Court Opinion

ID: 9774960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:39:20.54197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:18.303364
License: Public Domain

MILLIKEN, 'Judge
(dissenting).
In the majority opinion many of the elements necessary to constitute an employee relationship are mentioned, and the. conclusion of the Board thus has evidence of substance to support it. The elements quoted from the Restatement of the Law of Agency represent an analysis of common law relationships in an effort to determine, for example, whether an individual was a servant so that the master could be made liable for his acts. However, Workmen’s Compensation laws are social in purpose, and the employer or master is relieved of unlimited common law liability to his employee by assuming a limited liability to him regardless of fault. As a consequence, the standard for determining whether an individual is an employee for purposes of Workmen’s Compensation is, and should be, much more elastic than the standard applied for' determining whether an employer is responsible' for the acts of another person, which' in turn is determined by whether that other person is an employee or axi independent contractor. ■ ■
With this reasoning in mind, it is my belief that the Board had evidence of substance to- sustain its finding that Mr.-Latham was an employee for purposes of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, that the Board’s finding should be accepted as final, and, as a consequence, that there is no error of law before this court. In this sort of case an error of law does not arise if we assume there is evidence - of substance to sustain the Board’s .findings. But, even if our difference in viewpoint with .the *850Board be denominated an error of law, we have been admonished by statute since 1950, KRS 342.004, to construe the Workmen’s Compensation Act liberally “on questions of law, as distinguished from evidence, and the rule of law requiring strict construction of statutes in derogation of the common law shall not apply * * *»
It seems to me that this 1950 amendment to the Workmen’s Compensation Act was designed to cover just such a case as the one before us, and that this court should sustain the Board in the case at bar however much we may differ as to whether Mr. Latham was an employee or an independent contractor.