Court Opinion

ID: 9808610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:43:41.882193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:01.730072
License: Public Domain

WinbobNE, J.,
dissenting: After careful consideration of the entire record I am unable to agree with the conclusion reached by the majority of the Court.
Reduced to its simplest terms, the case is this: The deceased was formerly employed in Florida and was there discharged for reasons not disclosed by the record. As a matter of kindness he was allowed to come to North Carolina and handle the defendant’s goods, not as an employee, but as a jobber or distributor in the Fayetteville territory. The Commission finds this as a fact, but concludes as a matter of law that, by reason of certain correspondence “originating in the Greensboro office” which “tended to treat the deceased as another employer,” he was, therefore, an employee at the time of his death. The conclusion is a non sequitur. This correspondence is fully explained in the record, and neither in effect nor in authority warrants the conclusion reached by the Commission. Employment was declined in this State, for reasons which the deceased fully understood. There is no evidence on the record that his status was ever changed from that of a jobber to that of an employee while working in North Carolina.
In any event, the case should go back to the Industrial Commission for further consideration for that the findings of fact are wholly inconsistent. Findings of fact nine to fourteen are opposed to findings of fact twenty-one and twenty-two. The former point unerringly to the fact that Oloninger was a jobber, buying and selling goods of the bakery, and not an employee of the bakery.
*35The findings of fact must be specific. Otherwise, the case will be remanded to the Industrial Commission. Gowens v. Alamance County, 214 N. C., 18, 197 S. E., 538.
When findings of fact are insufficient for proper determination of the questions raised, the proceeding will be remanded to the Industrial Commission for further consideration. Farmer v. Lumber Co., 217 N. C., 158, 7 S. E. (2d), 376.
Likewise, where the findings of fact are inconsistent, the case should be remanded.
Moreover, the Commission put the conclusion of law upon a third ground: the correspondence “originating in the Greensboro office.” That correspondence does not support the conclusion, as a matter of law, that Cloninger was an employee.
Facts found under misapprehension of the law will be set aside on the theory that the evidence should be considered in its true legal light. McGill v. Lumberlon, 215 N. C., 752, 3 S. E. (2d), 324. See, also, Bank v. Motor Co., 216 N. C., 432, 5 S. E. (2d), 318.
Conclusions of law reached upon misapprehension of legal effect of facts found should also be set aside.
Furthermore, the case of Rivenbark v. Oil Corp., 217 N. C., 592, referred to in the majority opinion, has no bearing upon the facts in the case at bar.
Stacy, C. J., and BaeNhill, J., concur in dissent.