Court Opinion

ID: 9687785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:48:42.700127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:31.839873
License: Public Domain

*659Hall, J.
Appellant, Laurel Daily Leader, Inc., publishes an afternoon newspaper, daily except Sunday, and will be hereinafter referred to as the appellant, though its Workmen’s Compensation Insurance carrier is also a party to the action. The appellee at the time of his injury on September 22, 1951, was a fifteen year old newspaper carrier boy, engaged at the time in delivering and collecting for appellant’s newspaper, and his injuries, which are serious and permanent, were inflicted by a passing motorist. A claim for benefits under our Workmen’s Compensation Law was filed and a hearing had before the attorney-referee who found against the claim. An appeal was taken to the full commission which, by a divided vote, affirmed the action of the attorney-referee. On appeal from that decision, the circuit judge *660reversed the action of the commission and found in favor of the claimant, from which decision this appeal is taken by appellant and its insurance carrier.
There is no substantial dispute as to the facts. Appellant’s total circulation was between 11,000 and 12,000 papers daily. Between 9,000 and 10,000 of these papers were .sold and delivered by carrier boys on and over regular routes assigned to them by appellant. No carrier was permitted to sell papers outside the route or territory assigned to him by appellant. Appellee’s route was on ÍJ. S. Highway 11 South of the city of Laurel and covered a space of about four miles extending from the Pendorff School to the city limits of Ellisville. This route, along with about sixty-five others, was designated and established by appellant. About a month prior to his injury appellee learned that Joe Scoggins, the carrier on this route, wras going to quit. He traveled the route with Scoggins until he learned who wore the subscribers thereon, and then went to appellant’s office with Scoggins and applied for the route. He was questioned by appellant’s circulation manager as to his famliarity with the route and as to his means of transportation for covering the route and appellant then learned that appellee owned a motor-bike which he would use. It is a fair assumption from the evidence that a carrier on this suburban route, with so much territory to cover, could not satisfactorily work his route without some means of transportation. Appellee was instructed by appellant as to working his route, and it was particularly stressed that when he received his daily supply of papers he was to complete delivery by 6:00 o’clock p. m. In fact, the paper regularly carried a notice to its subscribers requesting them to call appellant if the paper was not received by that hour, and upon such call appellant would send a paper to the subscriber and charge it to the appellee if it raised his weekly daily average. Complaints against carriers were investigated by appellant, and if his services at any time were unsatisfactory his em*661ployment was terminated. Not only this, but appellant reserved the right to “fire” the carrier at any time.
Appellee was required to post a cash bond equal to one and one-half times the expected average weekly cost of the papers. In this ease the anticipated weekly average was 140 papers at ten cents per week, or $14.00, and his deposit was $21.00. He was required to report to appellant’s office every Saturday morning and pay for Ms week’s supply of papers. He was required to collect for the papers sold at the rate of twenty cents per week. There was evidence that if the carrier had to travel to some remote place to make a delivery he could charge more than the regular price, but, since the price per week is printed in each issue, one can well imagine that a carrier boy would have to be a super-salesman to induce a customer to pay more than the published price. Appellee was requested and urged to work his territory for new subscribers and during the four or five weeks that he was employed by appellant he followed this instruction and increased his daily list by about twenty-five papers. Appellee’s compensation was the difference between what he collected and what he paid for the papers, less his expense in delivering them. There was no formal written contract between the parties. Appellant delivered the appellee’s daily supply of papers to him within his territory by bus at its own expense.
The publisher-manager of appellant was asked under cross-examination whether it was permissible for the delivery boys to deliver some other newspaper at the same time, and he replied that this has never come up but he’d rather they wouldn’t. He was then asked if he would try to stop it, and replied “Well, I would try to reason with them, ask -where they were making the most money, and toll them that’s the paper they ought to handle.” The reasonable conclusion from this testimony is that appellant’s carrier boys would soon find themselves without a job if they should handle some other paper.
*662Tlie circulation manager admitted that he supervises the work of the carrier boys. The delivery of newspapers within a reasonable time after publication is essential to the success of the newspaper business. For the greater portion of its income the paper depends on advertising, and the rates for advertising are governed by the paper’s circulation. Circulation is a necessity for success. The delivery boj^s are just as much an integral part of the newspaper industry as are the typesetters and pressmen or the editorial staff.
Excellent briefs have been filed by counsel on both sides of this case. A great many cases have been cited from other jurisdictions; some of these hold that the carrier boys are independent contractors and some hold that they are employees within the contemplation of the "Workmen’s Compensation Act. We cite none of them herein for the reason that most of them can be distinguished on the facts from the case here presented.  We prefer to base our decision on our own conception of what, the Legislature intended by the adoption of the compensation law in this state, as evidenced by the act itself and by what we have already held in interpreting the act and by what, has been said by the text writers to the effect that, the purpose of such legislation is to take the burden of accident off the shoulders of the unfortunate victim and place it upon the shoulders of industry without regard to the common-law liability of a master to his servant for injuries resulting from the master’s negligence  As said by Dean Larson in Section 1.20 in his excellent book on Workmen’s Compensation: “Like social insurance, but unlike tort, the right to benefits and the amount of benefits are based largely on a social theory of providing support and preventing destitution, rather than settling accounts between two individuals according to their personal deserts or blame.”
