Court Opinion

ID: 9607437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:58:46.803121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:38.913465
License: Public Domain

STILWELL, Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. I believe this case is controlled by the concept embodied in Fountain v. Hartsville Oil Mill, 207 S.C. 119, 32 S.E.2d 11 (1945), where compensation was denied because the employee’s activity provided no benefit to the employer. Here, the commission specifically found the work “was for the personal benefit of Mr. Lewis and in no way benefitted Piedmont Cold Storage Co., Inc.” I believe that was a factual finding supported by substantial evidence in the record. It is well established that a decision of the workers’ compensation commission must be affirmed if substantial evidence supports the commission’s factual findings. Rogers v. Kunja Knitting Mills, Inc., 312 S.C. 377, 440 S.E.2d 401 (Ct.App.1994).
In fact, the accident in this case was even more clearly not in the course of employment than the one in Fountain. In Fountain the claimant was at work, on company time, when *638he was directed to do the work in question. Here, Hicks never even “punched in” as it was his day off. The only reason he even came to the plant was to do personal work for Lewis for which Lewis personally compensated him.
I agree with the majority that a superior expands a subordinate’s scope of duties when he “directs [him] to run [a] private errand or do some work outside his normal duties for the private benefit of the employer or superior.” ARTHUR LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION, § 27.41 (1996). That is not what happened here, however, because Lewis never “directed” Hicks to do anything. Rather, the record reflects that Hicks’s work on that fateful Saturday was the result of a side agreement made outside the scope of the working relationship. Larson’s explanation for the rule on expanding subordinate’s duties demonstrates it is not applicable to work resulting from side agreements freely entered into by the employee for additional, personal compensation:
The technical reason for [the rule expanding a subordinate’s scope of duties] is that, whatever the normal course of employment may be, the employer and his supervisory staff have it within their power to enlarge that course by assigning tasks outside the usual area. If they do not assign these tasks on the strength of the employer-employee relation on which compensability depends, then what is the source of authority by which the task is assigned?
Id. at § 27.44. Where there is substantial evidence of a side agreement freely entered into between the employee and a supervisor, as in this case, the obvious “authority” for the task assigned is the separate agreement, not the supervisor’s superior position in the workplace.
The majority opinion notwithstanding, there is simply no evidence in the record that Hicks “might have risked losing his job” had he declined to accept the extra work and compensation offered him. In fact, the only evidence in the record concerning Hicks’s relationship with Lewis was that the two were friends. That Lewis paid Hicks out of his own pocket is further evidence he was not using his working relationship with Hicks to coerce him into working for him.
*639For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the circuit court and reinstate the commission’s decision.