Court Opinion

ID: 6485302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-26 23:08:33.923157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:54:18.846363
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OP
ROBERTSON, C.J.
I respectfully dissent. There is no doubt that the Workmen’s Compensation Act is to receive a liberal interpretation with the view to effectuate the policy and intent which the legislature has manifested by its enactment. But it is not to be construed upon the theory that it furnishes to an injured workman a double remedy against either or both of two distinct persons when it evidently proceeds upon the theory that there is but one single employer and the workman’s remedy is against that employer. There is no doubt that the claimant in this case is entitled to compensation under the act. The question is whether, under the circumstances shown, the company or the independent contractor was the claimant’s employer. There is no doubt that the right of an injured workman to look to his em*303ployer for compensation is not to be “frittered away and the beneficent provisions of the act taken from him.” But the question may still remain, which of two persons was the man’s employer within the purview of the act. It seems to me that the statement made in the majority opinion that “where work is done on the premises of the owner or operator of the business, although through an independent contractor, if the work is necessary to the business of the owner, or any part of that business, the owner or operator of the business there carried on is liable,” merely begs the question. If the owner of the premises is also the owner of the business in which the workman was employed of course he is liable. If the statement quoted is intended to lay down as the test of liability the fact whether “the work is necessary to the business of the owner, or any part of that business,” then, I say, it is not the test which the legislature has prescribed. The act defines “Workman” as “any person who has entered into the employment of, or works under contract of service or apprenticeship with, an employer.” Conversely then, the employer is the person who hires, pays, controls and has the right to discharge the employee. It is an agreed fact in this case that the corporation had no control over the workman, nor the right to employ or discharge him. But the statute contains a special provision applicable to cases where work is being done or a business carried on by an independent contractor upon the premises of another. In such cases “ ‘Employer’ * * * includes the owner or lessee of premises, or other person who is virtually the proprietor or operator of the business there carried on, but who, by reason of there being an independent contractor, or for any other reason, is not the direct employer of the workmen there employed.” The word “virtually” is used in contradistinction to “actual” or “real,” on the one hand, and “nominal” or “apparent,” on the other. In the paragraph just quoted it obviously refers to the business of the inde*304pendent contractor- — that in which the workman was employed and in the course of which he was injured. And in such cases the owner or lessee of the premises upon which that work or business was being carried on would be regarded as the employer of the workman and responsible as such in case, and only in case, he was, under the circumstances, “virtually the owner or operator of the business there carried on.” This view accords to the language of the statute its ordinary signification. It is not a strained construction, nor does it fritter away any rights of workmen. The Massachusetts act under which King’s Case, 220 Mass: 290, cited in the majority opinion, was decided, is so obviously different from the statute-of this Territory that the decisions under it are of no value as precedents here. See 1 Bradbury’s Workman’s Compensation (2nd ed.) 537. It appears in the case at bar that upon the premises in question, of which the company is the owner or lessee, there were two businesses being carried on, namely, the general business of the sugar company, of which it is the actual proprietor, and the particular business of the contractor, of which he is the actual operator. The company, nevertheless, would be liable if it was “virtually the proprietor” of the business there being carried on by the contractor, notwithstanding that it was not the direct employer of the claimant. There is no doubt that the company has power under its articles of incorporation to construct, build and equip a railroad to be used upon its plantation, and it must be conceded that if the company itself had undertaken the work of constructing the road-bed in question it would have been liable under the act to compensate workmen injured in the course of the work. The query is, however, whether, under Circumstances such as we are dealing with here, the “business” contemplated by section 60 of the statute is the general business of the owner of the premises where the accident occurred, or the particular business of the con*305tractor in the operation of which the workman was employed. Counsel for the claimant contends that the company was virtually the proprietor or operator of the business in the carrying on of which the road-bed was being constructed for the reason that it was work which the company itself had the right to do; that the work was being done upon its premises; that it furnished the tools and appliances needed in the construction work; and that the work was required to be done to the satisfaction of the company’s engineer. The deputy city and county attorney, who also argues that the company should be held liable, lays principal stress upon the facts that the contract did not call for the construction of an entirely completed article in which the company had no interest until delivery over to it, and that the work was of a character within the scope of the company’s business, and the railroad was being built for use in its business. Counsel for the Oahu Sugar Company draw a distinction between a contract made by the company for the operation of its, or a part of its, ordinary business of growing sugar cane and manufacturing sugar, and one for some matter incidental thereto — an instrumentality — such as the construction of a railroad which would not be used by the company in its business until it had been completed. Their contention is that while in the first case the company might be liable to make compensation to an injured workman, it would not under the latter. But the distinction put by counsel does not furnish a satisfactory test since the principal, under certain circumstances, might well be regarded as the virtual proprietor of the business in which the instrumentality was being constructed. If, in the case at bar, for example, the contractor was shown to be the mere servant or dummy of the company, and that the laborers performed their work under the immediate direction of its engineer, the company could very properly be regarded as the “virtual operator” of the business. In other words, the *306company would be virtually the proprietor of the business there carried on of which the independent’ contractor was the nominal or apparent owner. The fact that the corporation agreed to supply the necessary tools and appliances would seem to be unimportant. This is conceded by the amicus curiae. The genuineness of a bona fide contract would not be impaired because the compensation going to the contractor was not entirely money, but partly money and partly materials. The record does not show that the contractor did not carry insurance, and in the absence of anything to the contrary it must be assumed that he is solvent and responsible, and not a mere man of straw unable to pay the compensation to which the claimant is entitled. Upon the facts of this case I am of the opinion that the Oahu Sugar Company was not virtually the proprietor or operator of the business in which the claimant was employed, and that the contractor was the responsible employer of the claimant. This view is in harmony with, and is supported by, the provision of paragraph (e) of section 60 of the statute that “ ‘Employment,’ in the case of private employers, includes the employment only in a trade or occupation which is carried on by the employer for the sake of pecuniary gain.” The employer for whose “pecuniary gain” the construction work was being done was undoubtedly the contractor, and the fact that the railroad, when completed, is intended to be operated by the company for its pecuniary gain does not show the contrary. The pecuniary gain to be derived from doing the construction work is one thing, and that to be obtained from the operation of the completed railroad is another. The one would accrue to the contractor, the other to the company.
In my opinion the reserved question should be answered in the negative.