Court Opinion

ID: 9563804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:47:29.570984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:04.835735
License: Public Domain

Rees, J.,
concurring: I find it appropriate to add to what has been said by Judge Clark on behalf of this panel.
From Yocum v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 228 Kan. 216, 220, 612 P.2d 649 (1980); Baker v. List and Clark Construction Co., 222 Kan. 127, 133, 134, 563 P.2d 431 (1977); Lyon v. Wilson, 201 Kan. 768, 774, 443 P.2d 314 (1968); Johnson v. Warren, 192 Kan. 310, 313, 387 P.2d 213 (1963); Lewis v. Confer, 188 Kan. 779, 781, 365 P.2d 1103 (1961); Davis v. Reed, 188 Kan. 159, 163, 360 P.2d 847 (1961); Robinson v. Muller, 181 Kan. 150, 153, 309 P.2d 651 (1957); Leslie v. Reynolds, 179 Kan. 422, 427, 295 P.2d 1076 (1956); Floro v. Ticehurst, 147 Kan. 426, 432, 76 P.2d 773 (1938); Workman v. Kansas City Bridge Co., 144 Kan. 139, 141, 58 P.2d 90 (1936); Johnson, Guardian, v. Milling Co., 116 Kan. 731, 734, 229 Pac. 359 (1924); Moeser v. Shunk, 116 Kan. 247, 251, 226 Pac. 784 (1924), this lesson emerges: Operation of the Workmen’s Compensation Act is founded upon the existence of a contractual relationship of employer and employee. To trigger operation of the Act, there must be a contract between two persons that creates between them the relationship of employer and employee. The rights and liabilities fixed by the Act grow out of that contract, a contract which by incorporation embodies the terms and provisions of the Act.
The Act is complete within itself. Crabtree v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 5 Kan. App. 2d 440, 447, 618 P.2d 849 (1980), (Rees, J., dissenting) rev’d, 229 Kan. 440, 625 P.2d 453 (1981); Hunter v. General Motors Corporation, 202 Kan. 166, 172, 446 P.2d 838 (1968); Russell v. Lamoreaux Homes, Inc., 198 Kan. 447, 448, 424 P.2d 561 (1967). The rule that the Act must be liberally construed does not permit the courts to exercise judicial ingenuity or to stretch the elasticity of language to the point of disregarding the Act’s simple unclouded provisions. Everett v. Kansas Power Co., 160 Kan. 712, 716, 165 P.2d 595 (1946). Neither can the courts go beyond the legislature and add what was omitted or change the limitations of the Act. Roberts v. City of Ottawa, 101 Kan. 228, 231, 165 Pac. 869 (1917). In short, the judiciary is not permitted *420to enlarge upon the plain terms of the Act. Leslie v. Reynolds, 179 Kan. at 427.
It has been held that K.S.A. 44-503 is designed to give to employees of a contractor a remedy against the principal. Hoffman v. Cudahy Packing Co., 161 Kan. 345, 351, 167 P.2d 613 (1946). The author of Note, Workers Compensation: Reconsidering the “Right to Control” as the Exclusive Test for Employment Status, 23 Washburn L.J. 379, 388 (1984), correctly opined that under K.S.A. 44-503 employees of a contractor are afforded relief under the Act but the contractor individually is not granted the same right of recourse against the principal.