Court Opinion

ID: 9466923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:32:39.945398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:02.652221
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree with the second portion of the court’s opinion disposing of the appeal on *207the basis of Johnson v. A/S Ivarans Rederi, 1 Cir., 1980, 613 F.2d 334, but, with due respect, I feel obliged to note that I find the court’s treatment of the borrowed servant aspect oversimplistic.
In Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 1909, 212 U.S. 215, 29 S.Ct. 252, 53 L.Ed. 480, the Supreme Court stated that to determine whether a given employee is a borrowed servant, “we must inquire whose is the work being performed, a question which is usually answered by ascertaining who has the power to control and direct the servants in the performance of their work.” 212 U.S. at 221-22, 29 S.Ct. at 254. This inquiry is based on the fundamental limitation on the respondeat superior doctrine: “The master’s responsibility cannot be extended beyond the limits of the master’s work. If the servant is doing his own work or that of some other, the master is not answerable for his negligence in the performance of it.” Id. at 221, 29 S.Ct. at 254; see Denton v. Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R.R. Co., 1932, 284 U.S. 305, 308, 52 S.Ct. 141, 142, 76 L.Ed. 310; Linstead v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 1928, 276 U.S. 28, 34, 48 S.Ct. 241, 243, 72 L.Ed. 453.
In the Anderson formula, strictly speaking, the question of control is useful only in ascertaining whose work is being performed.* My brethren fail to note that in Anderson the shipowner did not let out all the stevedore work, but, from the beginning, reserved the winching to the ship’s crew, and received payment therefor, 212 U.S. at 225, 29 S.Ct. at 255. The attempt to make out a loan of employment on the basis that the winchman received directional signals naturally failed.
The present case is perhaps one of the rare instances in which the two questions, “whose work?” and “who controls?” yield different answers. It is at least clear that, contrary to Anderson, the crew members were performing the work of the stevedore, not of the ship. The stevedore had contracted to unload the cargo for a flat rate per ton. Under local custom, a substantial amount of distressed cargo would result in renegotiation of the contract. When, as here, only a minimal amount of cargo was stuck, the longshoremen would break it up themselves or with the assistance of crew members. The latter course was followed here as a matter of convenience, rather then sending ashore for the necessary tools. While it was doubtless to the advantage of the ship to have the cargo unloaded quickly, its two crew members, in assisting in the unloading, unlike Anderson, were doing work which, under the contract, the stevedore was obligated and paid to perform. Cf. Linstead v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., ante, 276 U.S. at 34, 48 S.Ct. at 243.
The question of control is more difficult. The court makes much of the fact that the crew members were not paid by the stevedore, and that there was some advantage to the ship in having the cargo unloaded quickly. These should not be determinative. The payment of wages, the power of discharge, etc. “are not the ultimate facts, but only those more or less useful in determining whose is the work and whose is the power of control.” Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, ante, 212 U.S. at 225, 29 S.Ct. at 255. In the usual borrowed servant case, these reside in the general employer. E.g., Denton v. Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R.R. Co., ante; Linstead v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., ante. And certainly it would be the unusual case where the loan of its servant did not confer some sort of benefit on the general employer. I would resist the thought that the borrowed servant rule operates only when the special employer assumed responsibility for the employee’s salary, and the arrangement was without advantage to the general employer.
Here, in a sense, the crewmen were self-directed in loosening the cargo, leaving *208open the question of who would have corrected them had they been seen to be neglectful. Quite arguably it could have been the stevedore. I see no point, however, in pursuing the matter, even if control, as distinguished from whose work was being done, should be thought determinative. My sole purpose is to observe that this “extraordinarily troublesome” area, Wilson v. Nooter Corp., 1 Cir., 1973, 475 F.2d 497, 500, should not be handled as easily as do my brethren.

 Control has sometimes been considered the sine qua non of the borrowed servant rule. See, e.g., Dornan v. United States, 9 Cir., 1972, 460 F.2d 425, 428 (applying California law); United States v. N. A. Degerstrom, Inc., 9 Cir., 1969, 408 F.2d 1130, 1133. A line of Fifth Circuit cases views the two questions as merely two among nine factors to be considered, no one of which is decisive. See Gaudet v. Exxon Corp., 5 Cir., 1977, 562 F.2d 351, 355-56, cert. denied, 436 U.S. 913, 98 S.Ct. 2253, 56 L.Ed.2d 414 (1978), and cases cited.