Court Opinion

ID: 9545858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:20:50.530248+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:39.326160
License: Public Domain

Donworth, J.
This appeal presents the sole question whether a person engaged in the business of fishing (which is not covered by the workmen’s compensation act) who hires others to labor in the extrahazardous employment of building a boat for use in his fishing business, is an employer within the meaning of the act.
Since 1912 or 1913, William E. Melzer has been a commercial fisherman. In 1944 and 1945, with the aid of carpenters, shipwrights, and other workmen employed by him, he built an eighty-foot seine boat, the Windward, for use in his fishing operations. Plaintiff was one of the workmen employed in construction of the Windward. The boat was built on the beach near Edmonds, and during its construction Mr. Melzer paid industrial insurance premiums to the department of labor and industries.
In 1949, Mr. Melzer hired plaintiff as his foreman for the construction of a forty-eight-foot fishing boat, the Homeward, to be used in his fishing operations. The Homeward was built alongside the Melzer home at Richmond Beach and was trucked to Edmonds for launching when completed. The workmen employed in its construction furnished their own tools.
Mr. Melzer did not report his construction of the Homeward to the department of labor and industries and paid no industrial insurance premiums for any of the workmen employed in its construction.
Plaintiff suffered a knee injury in the course of his employment and filed a claim with the department. His claim was rejected on the ground that he was not covered by the workmen’s compensation act.
Upon appeal, the board of industrial insurance appeals sustained the department order rejecting the claim. Plaintiff next appealed to the superior court of King county, *513where, sitting without a jury, the court heard the appeal and entered a judgment reversing the board’s decision and directing that the claim be allowed. The department has appealed to this court.
Is respondent, under the undisputed facts of this case, a workman entitled to compensation under the workmen’s compensation act? The determination of that question depends upon whether Mr. Melzer is an employer under the act. Fishing is not one of the extrahazardous businesses covered by the act, while shipbuilding is.
It is not contended that respondent was an independent contractor, and if he is to come under the act, it can only fee by reason of the following definition of a “workman”:
“Workman means every person in this state, who is engaged in the employment of any employer coming under this act whether by way of manual labor or otherwise, in the course of his employment. ...” Laws of 1939, Ch. 41, § 2, p. 123. (cf. RCW 51.08.180.)
Whether respondent is a workman under the act, therefore, depends upon whether Mr. Melzer is an employer as defined therein.
The definition of an “employer” is as follows:
“Except when otherwise expressly stated, employer means any person, body of persons, corporate or otherwise, and the legal personal representatives of a deceased employer, all while engaged in this state in any extra-hazardous work, by way of trade or business, or who contracts with one or more workmen, the essence of which is the personal labor of such workman or workmen, in extra-hazardous work.” (Italics ours.) Laws of 1939, Ch. 41, § 2, p. 122. (cf. RCW 51.08.070.)
The italized portion was added in the 1939 amendment.
We had occasion to construe this definition of “employer” in Craine v. Department of Labor & Industries, 19 Wn. (2d) 75, 141 P. (2d) 129, which was decided in 1943. The legislature has not since that decision changed the 1939 definition of employer. In not doing so, we think, it has acquiesced in our interpretation of the 1939 amendment, and we are bound by our decision in the Craine case.
*514In that case, we held that a householder who was not engaged in construction work as a business but who employed a workman to assist him in building a house for himself, was not an employer coming under the act. We also interpreted the 1939 amendment as expressly approving the rule laid down in Carsten v. Department of Labor & Industries, 172 Wash. 51, 19 P. (2d) 133; Dalmasso v. Department of Labor & Industries, 181 Wash. 294, 43 P. (2d) 32; and Jannak v. Department of Labor & Industries, 181 Wash. 396, 43 P. (2d) 34, wherein we held that, in order to be an employer coming under the act, one must be engaged, as a regular business, in the type of extrahazardous work involved.
We said:
“Reverting to the first clause of the 1939 amendment, defining employer,' we find it qualified by the phrase ‘by way of trade or business.’ This is the very limitation placed by the decisions upon the definition of employer as contained in the 1929 act. In view of this qualification contained in the 1939 amendment and in view of the fact that the definition of employer as contained in the second clause of the 1929 act is in no sense broadened, we are convinced that the legislature had no intention of abrogating or modifying the rule of construction laid down in the Carsten, Dalmasso, and Jannak cases.”
See, also, Pitts v. Department of Labor & Industries, 30 Wn. (2d) 129, 191 P. (2d) 295.
It is apparent in this case that Mr. Melzer is not engaged in shipbuilding as a regular business; his business is fishing, which is not under the act. His construction of two boats for use in his fishing operations cannot, we think, be distinguished from a householder’s construction of a dwelling house for himself.
Respondent relies upon Wendt v. Industrial Ins. Commission, 80 Wash. 111, 141 Pac. 311; State v. Business Property Security Co., 87 Wash. 627, 152 Pac. 334; and Berry v. Department of Labor & Industries, 11 Wn. (2d) 154, 118 P. (2d) 785, 140 A. L. R. 392. In the first two of these cases, the employer, although not engaged in an extrahazardous *515business, maintained a department in which workmen were regularly employed to perform extrahazardous work. We held that, with relation to those employees, the employer was under the act.
Mr. Melzer, in constructing two boats at widely separated times for use in his fishing business, cannot be said to have regularly employed workmen in extrahazardous work.
The Berry case involved a farmer who had also regularly engaged in commercial trucking as a business. At the time of the accident for which his employee claimed compensation under the act, he was again engaged in the extrahazardous business of trucking for hire. The case is not in point.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded with directions to dismiss respondent’s appeal from the order of the board of industrial insurance appeals.
Mallery, Weaver, and Olson, JJ., concur.