Court Opinion

ID: 9830274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:03:13.061435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:17.516901
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
The evidence in the ease being wholly undisputed as to the contract itself, whether Tillery was an independent contractor presented a question for the court. By the contract, Tillery was “to haul 100 tons of hay to the Steger Grain Company” for the fixed price of “$1.50 a trip or load.” The appellant had 100 tons of baled hay in a hay barn in Mesquite that he had contracted to sell and deliver to the Steger Grain Company at Dallas. The contract was not merely to pay Tillery for such hauling as might be done by him at the rate of $1.50 per trip or load. It was contemplated and agreed that Tillery should haul and deliver the entire 100 tons of hay. The time of delivery was to be as directed by “the Steger Grain Company.” Tillery agreed to produce the certain understood and specified result of hauling and making delivery to the Steger Grain Company of “100 tons of hay.” The frequency of the deliveries was to be in' accordance with the direction of the Steger Grain Company, made to Tillery himself. In other words, Tillery’s undertaking was to do the job of delivering 100 tons of baled hay to the Steger Grain Company, and to make the deliveries in such quantities each week as the Steger Grain Company would direct him to do. The contract conclusively evidences a definite beginning, continuance, and ending of the thing to be done. And the concurring facts become conclusive as to the effect of the contract, that Tillery could not terminate his personal service whenever he chose without a breach of the contract, and that Galloway did not have the unrestricted right to end the particular service whenever he chose to do so, without regard to the final result of the work. The result of the work was the essential thing to be done, which was the delivery to the Steger Grain Company of the entire bulk of “100 tons of hay.” Such contract, as we conclude, constituted the relation of contractor and contractee, independent of subserviency, and not merely that of master and servant. 1 Labatt on Master and Servant, § 21, p. 67; 31 C. I. p. 473; 14 R. C. L. p. 72. This conclusion is not at variance, as appellee seems to urge, with the case of Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Lowry (Tex. Civ. App.) 231 S. W. 818.
The motion is overruled.