Court Opinion

ID: 9574283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:03:55.013046+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:20.165377
License: Public Domain

Judge Phillips
dissenting.
In my opinion the facts that the Commission found lead inexorably to the conclusion that on the occasion involved Ryan Homes, though an owner was also a principal contractor, Howell and Craven was a subcontractor, and Ryan Homes is obligated under G.S. 97-19 to provide workers’ compensation benefits to plaintiff. For the Commission did not just find that Ryan Homes hired someone to do the framing on the house. It found that Ryan was building houses for an entire subdivision and selling them to the public; that in doing so it contracted with others to perform the framing and to “install the plumbing and the wiring and to perform other functions necessary to build the house”; and it “provided a project superintendent to check the construction to make certain that it complied with the plans and specifications as well as to replace damaged or missing materials.” Thus, Ryan was doing everything that a principal building contractor does and in volume. Contrary to the situation of the alleged contractor in Evans v. Tabor City Lumber Co., 232 N.C. 111, 59 S.E.2d 612 (1950), Ryan was also doing something for others. For it was not building the houses to occupy or rent, it was building them to sell, and the houses were built for and on behalf of those who bought them. Since G.S. 97-19 applies to one who hires a sub or independent contractor to build one house for another, it is absurd to suppose that it does not apply to a concern that hires sub or independent contractors to build houses for an entire community. As in Withers v. Black, 230 N.C. 428, 53 S.E.2d 668 (1949), Ryan’s situation is also one that G.S. 97-19 was enacted for.