically excluded from coverage under the worker’s compensation acts because they are entrepreneurs. See, Wolfe, Determination of Employer-Employee Relationships in Social Legislation, 41 Col.L.Rev. 1015, 1022. See, also, Wis.Stat.Ann. § 102.07(8). They do not need another entrepreneur to distribute the risks of employment which more logically should be distributed by the business from which they originate. This concept breaks down, however, when the right-of-control test is rigidly applied. See, e. g., 1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 45.-10; Comment 10', U.C.L.A.L.Rev. 161, 171. To place the application of the worker’s compensation acts more in line with the spirit of its enactment, a “relative nature of work” or economic-reality test has been developed. Larson explains it in these terms:
“The theory of compensation legislation is that the cost of all industrial accidents should be borne by the consumer as a part of the cost of the product. It follows that any worker whose services form a regular and continuing part of the cost of that product, and whose method of operation is not such an independent business that it forms in itself a separate route through which his own costs of industrial accident can be channelled, is within the presumptive area of intended protection.” (1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 43.51.) Larson further states:
“This test, then, which for brevity will b-called the ‘relative nature of the work’ test, contains these ingredients: the character of the claimant’s work or business — how skilled it is, how much of a separate calling or enterprise it is, to what extent it may be expected to carry its own accident burden and so on — and its relation to the employer’s business, that is, how much it is a regular part of the employer’s regular work, whether it is continuous or intermittent, and whether the duration is sufficient to amount to the hiring of continuing services as distinguished from contracting for the completion of a particular job.” (1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 43.52.) See, generally, 1A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 45; Comment, 10 U.C.L.A.L. Rev. 161; 37 Ore.L.Rev. 88. See, also, Stevens, The Test of the Employment Relation, 38 Mich. L.Rev. 188, 189.

. Under the decisions in this state, an employee-employer relationship was found to exist in the following cases: Lynch v. Hutchinson Produce Co., 169 Minn. 329, 211 N.W. 313 (1926) (well driller working without supervision on an hourly basis under an arrangement terminable at will); Bergstrom v. Brehmer, 214 Minn. 326, 8 N.W.2d 328 (1943) (worker furnishing his own equipment); Bolin v. Scheurer, 210 Minn. 15, 297 N.W. 106 (1941) (worker performing work of the kind ordinarily performed by independent contractors); and Lynch v. Hutchinson Produce Co. supra, and Famam v. Linden Hills Congregational Church, 276 Minn. 84, 149 N.W.2d 689 (1967) (worker hiring a helper).