In Kisner v. Jackson, 159 Miss. 424, 132 So. 90, Judge Griffith gave a scholarly discussion in a common-law *663tort case as to the determining factors on the question of master and servant and independent contractor relationships, and said:
 “There are several tests to be applied, the weight of each, and whether much or little, rising and falling in the scale as it may or may not be counterbalanced by one or more of the remaining tests, present in the particular case at hand. For this reason these tests cannot be stated in any precise order of importance, but they are as follows: Whether the principal master has the right to terminate the contract at will; whether he has the power to fix the price in payment for the work, or vitally controls the manner and time of payment; whether he furnishes the means and appliances for the work; whether he has control of the premises; whether he furnishes the materials upon which the work is done and receives the output thereof, the contractor dealing with no other person in respect to the output; whether he has the right to prescribe and furnish ..the details of the kind and character of work to be done; whether he has the right to supervise and inspect the work during the course of the employment; whether he has the fight to direct the details of the manner in which the work is to be done; whether he has the right to employ and- discharge the subemployees, and to fix their compensation; and whether he is obliged to pay the wages of said employees. There are the tests, as we think, and any other, if differently stated, may be brought within one of those above briefly set out. 14 B. C. L., pp. 67-76; 31 C. J., pp. 473-475; 39 O. J., pp. 1316-1323.”
 Applying the above tests to the case at hand we find that under nearly all of them the appellee was an employee of appellant. Appellant had the power to terminate the contract at will; it had the power to fix the price — ten cents to the news carrier and twenty cents to the customer; it had control of the premises, that is to say, the entire route in and over which appellee was permitted to work; it furnished the materials, i. e., *664the newspapers on and with which the work was done; appellee dealt with no one else with respect to the output; appellant had the right to prescribe and furnish the details of the work, including the hours thereof; it had the right to supervise and inspect the work during the course of the employment; it had the right to direct the details of the manner in which the work ivas to he done. In short, we think that under these tests appellee wa-s clearly an employee of appellant even under the common-law rules of negligence within the meaning and purpose of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.  We have repeatedly held that the rule is more liberal in compensation cases. The members of this Court are sharply divided on the question of liability in this case, thereby indicating that the question is, at least, a close one. A majority of us are of the opinion that the appellee should have the benefit of this rule of liberality in the construction of our compensation law. We are not here concerned with a rule of liability of appellant if appellee had struck someone with his motor-bike and inflicted an injury upon a third person, and such cases as Crescent Baking Co. v. Denton, 147 Miss. 639, 112 So. 21, have-no application here. Dean Larson draws the distinction in Section 43.42 of his work: <
“The ‘servant’ concept at common law performed one main function: to delimit the scope of a master’s vicarious tort liability . . . 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 co-employees, independent contractors and other third persons (some controlled by the employer and others not). To this issue, the right of control of the details of his work has no such direct relation as it has to the issue of vicarious tort liability. ’ ’
The argument is made that appellee ivas merely one of the thousands of “little merchants” scattered over the *665country in the delivery of newspapers. We do not think the appellee, subject as he was to the control of appellant, can be properly classed as a little merchant so as to escape the coverage of the compensation law.
 Stress is also laid on the fact that appellant did not pay social security benefits on appellee’s earnings. By 42 U. S. O. A. Section 410 (a) (16) appellee was specifically exempt from social security assessments. If he had been subject to such assessment, the failure of appellant to collect and remit thereon would not afford any reason for its escape from liability in this case.
 The circuit judge awarded claimant medical benefits, as provided by the act, and also total and permanent disability benefits for a period of 450 weeks, but made no allowance for temporary total disability, and appellee cross-appeals and asks that we here make an allowance for temporary total disability. According to the undisputed medical testimony appellee attained his maximum medical recovery at the expiration of two years from the date of his injury, during which time the doctor rated him as temporarily totally disabled. The cross-appeal is therefore well taken and the judgment appealed from will be amended so as to allow temporary total disability for a period of two years, plus the total and permanent benefits awarded by the judgment, not to exceed the maximum provided by the statute, and plus the allowance for medical benefits, together with interest and damages on the amount awarded by the lower court is allowed and the cause remanded so that the commission may supervise payment of the benefits due and may also in its discretion award penalties and vocational rehabilitation benefits as provided by the statute.
Modified, affirmed and remanded.
Lee, Kyle, Arrington and Ethridge, JJ., concur.