Court Opinion

ID: 9565951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:30:43.528195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:17.423728
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
Though I concur with the result reached by the majority (but for entirely different reasons), I must register my dissent to the action overruling Godbee v. Western Elec. Co., 161 Ga. App. 731 (288 SE2d 881) and its progeny.
As I view the ultimate, beneficial purpose of OCGA § 34-9-8 (a), it is to protect the worker who would otherwise be financially unprotected from work engendered injuries. Thus, the status of an “employer” should not control the right of an employee to recover his economic losses arising out of the faithful performance of his work. That beneficial purpose was served in the case of Godbee v. Western Elec. Co., supra. In Godbee, Western Electric operated a cable factory. It is not unreasonable for a manufacturer of electric cable not to expend its capital assets upon building maintenance or janitorial service. It also is inescapable that the maintenance of the structural suitability and cleanliness of the business premises is essential to the continued profitable operation of the undérlying business. Thus, Western Electric perforce was required to undertake those functions itself or make arrangements for it to be done. This reflects the exact situation in Godbee. Godbee had been performing maintenance work in Western Electric’s cable factory for eight years.
Furthermore, it hardly needs stating that if Godbee’s immediate employer had not been required to carry workers’ compensation or had failed to procure the same contrary to its obligation so to do, the next level or highest level employer assumed that responsibility. If this is not true, then the statutory employer requirements are rendered meaningless and nugatory. We also concluded that where the ultimate employer is an “owner” not engaged in a business and is seeking a temporary service (e.g., the building of a house), such an owner is not an “employer” within the meaning of the Workers’ Compensation Act. But where the “owner” is an organized business and is or should be covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act in its own right, and where that “owner” employs others to do work which it otherwise would be required to perform in the performance of its business, the mere fact the employer is an owner should not preclude a finding that the owner is also a statutory employer. When Godbee is read in conjunction with Western Elec. Co. v. Capes, 164 Ga. App. 353 (296 SE2d 381) and the law applied to the facts in Godbee, such is the implicit holding of Godbee. I find it wholly unnecessary and contrary to the beneficial purpose of the statutory employer statute to so literally interpret OCGA § 34-9-8 as to exclude arbitrarily from the *481definition of a statutory employer one who happens to be the owner of a business also subject to the Workers’ Compensation Act.
Applying the principles enunciated to the present case, it is apparent Swift Textiles is a business covered by workers’ compensation. Nevertheless, a textile business, as an owner, is not engaged in the business of construction of buildings. Thus, Swift Textiles is in the same position as a homeowner, i.e., is not a statutory employer within contemplation of the Workers’ Compensation Act, not solely because it is an owner but because as an employer it falls within the exception implicitly recognized in Godbee and specifically explicated in Western Elec. Co. v. Capes, supra, i.e., the construction of a building is not a part of the conduct of a textile business. For the reasons enunciated, I concur with the result reached, but dissent to that part of the decision overruling Godbee v. Western Elec. Co., supra and its progeny, as limited by Western Elec. Co. v. Capes, supra.
I am authorized to state that Judge Sognier joins in this opinion of concurrence and dissent.